Everyone is always asking your favourite book or what you thought of a book and creating lists of books you should read. I thought we should create a list of books you should never read.

for me I am David and Z for Zacariah were the worst books I hace ever had to read. The first is just lame and I was so bored I couldn't even finish it. The second, well where to begin? The main character has alot of common sense yet she is incrediably thick. She has been all by herself, all her family and friends left her quite suddenly after a nuclear war which has killed everyone but her and some creepy middle aged man, for a year yet she shows none of the sign of solitude. Oh and the other character tries to rape her but she can't let him starve, so she does all the survival work for him. It is also completely impossible through the eyes of science

Ivy Mane

I might get jumped for this but, here goes:

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. Not technically a book, I know, but it remains my least favorite piece of literature ever (with the possible exception of anything by Jane Austin).

I understand that Godot is a "masterpiece" and whatnot, but that doesn't make it any less infuriating or obvious. He might as well have not written a play at all, and conveyed the exact same point. And then I got to spend three weeks listening to my English teacher waxing poetic on how amazing it was. That kind of sealed it for me.

One thing that makes bad litriture even more unbearable...having your English teacher practically in love with it.

Silas Marner.

I know it's considered a classic, but I was bored to death.

hi all

the worst book i've ever read, after having it hyped up loads by friends, was The Catcher In The Rye. i see why its considered a classic by many people - the themes of alienation and teenage angst still ring true today - but i just found it immensely boring.

The Catcher In The Rye

Seconded. I can't stand the style it is written in, the characters are flat and not affecting, and the plot (if a book has no language and no characters, it should at least offer a good plot!) is totally pointless. A few wasted hours of my life.

Anything by Charles Dickens, I know he's considered one of the greatest English writers of all time but I just find it hard to relate and get into his books.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.
WOW I actually could kill you for saying that. To me that's the greatest play of all times. I once said no play in the history, even Macbeth, was 0.01% as good as that.
I know it's considered a classic, but I was bored to death.
So I get you don't know the devine technique of skipping bull parts. How can you stand 19th century novels?

The worse book I read in my life was first Harry Potter. The sequels are... more bearable and even amusing, but first...

For me, it was Understanding Statistics in the Behavioural Sciences by Robert R. Pagano. Absolutely essential stuff for my degree, but, damn.

I used to hate Beckett and Austen when I was young. Now I'm old and creaky and I appreciate them more; I think pre-20th century fiction is a bit of an acquired taste. I recently caught myself reading Milton for pleasure, which is a sure sign that very soon now, the nice men in the white coats will be coming to take me away to the funny farm where the people are happy and the sun shines all day.

The worst piece of published fiction I ever finished reading was the second Dragonlance novel when I was about 13. I forced myself to finish it in the hope that it would get better; what a horrible mistake that was.

The worst piece of published fiction I ever started reading but then threw across the room in disgust was L. Ron Hubbard's Battlefield Earth.

I'm not sure. Digital Fortress by Dan Brown was fairly dire. But I should have seen that coming. Also, I'm having to read Madam Bovary for English at the moment, and am finding it a bit of a slog. I'm hoping it will pick up, though.

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett.

WOW I actually could kill you for saying that. To me that's the greatest play of all times. I once said no play in the history, even Macbeth, was 0.01% as good as that.

Go ahead and kill me, MacBeth's a million times better than Waiting for Godot, and Hamlet's better than both of them and everything else combined.

The best (or worst) part is, I agree almost entirely with what Beckett posits in the play, but I can't stand it.

Hamlet's way cooler. :)

Now I'm old and creaky and I appreciate them more; I think pre-20th century fiction is a bit of an acquired taste. I recently caught myself reading Milton for pleasure, which is a sure sign that very soon now, the nice men in the white coats will be coming to take me away to the funny farm where the people are happy and the sun shines all day.


Actually I'm also reading Milton's Paradise Lost for pleasure at the moment, I don't think this has something to do with age. But I agree, the ability to enjoy high literature premises a taste that one doesn't acquire without years of reading experience. But I think if I want to be a good writer I should be a good reader first, and there is hardly anything that I enjoy more than a great piece of literature. :)
I often catch myself not being able to read the so-called popular fiction anymore, e.g. it's practically impossible for me to get through a book by Dan Brown or the like. Such books bore me to death.

Go ahead and kill me,
*Writes Scavenger's name in hit list*
You're # 2005879 darling. Just wait until it's your turn.
The best (or worst) part is, I agree almost entirely with what Beckett posits in the play, but I can't stand it.
But I think you don't know what it posists.

But I really loved you, believe me. Because most of people who praise it didn't really love it, because you must be so through modern art to stand it. It's like watching Lynch's or Antonioni's movie without knowing what they really state. Most people praise Beckett because he's so famous, without understanding him, like people who like Pulp Fiction only because of its action.

*Writes Scavenger's name in hit list*
You're # 2005879 darling. Just wait until it's your turn.

I'd really rather not wait. Now's good. But I suppose if you're that busy...

But I think you don't know what it posists.

No, I'm pretty sure I do. Though I'd be more than willing to hear your interpretation.

I understand what you mean about people praising works solely because they're famous; it really bothers me too. I always have to correct them and ask if they even know what they're talking about.

Hm, "Heart of Darkness" . They traveled on dark boat, to a dark continent, up a dark river, to some dark people and traded some dark chickens and then decided how many to see how many times they could cram the word "dark", and its many synonyms, into this single novella.



An author I can't stand in general is Jane Austin, I share Mark Twain's sentiment, that is, "Every time I read Jane Austen, I want to dig her up and beat her over the head with her shin bone."

Making a film in Germany - Uwe Boll.

No joke! It's a book!
Look it up.

Quaquaquaqua! :p

One of the ones that comes to mind would be Tess of the d'Urbervilles. I probably can't remember the worst book I've ever read; it's been forced down into the depths of my memory. Possibly The Scarlet Letter or any of the works of Romanticism that I have read. All bad. Very bad. Repetitive, drab, dull, boring, etc....

I'd have to say the worst book I ever met was the Lord of the Rings series.

(I know I'll get something for this... :p)

I went with my dad and fell in love with the movies, but the books...ugh. I forced myself to read all three of them, hoping that maybe his technique would improve or change or God knows what... that was possibly the dullest book. The plot was fine, the characters were intriguing, but the style, I found it just awful.

Then, of course, I had to read The Hobbit for English class, and I just about died.

I dont know...It's just something about that author that is comparable to nails on a chalkboard.

I'd have to say the worst book I ever met was the Lord of the Rings series.

(I know I'll get something for this... )

I went with my dad and fell in love with the movies, but the books...ugh. I forced myself to read all three of them, hoping that maybe his technique would improve or change or God knows what... that was possibly the dullest book. The plot was fine, the characters were intriguing, but the style, I found it just awful.

Then, of course, I had to read The Hobbit for English class, and I just about died.

I dont know...It's just something about that author that is comparable to nails on a chalkboard.

My usual summery of the Lord of the Rings is that you've got a bunch of guys wandering around in the dark, lost, and hungry, for about a thousand pages, and that's all that ever happens.

Think about it. The entire series is about them traveling, and being completely lost, and without any food.

That said, I do love them dearly, so I disagree with your general premis, but I can completely understand where you're coming from. :p

Anything by Jackie Collins. These are books that are a big waste of paper. I read Hollywood Wives when I 'd finished all my books and couldn't afford new ones. My classmate had this and she liked it. So I read it. Even the memory makes me want to throw up.

I don't usually read bad books, but the one's that come to mind are:

How to Read a Book - I have no idea (ironic though.. isn't it)
And Frankenstein, though I was about 12 at the time.. I haven't checked it out since. I probably should.

