It took some doin’. But Her Momness and I? We were up to the challenge!

“What challenge?” ask ye.

Finding The Most Over-Rated Book of the Year.

Now, there were some real doozies in the running, mind you. With apologies to high school English teachers everywhere, neither of us can abide ‘stream of consciousness’ prose a la Faulkner. That’s one reason The Sound and the Fury made the list previously. Ditto Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby. And no, you won’t find The Most Over-Rated Book in the English Language on our list either. Hint: Catcher in the Rye. Gag me with Meow Mix!

But we just plowed through the Sorriest Slog of ‘Em All. We’re talking dull as a blunt spoon. If boring, bland and redundant were Olympic sports, this hunka junk would bring home the gold.

Can you guess what galactically lousy title gets the nod?

Great. We’ll tell you:

Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague by Maggie O’Farrell.

It’s set in 1580s England. Mom Agnes is a falconer, a natural remedy healer, and a bit eccentric. Dad is a dude named Will. William Shakespeare. This achingly boring novel is supposedly “a re-imagining of a boy whose life had been all but forgotten, and whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time.”

Mom: And I’m the Easter Bunny.

We could care less that it’s a “bestseller.” Gag me with eggplant.

Talk about overwrought, overwritten and over-long. This sucker defines the category. We’re talking Rip van Winkle-worthy here.

Kimmi: Did the author get paid by the word? Cuz there are a whole lot of needless, repetitive and useless ones in this dud. Probably a new world record for Vapid and Banal. (Mom’s words. No idea what they mean. But if Mom likes ’em, so do I!)

In fact, reading this pile of horse hooey is like watching the “wish him into the cornfield” episode from The Twilight Zone on auto-repeat. In super slo-mo. Backwards. While standing on your head. Hamnet has all the excitement of a misplaced Oxford comma.

Mom: Good thing I got this dud at a library book sale. For a quarter. I’m thinking of askin’ for a refund.

What’s the Most Over-Rated Book you’ve read this year?