04-28-2011, 12:06 PM | #1 |
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Worst Book(s) You Ever Read?
I hope this isn't too negative but I usually give high marks to books that stick with me. Seriously, I'm a pretty easy-going book-rater, so I wracked my brains trying to think of books I really, really hated. These are those books:
Sweet Anger by Sandra Brown - Thank goodness I got this from the library. A guy breaks into your house and you're attracted to him? Seriously? That is where I stopped reading. I must admit I didn't finish the book. Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk - I was really struggling with the weird writing style of this book as it is supposed to be the first-person of a non-English speaker. Then the rape scene. Chaucer can get away with rape as a practical joke, Mr. Palahniuk. He lived in the Middle Ages and, even so, I didn't like that tale. You can not get away with it at all IMHO. I didn't hate Tess of the D'Urbervilles as much as I hated the above two books but it annoyed me to no end when I had to read it in school. Books of that era about women written by men rub me the wrong way, I guess. I didn't like Madame Bovary, either. I loved Jane Eyre to the point of obsession, though, and thought Wuthering Heights was pretty good. Another book I read in school I didn't like was Heart of Darkness. Unlike Tess, I didn't even finish that one and I was usually a pretty good student. I could not get into it or care about any character in it. It has been so long I can't really explain why. Maybe I should revisit it. After all, I liked Apocalypse Now. Anyway, Pygmy and Sweet Anger are the only books I can remember hating in a visceral way. |
04-28-2011, 12:23 PM | #2 | |
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I don't think its too negative, in fact, I think this thread is a good idea.
Like you, I'm pretty easy going. I do not tend to hate books, but I have found my self either thoroughly frustrated by or disappointed with them. I found The Witching Hour to be both frustrating & disappointing; I did not finish it. My Goodreads Review: Quote:
Last edited by Nyssa; 04-28-2011 at 12:48 PM. Reason: typo issues. |
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04-28-2011, 12:32 PM | #3 | |
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Along the same lines, I have tried over and over to read Tolkein but I just can't do it. I keep hearing how I should love it but I'm just not a fan of fantasy. I'm sure they are well written but just not for me. |
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04-28-2011, 12:44 PM | #4 |
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I don't hesitate to give a book 1-star... I use Goodreads.com, and on their system 1-star means "didn't like it". So I'll 1-star a book, but it doesn't mean I hated it.
In the past couple years, I've 1-starred a few books: Hands Off My Belly: The Pregnant Woman's Survival Guide to Myths, Mothers, and Moods Elantris (Brandon Sanderson) Dragon Haven (Rain Wild Chronicles, #2) (Robin Hobb) Starbound (Joe Haldeman) Rama II (Clarke) Ender in Exile (Card) The Road (McCarthy) The only ones that really stick with me as "oh god, don't ever read (or attempt to read) this again" are: The Road (boring, writing was not for me) Elantris (oh, the writing was PAINFUL) Starbound (rapid perspective changes with no explanation of whose view you were currently reading) |
04-28-2011, 12:50 PM | #5 |
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Hmm, interesting thread :-)
I have to say Atlas Shrugged is the worst novel I've read. Although I'm hardly a fan of Objectivism, I figured I'd give the book a fair shot and be...objective. But I found the book long, implausible, repetitive, and just plain difficult to read. |
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04-28-2011, 01:20 PM | #6 | ||||
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04-28-2011, 01:26 PM | #7 | |
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Two books come to mind for me. The Sword of Truth. Unlike edbro I like fantasy. But this book... just painful. The characters are... shallow? and fairly unintelligent. I just wanted to slap them. The dialog is terrible and caused me to quit reading it when I first tried a few years ago after about 100 pages in. A co-worker, whom I have given MANY books to read, said I should read it. As it was the first time he's tried to give me something in return I had to try. I got though to the end though I was just skimming though parts and it was a huge relief to get to the end. I'll never read another book in that, seemingly, never ending series. Bio of a Space Tyrant by Piers Anthony. I like other books Mr. Anthony has done but this was horrible. It was almost bad enough to try and keep going in a "it's got to get better right?" way. Looking it up on Amazon it looks like he's gone on for at least 6 books. I think I got only 30 or so pages in. Oh... one more. The Tyranny of the Night by Glen Cook. I loved the Black Company books and that caused me to give this a try. Wow... It's a great book to try and read when you are going to sleep as it will put you to sleep. It was like trying to read a history book but where I could really care less about who did what and where and also didn't have the background schooling to know where he was talking about having never heard of any of the places before. At least if I read a history book now I KNOW where France is. I gave this one up after 30 or so pages too. rv |
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04-28-2011, 01:43 PM | #8 | |
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I'm a fan of L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s Recluse series (I own the entire series) but the latest book in the series (I think it is #16) was a pathetic excuse for writing. I also generally like Lawrence Watt-Evans, but Denner's Wreck is not up to par. |
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04-28-2011, 01:49 PM | #9 |
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Jude the Obscure (Hardy). Finished it, but it's one of those books that was (to me at least) so damn depressing that you want to lock the firearms away for a few days till you get over it.
A Theft (Bellow). Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for this one. I quit after about 35 pages of what appeared to me to be nothing more than Bellow being in love with the sound of his own voice. If there was a plot in the offing, he had certainly beaten it into submission up to the point where I quit. I remember really hating Jane Eyre when I was forced to read it at school, when I was around 13-14. To be fair, I should revisit it, since it has prejudiced me against anything with "Bronte" on the cover ever since. |
04-28-2011, 02:11 PM | #10 |
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If I don't like a book, I generally can't finish it. The worst book I ever remember trying to get through was Erectus Walks Among Us. It was dressed up as an evolution book, but ti was actually a racist tract couched in evolutionary terms.
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04-28-2011, 02:17 PM | #11 | |
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Yuck! Yeah, I wouldn't have finished it either and don't usually finish books I hate. I thought Before the Dawn was a good book about human evolution. |
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04-28-2011, 02:31 PM | #12 |
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Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs. It's considered a classic by many, but I really can't figure out why. It was all manner of awful, in my opinion.
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04-28-2011, 02:42 PM | #13 |
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04-28-2011, 02:55 PM | #14 |
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Wow. Looked that one up on Amazon and read some of the reviews. I wouldn't have been able to finish it either.
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04-28-2011, 03:48 PM | #15 |
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