I need to say I rarely read a bad book (to me) because I usually close it before I get further (Harry Potter lasted about 3 seconds in my hands). I do find quite a lot of books that I cannot stomach. Generally good literature like they have us read in college doesn't offend me. It is cheap pop fiction that makes me scream and tear my hair out. I mean, those that make me physically ill. Most Science fiction and fantasy is in this category for me now. I used to be quite a big SF fan, so I don't know what happened to my taste. I liked the "inner Space" stories. I can't read chick-lit like "the devil wears Prada." It is totally silly and Barbie-doll shrieky. Ick. Ick. Ickk. I abhor any kind of Romance novel. I guess if there is a bit of action and sex it is okay, but genuine "Harlequin" type novels really make me lose my lunch. I hate 'Mike hammer" type beefy man in jungle fight-out books too. They are cheap and icky. Now that I have alienated everyone, what can I say???

FunnyBunny, generally I agree with you about the genres that need to find a shredder, but I think with Harry Potter it's a bit different. You have to remember that they started off as kids' books, and progressively get better, more complicated, and certainly more unique. I can't stand the first and second ones anymore, but the third one was amazing, and the last three are what makes the series classic.

My usual summery of the Lord of the Rings is that you've got a bunch of guys wandering around in the dark, lost, and hungry, for about a thousand pages, and that's all that ever happens.

You know, that's very true; I never thought about it before. :p

I actually don't mind the plot so much, as I mentioned before, because it does have some very good themes that still can be applied to today's society. Not to mention the characters all have something that you can apply to yourself (in my opinion. Especially Gimli. I am a Gimli. Stubborn and short.).

However, when it comes down to it, there are only so many ways you can say that a bunch of guys wander around in the dark, lost and hungry for about a thousand pages, and that's all that ever happens, right?

That and maybe Peter Jackson's movie making puts J.R.R. Tolkien's writing to shame. (gasp!)

FunnyBunny, generally I agree with you about the genres that need to find a shredder, but I think with Harry Potter it's a bit different. You have to remember that they started off as kids' books, and progressively get better, more complicated, and certainly more unique. I can't stand the first and second ones anymore, but the third one was amazing, and the last three are what makes the series classic.

Well, it is all about opinions. The end books still seem to be children's books. Yes I do understand that Harry Grew Up. I am not saying that at some future time I might pick it up and love it. I doubt it, but I may be stuck in jail or something. Who knows.

Night Games, I forgot who it is by...but it was a really twisted book that made no sense.
And then there was this book in school awhile back, it was called Jar Bell or Bell Jar or something Jar...it was strange. I was forced to read it :(

The Bell Jar. Sylvia Plath's descent into madness. Yes, a great American masterpiece.

i hated "Ethan Frome" by: Edith Wharton. It was boring and I hated the entire plot of the damn book. Not to mention my teacher made us watch the movie with Liam Neeson, which was also painfully dull.

Animal Farm
i dont know who its by but its about communism and using animals to express the authors view.
I dont even know the words to describe how terrible it is!!!

Animal Farm
i dont know who its by but its about communism and using animals to express the authors view.
I dont even know the words to describe how terrible it is!!!

It is hard to get into. i didn't like it either.

Animal Farm was written by George Orwell, better known for writing 1984.

Of dubious love/hate relationship:

Naked Lunch: Allen Ginsburg?
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: Hunter S. Thompson
Myra Breckenridge: Gore Vidal

I don't know. They are self indulgent and silly and yet brilliant so?

Fear and Loathing was pretty awful, in my opinion. I just never found drug humor all that amusing.

I haven't read the other two.

I hated Hemingway's Old Man and the Sea. It was about an old man... on a boat... trying to catch a fish. He caught it, it got eat by sharks, he probably died in the end but they never said so explicitly.

That takes about three sentences, and yet it was dragged out for like forever with details that meant nothing.


In contrast, I absolutely loved Animal Farm... that is, until I had to read it for a class and learned it was really about Communism.... :p

I found Animal Farm dull.
But not the worst book I've ever read.

On the otherhand 1984 was fantastic. :D

how can you hate, fear and loathing? I thought that was impossible.

Shes Come Undone by Wally lamb, was the typical poor 2nd written book by an author I enjoyed and recommended to all. Hope nobody picked it up first and was totally dissapointed.

American Psycho-Sadistic, revolting. I know this is a classic but I found myself turning cruel and weird, not that I wanted to kill anyone of course.

And I'll probably get shot down in flames, but I found the most over rated book this year was The Memory Keepers Daughter. I could not relate to teh characters, I thought the first half boring and plot overdone. I don't know whether I was just sick of that type of story or not, but I could not finish it. I was halfway through and I couldn't see what all the hype was about. Very dissapointed.

The Bluest Eye. It is pure tripe...very bad...pathetic really...but I bet it would make a bundle on Oprah's book club.

I shouldn't be to harsh thought; tripe, especially in some Mexican and Viet dishes, can be quite good, as long as you get over the fact that its tripe.

My usual summery of the Lord of the Rings is that you've got a bunch of guys wandering around in the dark, lost, and hungry, for about a thousand pages, and that's all that ever happens.

Think about it. The entire series is about them traveling, and being completely lost, and without any food.

That said, I do love them dearly, so I disagree with your general premis, but I can completely understand where you're coming from. :p

Just like the Odyssey or Aeneid

A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Wolff.
Okay okay, I understand how amazing this book is, but it is DULL. The whole point of literature is to keep the reader reading, right? (Well, not the entire point). I hated reading this book - she could have summed up her book in a couple sentences and spared everyone the pain.
I also didn't like Lord of The Rings, my husband made me read them with him after we got married and I kept falling asleep. He loves 'em. I do not. I hated how the author kept bringing in that singing character guy in the first book! He drove me insane!

American Psycho-Sadistic, revolting. I know this is a classic but I found myself turning cruel and weird, not that I wanted to kill anyone of course.

American Psycho is pretty good.

True Blue Aussi books annoy me

But i think it's just the language

and writing style

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. Maybe it was bad timing for me, but oh my god, her writing style completely turned me off (the narrative was way too snooty for my desire) that I couldn't even finish the second page.

The Scarlet Letter.

Animal Farm was written by George Orwell That book was metaphorical, not just a bunch of talking animals, but I'm sure a man of your age understands that. I can see why you didn't like it, but that's just me. But I absolutely hated the ending.

I don't really "hate" any books, but I thought, "Where I Want to Be," by Adele Griffin was dull and boring, and "Tithe," by Holly Black was just--blegh. What really angers me is that they put, "For ages 13 and up," on the inside panel. (Or at least I think they did :p) That book was very well written, but the overall plot didn't interest me, and there were some very inappropriate things in it (sexual themes to the extreme, the f word in every sentence, blood and gore.)

I think the worst book I ever had to read was Skelig. We read it in year seven in English once and it was just stupid.

The Murder at Red Hook - Racist. Rubbish.

Misery - It bored me.

Echo Delta - I picked it up at an Airport... It was just dull and too predictable.

Hmmmm... well, one that I cordially avoid would be The Stranger, by Albert Camus.

Y'know, I sort of liked the way the translation I read was written, but the plot is what bothers me... and the plot is that there is no plot. I really don't get existentialism.

The Stranger was, in a way, a very long character sketch.

I recommend The Plague by Camus if you'd like any insight into existentialism, as it seemed to be a much more readable book to me. I loved it. The objective writing style only added to it, for me.

List of bad books:

Jane Eyre
Scarlet Letter
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
(so far every main character is female.. odd)
I can't recall anything else that was just plain horrible, but that's probably because I look into the background of a book before I buy it. The above 3 were required for classes, and that only added to the suffering. :p

for me...[/I]and Z for Zacariah ....Oh and the other character tries to rape her but she can't let him starve, so she does all the survival work for him. It is also completely impossible through the eyes of science


I really enjoyed Z for Zacariah in my childhood.

I think the reason why she doesn't want him to starve is because she is afraid that if he dies, she will be alone as the last person on earth, again.

Oh, wow ... Where to begin ...

The Oresteia by Aeschylus ... I am usually a big fan of the greeks, but these plays were just ... blah.

Whomever said Madame Bovary, I concur. It never gets better.

Wuthering Heights. Icky, horrible. I wish I could murder Heathcliff myself.

The Old Man and the Sea! Absolutely.

I might get murdered for this ... but the Hunchback of Notre Dame. [I liked Les Miserables, though]

The Metamorphasis by Franz Kafka. Blech.

Jude the Obscure ... I actually thought it was pretty good. But my teacher gussied up and ruined it for me.

Aw man, The Metamorphosis was really cool...

Let's see...

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (If I have to read more Victorian literature for my degree, I'm going to get awfully sad, awfully quick.)

Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder (Ahhh!)

The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown (I really wish I could figure out why this book was so successful.)

That's all I can think of right now. I can come up with plenty of books I don't like, but the worst I've ever read takes work.

Here are a few I've had the pleasure of meeting

City of the Dead- One of the most disgusting things I've read. Yes, I know its a zombie book but come on! I mean, some of the things that happened could get me banned if I repeated any of it...

Beserk- It was a gift, from my brother no less, I had to read it! My God...

Lord Jim- I know, I know, I hate myself for not appreciating it but...

The Da Vinci Code- So...boring...

Lord Jim ... yes. That was very bland and uneventful [in an eventful sort of way.]

Also, a Seperate Peace.

She Stoops to Conquer.

And ... Tartuffe.

And Robinson Crusoe. And Adam Bede. And The Oxbow Incident.

[Why does everyone hate Jane Austen? I happen to love her, and Charles Dickens.]

WOW!!! Wuthering Weights!!!
I didn't hate it but I did want to murder nearly every character, save Ellen Dean and Mr. Lockwood, at some point in the story.

Lord Jim ... yes. That was very bland and uneventful [in an eventful sort of way.]

Also, a Seperate Peace.

She Stoops to Conquer.

And ... Tartuffe.

And Robinson Crusoe. And Adam Bede. And The Oxbow Incident.

[Why does everyone hate Jane Austen? I happen to love her, and Charles Dickens.]

I don't know, I think it just comes down to taste. I really enjoyed reading A Separate Peace, where as you didn't. Her writing doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. The plight of women living in Victorian England just doesn't interest me so much.

The Sword of Shinara by Terry Brooks

Am I allowed to say this? Sorry - it's my opinion to have

Anything by Alice Munroe. read one book and 90% of it dealt with the womans period.
Not my type of reading.

Farley Mowat writes like he is writing fact when most of what he writes is great fiction. Don't like it when the author misrepresents his thoughts.

Clive Cussler's "Mediterranean Caper". I know, I know. Here's the deal. Based on advice of an agent at writers house, I sent a novel to Cussler's agent.

It's funny because that book was the only time I'd ever made copies and passed them around to friends, mostly literate types who live in the town the book is set. They all liked the book, liked the main character a lot. Several said, "I love all that stuff about Mazatlan and Carnival, but then it gets all like sex and people getting shot up."

So I sent it to Cussler's agent (I'd never read anything by Cussler) HE said, "You gotta cut out all this travelogue and Mexico **** and cut to the chase of does he bang the chick and who killed the Mayor."

So.

Frustrated by no finding the mass market niche, I ran across the Cussler in a "Free, take this crap" bin and a used books store and decided to see how this guy has dozens of books, movies, and a jillion bucks.

Well...I hate to say it was an unmitigated, piece of **** on a shingle, probably qualifying as literary malpractice. But that's what is was.
Carboard characters who can't even maintain their flimsy characterization. Idiotic, well, what would be called "plot" in a decent book. Droolingly insipid and unintentionally hilarious language. A PIECE, as I say, of unqualified ****.

I soldiered on bravely, but couldn't make it more than abou 70% through.

GOD that's frustrating.

Meanwhile, the guy didn't want to represent THIS BOOK. (http://mundomaz.com/) (Seen here at a website under construction for when it gets unleashed on the world.

the scarlett letter..... just read it and if you can tell me about it, then you are a teacher or just a genious.....

Lin, what are you talking about? Clive Cussler, Janet Evanovich, James Patterson, Tom Clancy, John Grisham, they represent a new literary renaissance, the likes of which we have never seen before. They are literary. Every writer leading up to them... They're a sham, a joke. The entire collective of published writers before this group couldn't hope to have one percent of the understanding of what good writing is that just one of these writers has!

Oh God. That had more sarcasm than my report on Jane Eyre, where I said 'poor little Jane got beat up :(', complete with the sad smiley.

I had to read this book in 7th grade called "The Girl Who Owned a City" and God was it awful. Just read the plot and you may want to shoot yourself. A 10 year old girl somehow starts a working community with government and battles a gang of "bad kids". Terribley written and dull to read.

L'Etranger - The Stranger by Albert Camus. I had to read it for a french class and god did i HATE it. (It also did not help that the teacher had a cheap, fake french accient and kept trying to use it when she read portions of the story to us).

Journal of a Plauge Year - Daniel Defoe.
I can fully understand why people thought it was an eye-witness account, it contains every single detail and record of the entire year. Dull.

Wuthering Heights gets better every time I read it, I started off hating it, now it's on my list of favourites.

We had to do A Town Like Alice at school - Gods - how I hated that book - though if I read it now ..... ?

Just because something is classic doesn't make it good. Take Jane Austen for example.

I would say The Hours, by Michael Cunningham, but I always get a Big Stupid Grin at the end because the 175 pages of blathering about seemingly pointless things actually gains a point. I still hate it, though.

Bah... I think Jane Austen is flippin' amazing. Except for a stupid book of hers called 'Northanger Abbey.' That one was pretty bad.

Had to read Lord of the Flies in grade 7. It was totally the worst thing I have read.
The movie we watched in grade 9 and it was as bad as the images the book conjured up.

i kinda enjoyed lord of the flies, i dont know how it happenned though

i had to read a book for my a level literature class called 'A Grain of Wheat' by Ngugi. it's supposedly one of africa's best books but i would rather shave my head with a butter knife than read it again...

Huh, I liked Lord of the Flies, too. Dunno why, though. I hate most of the books I read for classes.

I think I read The Girl Who Owned a City in like elementary school, and I loved it. I don't remember it being hard to read... Then again, back then I used to love the Goosebump books, too... -_-

The Chant of Jonny Blacksmith - can't remember who by - had to read in year 10 and hated it.
This is saying something as I can persist with many novels, even when the story line is awful, if the writing itself is good.

Native Son

I know, I know. There has been a whole lot of significance attached to the work, as a watermark book in the history of racial perceptions in this country, and in literature, etc. But I thought the arguments, even the ones we are not supposed to accept as a society, were weak ones, with no motivation. I think the book was a series of sensationalist vignettes, intended to shock, but by no means moving.

Anything that bets its overall influence on shock value, and then proceeds to wrap itself up in "cultural importance" to mask same is not a book worth forcing high schoolers to read, as I was.

The Grapes of Wrath

I don't care that Of Mice and Men was pretty decent. I don't care. I'll never forgive Steinbeck for writing Grapes

I had to read Jane Eyre about 3-4 years ago. That was so utterly boring that I can't remember any of it, apart from the fact there was some random old woman that was this bloke's wife who he'd kept in the attic for years. Was absolutely rubbish.

I also had to read Lord of the Flies which was OK I guess but not one of the better books i've read, that's for sure.

I think with Harry Potter it's a bit different. You have to remember that they started off as kids' books, and progressively get better, more complicated, and certainly more unique. I can't stand the first and second ones anymore, but the third one was amazing, and the last three are what makes the series classic.

Huh. The third one was my favorite, but I thought the fifth, six, and seventh ones stunk. (especially number 5; 6 & 7 had a few redeeming qualities)

The worst books for me were Bless Me, Ultima and The Bean Tree. Forced to read those in high school and couldn't stand them. I think I was the only person in my class who didn't SparkNote my way through them after the first chapter.

I was made to read The Long, The Short and The Tall at school and absolutely hated it. I just found it really boring.

Huh. The third one was my favorite, but I thought the fifth, six, and seventh ones stunk. (especially number 5; 6 & 7 had a few redeeming qualities)

The worst books for me were Bless Me, Ultima and The Bean Tree. Forced to read those in high school and couldn't stand them. I think I was the only person in my class who didn't SparkNote my way through them after the first chapter.

I thought 1 was rubbish. She really picked up the pace and enjoyment with 2 and 3 but 4 went back to being slow like book 1. Book 5, for me, was unnecessary and I just felt like she was writing a story for the sake of stretching out the series. Book 6 was great - I like Snapes character. Was disappointed with the last book - too many people dying (the series was sporadic with death until this point) and too chaotic. Plus, for a LOT of chapters the characters were hiding out in a big tent.

My two cents

The fourth Maximum Ride book. James Patterson took what was an awesome series and added a fourth book about global warming. Characters, the villains' motives, and the actual plot all took second place to the whole global warming spiel.

I'm going to go with Catcher In The Rye. I got through it but it was so tedious.

Refuge by Terry Tempest Williams followed closely behind the Woman at Otowi Crossing.

I guess nuclear testing doesn't hold my interest.

Eragon, and I don't think I need to explain why.

To Kill a Mockingbird, I had to read it and write journal entries of it.
It was boring.
I hated it.

Although I've read several terrible books (most of them I was required to read because of school assignments), Fever 1793 is probably the worst. It got really nowhere; people just kept dying.

The Lord of the Flies. To be fair I never finished it, and definitely will read the whole thing soon, but I found the first half incredibly boring and just lacking. I stopped reading because nothing about it interested me and I had no urge to continue with it.

ETA: Aah, I see it's already been mentioned, though not for the same reasons :)

Eragon, naturally.

I don't read very many books that I hate, actually. I make sure I will like the book by the beginning chapter or the back of the book for the most part. Unless, of course, it was a school assignment. Then there's...Eragon.

"Illusions" by Richard Bach. I bought it because someone told me it changed their life but I found it too boring to get to the last page.

Ah, another one is Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, I believe is the title. I tried reading it, but couldn't get past the fifth page it was so bogged down with infodumps and ramblings. Yeah, yeah, it's an interview, but still.

"Ella Enchanted". I read it as a (young) kid and a certain scene terrified me. The night I read that was the last night I ever wanted anything to do with the book and is remembered as my first night of insomnia.

The Red Pony ~ Steinbeck



*yeah, I know I'm gonna' get poned over this one. What can I say? I was a kid and there were no spaceships or aliens in the story*

The Red Pony ~ Steinbeck



*yeah, I know I'm gonna' get poned over this one. What can I say? I was a kid and there were no spaceships or aliens in the story*

ROTF!

ROTF!


Ah, ya' liked that, huh? :D


Yeah, I can't deal with anything by Steinbeck. He takes the color out of my world for a while. Everything is sepia for like a week after.

I mean, did you read The Pearl? I was ready to pull out my own fingernails! :(

I haven't read the Lord of the Rings series, but I rather liked the Hobbit. The singing was a little weird, especially when I first read the book via an audio book. But I thought it was dear. And I like the Old Man and the Sea, but then again...I like it for sentimental reasons. The character reminded me of my dad, whom I'm very close to.

Worst books I've ever read?

The Chosen by Chaim...something. We had to read it in English...I think the teacher wanted to enlighten us on what it's like to be Jewish..and I thought that was silly. A book isn't going to tell you that. Not to say...a BORING book.

All Quiet on the Western Front - I got what the book was saying. It was just too hard a read for me. I respect soldiers and what they go through, but I don't particularly care for the parts where they're "lonely for women." Not that the whole book was like that. My main problem was that it dragged. It did have some nice points, though.

Heart of Darkness - All the darkness made me sleepy.

Sofie's World - I know a lot of people like this sort of stuff, but I think it was pretentious and weird (well, the random sex was anyway). But, then again, I'm not one for philosophical books as I also don't like any Ayn Rand books...though I did give them the old college try. I thought Atlas Shrugged had some amusing and enlightening points but was overall...frustrating and dull. I don't like the way she writes.

This is pretty stupid to say on a site mainly about writing but..."Romeo and Juliet". I just couldn't get into it, had to look up more than half the words, and overall it was very confusing, especially since I looked at the summary beforehand and when I read it the only way I could tell something happened is when a character stopped talking or when the writer wrote "_____ stabs ______"

Ah, ya' liked that, huh? :D


Yeah, I can't deal with anything by Steinbeck. He takes the color out of my world for a while. Everything is sepia for like a week after.

I mean, did you read The Pearl? I was ready to pull out my own fingernails! :(

Maybe you're not reading the right Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men and East of Eden are his strongest works that I've read by a long shot, although I did enjoy The Red Pony and The Pearl.

Dreamcatcher by Stephen King....I couldn't finish it...I donated it to my college library. It just didn't hold my attention, as a matter of fact, I was so bored I feel asleep reading the damn thing...honestly, if I spend money on a book I will trudge through it, but I just gave up on that one...I didn't pick it up again.

Hmmm... Hard to remember a book I didn't enjoy reading, as I make pretty sure I am going to enjoy something before I invest the time.

The Fatal Englishman by Sebastian Faulks is probably at the bottom of my list.

Oh yeah - I read The Potato Facory by Bryce Courtenay on the recommendation of a friend and I wasn't as impressed as she was - by a long shot. :p

Maybe you're not reading the right Steinbeck. Of Mice and Men and East of Eden are his strongest works that I've read by a long shot, although I did enjoy The Red Pony and The Pearl.


Read those as well in college, and I waited until I was 27 to go to university, so I was quite grown at the time.

Those books hurt me to read. Physical pain. Depressing, sepia toned, godaweful drudgery to read. :(

The worst book I've ever read is the book I'm reading now, Living on Air by Anna Shapiro. It's just so boring...every time I try and read it I wind up falling asleep!

Unfortunately I have to finish the damn thing because I have to do a whole English project on it, which counts for half of our grade, and it's too late for me to change my book.

Another book I hated with a passion was The Cat Ate my Gym Suit. I don't know who the author was, and I don't care. Basically it was about this girl and all she did was whine whine and whine. I clearly remember there was this one scene where her mother bought her a new hat, and she loved that hat. Then the mother said "Oh I thought you might like that. it's a very popular style among girls!" Then the girl who loved the hat suddenly hates it and throws a tempter tantrum because she doesn't want to like 'popular' things. :|

But atleast that book was so stupid to the point it was almost funny to read.

Hmm, I guess you can't agree all the time.

Hmm, I guess you can't agree all the time.


Ugh! Think how boring life would be! I love a good tempered yet heated debate over beers any day! :D

The Prodigy (1986) by Amy Wallace is surely the most boring biography ever written. I had to force myself to finish reading it. The book is a steady stream of sensationalism and inventions, and today's worst myths about prodigies originated from the book.

Lila by Robert Pirsig is even more boring and far worse written. I bought the book around 1991 (I'm looking at the copyright date; whew the book is old and smells it), and my page marker is on page 4. I managed to get to page 4 last year when I tried reading the book again. 468 pages!? I doubt that I'll finish reading it before I die!

I have to say "Blood Relatives" by Ed Mcbain. I've seen a few reviews saying it's good but I read it. I know I'm not very exsperanced but even I found holes. For example the story jumps of the plot and goes into way to much detail about a cops wife when it could simply be put "she was attractive".

Instead he told me usless infomation about a character I don't care about and who should be helping the story along not trying to lead it to another.
Another is the characters' just have no life. There is for the two kids who are in love (incest no less) but the other's don't really show modivation. I feel like a great writer because of that. I think if something that baldy written can be published I can be too. I'm pretty sure making someone hate to read your story isn't the way to go.

The story could be good if it was well written but the way he did it made me suffer when I tryed to read it. For anyone who has never read it or is intrested, the story line is basically a girl is murdered by her cousin who was jelous because the victim slept with the cousins brother. How much insect must a murder involve?

Lazy Bones by Mark Billingham. Boring beyond humanly possible...

The worst bad book I've ever read... it's a toss-up between The DaVinci Code and the first novel in Women's Murder Club. That probably makes me sound like a snob, but I'm not against populist novels at all--I read plenty of pop fiction and try to buy the Pulitzer winner every year. The DaVinci Code was horrible because I had already read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and so the theory was nothing new to me, and once you get past the cool theory the book really blows. Terrible dialogue, wooden characters, a character that goes from exposition guy to villain... It's just bad all the way around. The WMC book, which I borrowed from my roommate as a light read one night, had no sense of dramatic pace, suspense, or where to end a chapter, which are all the exact things that light reading should have. One chapter ends "suspensefully" when the heroine forgets to make a phone call to her doctor. I am not joking. I think I made it 23 pages in. And it had a large font.

I say the "worst bad book" because I've read a lot of books that looked like good books, and were good books, until I realized halfway through that they were MFA character masturbation studies and nothing would ever happen beyond a lot of internal monologue. These I actually threw against the wall in disgust. A book that is almost good is a much worse offense than a bad book. It's like the desserts at Starbucks. They almost taste good, so you keep eating them and waiting for them to be satisfying, but they never are. It's a much worse experience than simply eating a bite of bad pecan pie just before throwing the whole piece in the trash.

I absolutely agree about The DaVinci Code. A lot of people don't like it for religious reasons; I've been accused of that. I don't like it because Dan Brown just can't write well. The main character is afraid of small spaces, yet he only faces that twice in the book and it doesn't seem like that big a deal by the end. Plus, most conversations in the book go along the lines of:
"What's that all about[something mentioned by someone]?"
"Well, let me tell you!"
I read it for myself and felt like I wasted my time.

I also didn't like When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago. Most of the book is her complaining about how much her mom and dad sucked when she was a kid. Then she keeps complaining about every man that her mom was with throughout her childhood. That's about it. She moves around a lot, but all I really got out of it was that Santiago's mom couldn't find a good guy if he was standing right in front of her. It was one of the few books that I read for an English class that I didn't like.

Plus, most conversations in the book go along the lines of:
"What's that all about[something mentioned by someone]?"
"Well, let me tell you!"
I read it for myself and felt like I wasted my time.

Yeah, exactly, it felt like 1/2 of the novel was exposition. Also I didn't believe in any of the characters, even the main. A "symbologist"? Uh, right. What department would that even be in? I've certainly never heard of a "symbologist" and I really doubt they exist. If anyone ever declares that as their profession it is codespeak for "contract-employed adjunct."

Religious reasons have nothing to do with it. Holy Blood, Holy Grail is actually pretty good. It has things like, oh, an analysis of the Merovingian dynasty that suggests Mary Magdalene as an ancestor. It's a pretty far-fetched theory but the author uses evidence to back it up. DVC is just a poor "fictional" account of the same thing, only dumbed down.

Ugh, hate. I picked it up in an airport for a trans-Atlantic flight. That was a mistake.

Journal of a Plauge Year - Daniel Defoe.
I can fully understand why people thought it was an eye-witness account, it contains every single detail and record of the entire year. Dull..

I was looking back and came across this one. That was a really interesting and truly horrifying story! How could you not love it? :p

H.G. Wells, The Time Machine.

I'm sorry, I'm aware people consider it a "classic", but it was, in a word, boring. Page upon page of a degraded society which was thouroughly uninteresting. It may be that it was required reading but i seriously despised this book and would have happily burnt it.

I disagree with a few opinions here - I think Catcher In The Rye adds a lot to literature in certain areas; The Bell Jar was amazing; and I loved Heart of Darkness - but then I had an amazing teacher for that book so I don't expect everyone to adore it like I did.

I read David Copperfield by Dickens in the 8th grade to beat some girl at AR points (long story). Took me over a month to finish and I hated it at the time, but thinking back on it, it was a pretty good book.
The first 120 pages of Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier are excruciatingly awful, but the rest of the book is awesome. I actually wrote my EE on Rebecca and Heart of Darkness.
I was assigned Ordinary People over the course of two weeks during which I was dealing with serious issues that almost paralleled those in the book, so it was painful to read - and it was an awful book, period.
That same year I was assigned The Fire Next Time, which is less of a book and more of a rambling essay with no focus - at one point he literally says "...a day when black and white men break bread together. And I am not talking about this processed, machine made bread we have today..." and talks for about 10 pages about BREAD. I would say that The Fire Next Time is definitely the worst book I have ever read.

I find it interesting that most people are listing "classics" as the books that they hate. Maybe this has to do with reading them too young, or being forced to read something that isn't there style. Since this seems to be the theme of this thread I'll add my favorite least favorite read of my life: Tolstoy's War and Peace. Too long for my taste, especially when I got very little out of it. There are some books that have tortured me more while I read them, alot of books by Hawthorne and Dickens come to mind, but I feel I learned more from them in the end. All I learned from War and Peace was that Russian aristocrats were stupid and that dress-making is really hard. Of course, I do talk about Tolstoy with many of my friends, so maybe I like it more than I know.

Basically anything I've had to read in my English class. Cosi - The Screenplay by Louis Nowra had the occasional amusing moment, but most of the humour relied on over-the-top swearing. Taronga by Victor Kelleher wasn't too bad, but it wasn't too good either. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen was pretty terrible, and I had to read it twice - once in year 6 and once in year 8.

This is a really funny thread. I can see a lot of the hatred stems from having been forced to read books in school. Being forced to read something these days would probably elicit the same response from me.

John Wyndham's The Chrysalids (alternatively titled Rebirth when published in the US), was one of those 'forced on me' English class books, and I remember thinking, how can a post-apocalyptic sci-fi tale be this tedious?! I hated it, and notwithstanding my comments on being forced to read stuff affecting opinions, I bet I'd hate it if I read it now.

Have to agree with some of the choices of other here too. Lord of the Rings is awful, the plodding prose is bad enough, but when stretched across three books, it's bordering on a hate crime. Conrad's Heart of Darkness is a good tale, but damn that prose is hard work, I don't exactly hate it, but it's hard to love.

Agree on Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird too, which was another one forced on me at school. I'm sorry, but I hated every page of the goddamed thing. Also agree on the Catcher in the Rye, which was not a book forced on me, but one I thought I would read to see what all the fuss was about, I'm still waiting for someone to inform me on that score.

Christine by Stephen King is another one I struggled with; more a case of literary fury than a Plymouth Fury. I was reading away and thinking, I don't mind exposition, but is this guy ever actually going to get around to buying the car that this book is supposed to be featuring at some point?

Anything by Tom Clancy. I don't care what the thrust to weight ratio of the engines are on the plane that's about to attack something is. Just get on with it for feck's sake! If you edited all that stuff out of Clancy's books, most of them would be a pamphlet.

Al

On the contrary to what has been said, I often enjoyed school books and realize why we read them. But the exception is definitely Frankenstein. The most glaring problem was that the characters lacked any drop of humanity. Frankenstein's sister/lover (ew), for example, was an exaggeration of a weak female character. Frankenstein himself was melodramatic without any depth. The monster was just strange and creepy. It was long, droning and BAD.

We read The Bluest Eye in the same year (which, amusingly, is someone's "worst book" on this thread) and the contrast was unbelievable. I know they were written by two completely different people at two completely different times in history, but the latter's development of character was so rich and tangible as opposed to the sap-fest of a novel that was Frankenstein.

The Final Warning - Maximum Ride.

Too played up, horrible, stupid, gross. So basically the author took everything that was good out of the series.

On the contrary to what has been said, I often enjoyed school books and realize why we read them. But the exception is definitely Frankenstein. The most glaring problem was that the characters lacked any drop of humanity. Frankenstein's sister/lover (ew), for example, was an exaggeration of a weak female character. Frankenstein himself was melodramatic without any depth. The monster was just strange and creepy. It was long, droning and BAD.

Actually, I liked a lot of the books I read in English classes. There were a few exceptions (When I Was Puerto Rican and The Bean Trees come to mind), but I enjoyed the vast majority of them. I also had awesome teachers, so that helps.

And I enjoyed Frankenstein, oddly enough. I can't really place what it was -- I read it in the first semester of my ninth grade year -- but I remember really liking the book. I guess I've always appreciated the whole "man plays god" theme. I also remember thinking that the creature was great because I was never really sure whether he or Frankenstein should be called the villain. If nothing else, I can laugh more at Young Frankenstein =P

Thinking about more books I dislike, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson bored the crap out of me. It starts out interesting and has a lot of potential. But after the first quarter of the book, it feels extremely slow and uninteresting. I kept reading expecting it to get better, but it just never happens. A lot of potential that led up to a whole lot of nothing (ironic: I read it for a class....)

EDIT: actually, I didn't hate all of The Diamond Age. The science fiction part of it is interesting, and I appreciated some themes and life messages in the book. But the writing frustrated me and didn't inspire me to keep reading.

Eragon. Nuff said.

The Pearl.

The Pearl - that was another one forced on me at school. Didn't actually mind that too much, although personally I thought the 'promoting socialism' allegory that the tale is supposed to have as an underlying theme went a bit wide of the mark.

Al

I definitley agree with the Tom Clancy ones. I read about 20 pages of one of his books, 19 of which were talking about guns in stupid detail. Just tell me how many terrorists it can kill, and move on.

I want to raise a couple that I think people may argue.

Harry potter.

The Da Vinci Code.

I find JK Rowlings writing bland and she doesn't really invent stuff, just copy it. I mean all of it. I know in my story on here I've got elves, but at least my names are made up. Muggle is a street in London, I believe. But yes, shes made a lot more money than I ever will, so she wins.

I didn't particularly find the Da Vinci Code annoying, until I read Angels and Demons. If you read that you'll realise that Dan Brown uses the same plot in both. Literally he just seems to change some words. I also don't like the flashbacks where he describes things like the Fibonnaci (spelling?) sequence in 10,000 words, as it seems like it's only there to fill space.

I find people either agree with me totally over The Da Vinci Code, or try to kill me in it's defence...

But I'm not really a big reader so I haven't come across many books I don't like.

Death or Glory by Sandy Mitchell, literally the most dragged out screaming plot and first person view story I have ever had to read. Not recommended for hardcore Ciaphas Cain fans. :mad:

Ink by Hal Duncan (the sequel to vellum).

It's like he just threw words at the page and called whatever stuck sentences. It's so random, pointless and boring that it's laughable. His theological and cultural references were ridiculous (Amorica and Adonis Christ), and the end of the book was so anti-climactic it hurt. And because he writes "lyrically" (ie run-on sentences and bad poetical prose) and uses a thesaurus he's been under "literature" (with Dickens, and Eco and the like) at every European bookstore I've visited.

And what makes it worse is that there seems to be a decent fantasy writer and storyteller under all the crap. He's just trying way to hard.


Even read this article (http://www.sfcrowsnest.com/features/arc/2008/nz12293.php). I don't think he has any idea what he's talking about. He throws a bit of Hegelian dialetics in with some postmodern jargon and comes up with nonsense. Absolute nonsense. This is Ink. I really think he just finds words that he likes the sound of (but doesn't know the meaning of) and strings them together, hoping everyone else doesn't know the meanings either.

Rewan - I've found that, with some exceptions, the amount of pop-culture popularity a book has immediately upon publication is inversely proportional to how good it actually is. This is why I never read The Da Vinci Code and gave up on HP after book five.

Meta - you ought to write book reviews. That was awesome.

I'm tempted to post a quick defense of Catcher in the Rye, but I'd rather not hijack the thread with that argument.

yeah..Odessey. I know it suposed to be a great classic and all but it killed me basicly tor read it. It was so boring. and annyoing.

I absolutely have to agree about The Bell Jar. My English teacher sent it to me when i was home for three weeks with mono. I absolutely loved it, thinking the whole time how brilliant it was and that everything made perfect sense. And then i read it again a month later when i wasn't on the hydrocodone my doctor prescribed me for the pain. Completely terrible. The only time i would recommend it is when you are heavily dosed on prescription narcotics and her losing her mind is actually pretty understandable.

I am absolutely shocked no on has mention Robert Jordan! The series is a display in the death of character and plot development. It seemed to me like every time something was finally going to happen every single character would revert to the state they were in at the beginning of the series, and this would happen several times a book! I kept thinking i had already read parts of the newest book i had because it was so repetitive. And when he wasn't failing completely to make the characters be anything more than headstrong morons or the same battle happen for the fifth time for the same exact reason as the times previous it was his repetitive description. I don't know how many voluptuous women running around in low cut dresses are out there, but i guarantee you every single one of them must have converged upon the Wheel of time series. Not to mention every single room had the same gilded furniture that would annoy the perpetually annoyed Nyaneve to the point of pulling the braid i wish i could have jumped into the series to hack off!

If you want to save yourself months of your life, do not read the Wheel of Time series!

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. We had to read it for school. I got a C on the test, and I got the highest grade in the class.


Oh yeah, I liked Catcher in the Rye. It was pretty cool.

It has to be Eragon...I found everything about the book, including the character Eragon, unbearably annoying.
And I don't think I have ever, or will ever, read a single book filled with so many fantasy clichés. Absolutely horrible.

Hmm, I don't know. I didn't like Jean Auel's books. I liked first three, but then i found Ayla too annoying-ly perfect in every way.
And then fourth and fifth, were plainly boring to me. Almost every other page is describing either nature or sex. I made myself read it to the end, but I skipped most of parts. I just read parts with dialogue.

I didn’t like most of books that we had to read for class. There were two books in series that we had to read. (Vauvan and Inspector of garden elves- rough translation). Plot was hard to follow. Hardest thing was determining what the point of book was. I never managed to that.

Hmm, I don't know. I didn't like Jean Auel's books. I liked first three, but then i found Ayla too annoying-ly perfect in every way.
And then fourth and fifth, were plainly boring to me. Almost every other page is describing either nature or sex. I made myself read it to the end, but I skipped most of parts. I just read parts with dialogue.

I didn’t like most of books that we had to read for class. There were two books in series that we had to read. (Vauvan and Inspector of garden elves- rough translation). Plot was hard to follow. Hardest thing was determining what the point of book was. I never managed to that.



I must agree. I liked the first couple and then got the distinct impression that this series was just thinly disguised cave-man porn.

Is that even a genre?

Death on the Ice by Cassie Brown. It told a story of a sealing disaster in 1914 that happened just off the coast. It could have made a great story, but it read more like a history text book. The only good part of the book was when the fisherman wondered around the ice sheets looking for help from another boat, after a few days of searching many of the men gave up and actually killed themselves by walking into the ocean or slitting their own wrists.

And many of the readers were ready to do the same?

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. I forced myself to finish it. Don't know why. I found Richard Cypher(Rahl) too much of a know-it-all even though it was his first time away from home. Also, after some interview with Goodkind he said something like "I'm not like other authors, I don't just show off my world. I show my characters" or whatever. And yet, the first book (if you look at the map) had Richard and Kahlan conveniently hitting every mark on the map. Oh, and the 200 pages of S&M should've rendered this book a failure from the start. And now it's becoming a show on ABC....

Eragon comes right up behind Goodkind's work. Never read the book but saw the movie and that was enough for me. This book should never have taken off like it did.

I'm going to say, so far the worst book I've ever read (couldn't get through 200 pages of it, a nearly 900 page book) is Dhalgren, by Sam R. Delany.

Such pointless garbage. Ugh!!! It infuriates me to think about it!

One book I find overrated is Atonement by Ian McEwan, which I read in my lit class last year. By the end of the story, I still wasn't sure what the point was, and I didn't feel attached to any of the characters. Sure, it's considered a psychological novel, but there wasn't a single part of the story that was particularly eye-opening. It was too thought-oriented and the tension was too subtle, to the point that it just seemed pretentious. But if anyone can convince me, I'm willing to give it another chance.

I have a few books that I haven't been able to finish (that happens rarely). I'm not saying that they were awful, but they just couldn't keep me interested:

The Iron Dragon's Daughter by Michael Swanwick: I couldn't feel anything for the characters, and it was somehow so... irrational. I didn't like anything that was happening. It seemed somehow messy, too unbelievable. Maybe I should have read it in English. The translations are always worse. Usually I do read everything in English, but this was an exception.

Abarat, book II by Clive Barker: I adored the first book of this series, but for some odd reason, I hated the second. I love his dark style. I love the characters. I love the bad guy. And the way he paints all the interesting events. But it just didn't have enough plot. It was terribly boring, and nothing happened. I couldn't finish it. We had already learned to know the world in the first book; it would have been nice to get somewhere in the second.

The City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare : This book really is for teenagers only. It's the second book of The Mortal Instruments trilogy, and I just couldn't finish it. It's about good-looking demonhunters, girls who can learn to use runes without any prior knowledge of them, best friends that turn into vampires because otherwise they would be so uncool, make-overs, "I'm your father"-moments, and just over all silly dialogue that doesn't really fit at all.

But as I said, I don't often read bad books, and I don't really think of many books as bad. I like light, dark, humour, slow, silly, artistic... almost anything. But it has to have something that keeps me reading. I loved Inkheart, but I couldn't finish that either. Someday I hopefully will. Oh, and there are a few Finnish novels that I would not recommend to anyone (like Juhani Aho's Rautatie... argh!!). :)

School books.

So far-

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald- it just sucked, and the chapters were too long. I hate it when authors do that.

A Hero of Our Time by some guy I don't remember his name - well I had four days to read it and my teacher shoved everything about that book down our throats but I maybe would've liked it if she didn't

Things Fall Apart by some African guy whose name is hard to pronounce (see how much I pay attention in class) I usually love reading about African tribes, but I couldn't feel anything for the characters or the plot. The story overall was bland and I didn't much care for it.

And books I haven't read in school but didn't like-

Daughter Of The Blood by Anne Bishop - I didn't even finish that book I hated it so much. The setting changes confused me, aswell as the dialouge and characterization. And the whole traveling on webs and magic and whatever I was like WTF? I even had three people telling me about it, and it made it easier to understand, I just couldn't get into it. The thing that's most annoying is that ALL of my friends are obsessed with it, it's like, how?

I've never read the Harry Potter books, but I saw the first two movies and from what I heard they're word from word from the books. But after the second, I saw the tird and fourth and didn't bother with even reading it. I'm not much into wizards or anything so that may be why. I'll try reading the books and see if I like it better.

Great Expectations--Charles Dickens...Worst book ever written.

Concrete Island - Ballard.

Terrible, just terrible. Ballard has a knack of repeating himself, or reiterating an intended moral every other page, but I can tolerate that in Kingdom Come - But when your story is about being stranded on the motorway, it makes for an irritating read.

When Nietzsche Wept is also turning out to be a dry novel as well, but I haven't finished it yet....It just seems the poor bastard of an author spent too much time on research than on writing a good story. Details are a noisy killer.

Great Expectations--Charles Dickens...Worst book ever written.

second that! couldn't push myself past the second chapter

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. I forced myself to finish it. Don't know why. I found Richard Cypher(Rahl) too much of a know-it-all even though it was his first time away from home. Also, after some interview with Goodkind he said something like "I'm not like other authors, I don't just show off my world. I show my characters" or whatever. And yet, the first book (if you look at the map) had Richard and Kahlan conveniently hitting every mark on the map. Oh, and the 200 pages of S&M should've rendered this book a failure from the start. And now it's becoming a show on ABC....

Eragon comes right up behind Goodkind's work. Never read the book but saw the movie and that was enough for me. This book should never have taken off like it did.

For real?? Man, I loved all of Terry Goodkinds books. Incredibly epic.

Worst book in history: Z For Zachariah. My God. Shoot me now.

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton: I couldn't stand it. It was just smut with vampires in it.

City of the Dead by Brian Keene: Demon possessed corpses that become zombies intelligent enough to use weapons, set traps, and speak. With great lines like "Quick, let's overwhelm him with our numbers!" before the second chapter. I put the book down and never read it again. Please for all that is good and decent in the world, do not read this book.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White: I loved Arthurian Legend until I read this book. It is the most dull and long winded book I have ever read. It made a great story so unbelievably boring that to this day I cannot stand to read it.

There was one other, I don't recall the name or the author but it was set in New England during the American Revolution. I was forced to read it for school and hated it. I remember something about the MC being a silversmith apprentice but his hand is injured. Regardless, it was a pointless meandering tale.

Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton: I couldn't stand it. It was just smut with vampires in it.

City of the Dead by Brian Keene: Demon possessed corpses that become zombies intelligent enough to use weapons, set traps, and speak. With great lines like "Quick, let's overwhelm him with our numbers!" before the second chapter. I put the book down and never read it again. Please for all that is good and decent in the world, do not read this book.

The Once and Future King by T. H. White: I loved Arthurian Legend until I read this book. It is the most dull and long winded book I have ever read. It made a great story so unbelievably boring that to this day I cannot stand to read it.

There was one other, I don't recall the name or the author but it was set in New England during the American Revolution. I was forced to read it for school and hated it. I remember something about the MC being a silversmith apprentice but his hand is injured. Regardless, it was a pointless meandering tale.

Disagreed

Well the first on my list would have to be Havoc Junction by Joe Donolley, ick. I really didn't connect with the main character and thought she could have shown a little more desperation concidering she is a mother trying to portect her children it really was very lame. I force myself to finish all the books I read so it may help improve my writing skills. Now I know what not to do.

The second, Elizibith Moon's the hunting party. It put me off Sci-fi for a very long time it's sitting in my bookshelf still waiting for me to finish reading it.

The third, the saint of dragons by Jason hightman. Major cheese here...

The Odyssey was agonizing. That might've had something to do with my English teacher adoring it. Mainly, I couldn't stand Odysseus, and spent the whole poem waiting for something to kill him off. This would've spoiled epics for me if I hadn't read Paradise Lost right after.

Eragon is of course up there, too. The plot was every cliche known to man, disguised as a harmless Lord Of The Rings rip-off. What else can be said?

The Odyssey was agonizing. That might've had something to do with my English teacher adoring it. Mainly, I couldn't stand Odysseus, and spent the whole poem waiting for something to kill him off.

I'm soooo with you! Just cuz it's classic doesn't mean it's good! :D

Deception Point - Dan Brown

Awfull... but at the times I was interested, it kept me entertained.

Deception Point - Dan Brown

Awfull... but at the times I was interested, it kept me entertained.

Can we just make an umbrella statement and say that most anything by Dan Brown isn't worth much? Too much hype, not enough good writing.

I'm soooo with you! Just cuz it's classic doesn't mean it's good! :D

What!?! Why not just stab me in the face! I thought the Odyssey was an awesome story, I loved the whole "surviving crew" feel and the adventure. It was great!

I mean c'mon, if you don't like Scylla grabbing sailors and making them into Kibbles n' Bits while they are trying to dodge a cyclone... well you might as well read the newspaper :eek:

Eragon is of course up there, too. The plot was every cliche known to man, disguised as a harmless Lord Of The Rings rip-off. What else can be said?

I agree with you. I could rarely go through one page without seeing a horrible cliche. Below is a rant about the plot, but it contains spoilers in case any brave soul would want to find out for themselves. Not that you wouldn't know what happens since it's the same as every other book of its type.

The whole story starts with a nobody who loses a family member and goes off to get revenge with an old bearded man who dies later in the story and the kid becomes a great person etc., etc. And that's only a few of the cliches.

The worst book I've ever read is probably one I haven't finished. I had to read The Scarlet Letter for school a while back and it was agonizing. I mean, the plot was alright, from what I could make of it, but it's so rich. Peace Child (which I also had to read for school) was annoying too. I don't think it was written very well. I was almost falling asleep as I read.

Eragon definitely ranks down there, but the book that I just can't stand to have exist in my universe is Nothing But the Truth by Avi. The 'protagonist' is a whiny little loser and quite frankly an @$$, while the only good character winds up losing their job and dignity and having to move away. And the ending sucked. The worst part is, it's the kind of book that's supposed to make you think- hence the dubious nature of the characters- but obviously from my negativity, it just didn't work. It was bad.

Please, please don't kill me, but I HATED the Lord of the Rings series, i don't know if it was the characters themselves, or the time it took Tolkien to describe them and their lives. All, I know is that we started the first book with eight months left in the school year, and we weren't even two thirds of the way done by the end of the year. Bluh.

Hands down worst book I ever read was Angela's Ashes. Yeah, yeah, it was on Oprah's book club list, whatever, I HATED it. Threw it across the room half way through and never picked it back up. I made my best friend read it because she can't NOT finish a book and she told me how it ends and it just got worse and worse.

That's my vote. :0)

I had to read a book for school called The Green Dog by Suzanne Fisher. Not a fun book. She's a lot older than me and I could write a book better...or at least one more entertaining. I would have killed the book if I wasn't being forced to read it.

Also, Sunshine by Robin McKinley drove me insane. I went to Borders looking for a good book and this guy said this book was great. The only interesting parts were the beginning and the end. There were parts where nothing happened for 100 pages. And the pages were long and took forever to read, I thought it would never end, but since I bought the book, I had to finish it.

Heart. Of. Darkness.

'Nuff said.

Animal Farm
i dont know who its by but its about communism and using animals to express the authors view.
I dont even know the words to describe how terrible it is!!!

Don't spoil this for me! I just ordered the book from Amazon a few days ago because I loved '1984' in high school and figured I should check out Orwell's barnyard treatise on communism.

...[Why does everyone hate Jane Austen? I happen to love her, and Charles Dickens.]

I agree! I was surprised to see the continuous listing of Jane novels as peoples' least faves! I absolutely love her work. I'm taking a capstone class this fall based on her novels and also the fiction to film.

Worst Reads:
Heart of Darkness
Treasure Island
Stranger
The Hobbit
LOTR series

Yay, I found someone who agrees! I could not stand that trilogy! I almost told the teacher off for even assigning it!

The worst book has to be Ceri Grafu, it was so childish and I felt like saying, 'Ie, wel cer i grafu d' hunan, hefyd miss,' halfway through it. Yuck. Dreadful book.

Things Fall Apart for me...I had to read it in World Lit, I just copied a friends annotations and then finally read it the day before the test. It was horrible.

I'd have to say the entire Henry VI series by Shakespeare. It was incredibly dull. I liked Shakespeare until I read that. My heart broke after Henry VI and I haven't touched anything by Shakespeare since.

A self-published book titled Wild Animus is pretty bad, too. The characters are two-dimensional, the main character is an idiot, and the girlfriend exists to provide money and sex.

I was rather disappointed by The Demolished Man, too. While it was technically and stylistically proficient, it just didn't. . . sparkle. Know what I mean?

Please, please don't kill me, but I HATED the Lord of the Rings series, i don't know if it was the characters themselves, or the time it took Tolkien to describe them and their lives. All, I know is that we started the first book with eight months left in the school year, and we weren't even two thirds of the way done by the end of the year. Bluh.

I don't blame you one bit zorell. I read The Hobbit and really enjoyed it. I then started reading the LOTR trilogy and couldn't get halfway through the first one. I'd already seen the movies and just wanted to get to the good action in the books. After the group spent like 100 pages in the forest with the singing trees I gave up from boredom.

My least favorite book though would have to be one of these:

Amos Fortune: Free Man - Elizabeth Yates
The Old Man And The Sea - Ernest Hemingway

I'm convinced the dude in The Old Man And The Sea was stuck in a tidal pool the whole time. He is a senile old man who has no idea what he is doing.

Shadowmancer. Couldn't read more than a few chapters. So badly written it offended me.

Blackwood Farm by Ann Rice. Phewww, what a stinker. I think the 100th page actually squirted concentrated estrogen in my face.

It has got to be The Scarlet Letter. I honestly cannot stand the book. Such a snore. I'm easily turned off by a book if it doesn't catch my attention within the first few chapters, and this book was so droning. I never actually read it, even though it was a class assignment for AP Lit. Sparknotes, thank you so very much. I don't even find any of the themes/motifs/etc. the least bit interesting or well carried out, from the excerpts I was forced to read. Overrated book, imo.

The prize for Worst Story Ever would have to go to one of the short story "classics" I was forced to read in English 101. Possibly "How to Talk to a Hunter" or "What we Talk About When We Talk About Love". Of course there were so many boring and pointless ones, its hard to pin it down to just one story. Then too, these are all short stories, and not novels, so I'm not sure if they even count.

The new Borne novels, so far, there are two of them.
And they are BOTH terrible, honestly, I would have found more enjoyment out of reading the dotted lines on toilet paper.
And the information given are way off... Not only do they get Borne's own past wrong, but the technical info is wrong too.

I don't blame you one bit zorell. I read The Hobbit and really enjoyed it. I then started reading the LOTR trilogy and couldn't get halfway through the first one. I'd already seen the movies and just wanted to get to the good action in the books. After the group spent like 100 pages in the forest with the singing trees I gave up from boredom.

My least favorite book though would have to be one of these:

Amos Fortune: Free Man - Elizabeth Yates
The Old Man And The Sea - Ernest Hemingway

I'm convinced the dude in The Old Man And The Sea was stuck in a tidal pool the whole time. He is a senile old man who has no idea what he is doing.

Oh man. I loved old man and the sea. I understand about the LOTR trilogy though. I enjoyed the books, but it took me at least four attempts to actually make it all the way through.

I would have to say mine was probably the scarlett letter also. I actually enjoyed most of the stuff I read in english. A lot of that was because I had an excellent teacher. He explained all the dirty jokes in shakespear's stuff, and trust me there's a lot of them.

Uhm..let me think...

I haven't really hated anything I've read recently...

Oh, I got one. The Odyssey. (I know that's spelled wrong) I hated it, I know a lot of the guys loved it, but it was so...guyish. It bored me. I wasn't too fond of The Iliad either.

I'll list the worst classic I think I've ever read (in my literature class), and then the worst modern book.

Worst Classic:

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Ditto to Afterburner on this. I'm usually pretty open-minded to reading classics, but this one made me want to tear out my eyes.

Worst Modern Book:

Maximum Ride by James Patterson. I know this one's pretty popular, but I couldn't stand to finish it, no matter how hard I tried. It's cliched, poorly written, and all around awful.

Maximum Ride by James Patterson. I know this one's pretty popular, but I couldn't stand to finish it, no matter how hard I tried. It's cliched, poorly written, and all around awful.
Yeah, it is kind of weird, sure it's creative but you can tell the author is totally in love with the character and the bad things that happen to them aren't that bad
But I don't like the Lord Of The Rings either, i saw the movies and i was like. WOW That looks really good! And i read the books and then Gandalf is singing a little song and Aragorn is also. Then it takes them half the book to get to the prancing pony and they sing and they run around getting mushrooms.

I have to say the worst books I have ever read would be Dear Mr. Henshaw, or The Golden Goblet. The first ione I had to read in 4th grade, all I remeber was that it was really boring, the second one I had to read in sixth grade. It was really stupid, the main character pretty much sat around talking about how bad his brother was and how much he wanted to work with gold without ever doing anything. However the worst book I have ever read is Z for Zachariah. Man that book was awful!!! My sixth grade teacher made us read it, everyone literally cheered when we finished the book.

[QUOTE=Crazy Ivan;221156]Eragon but the book that I just can't stand to have exist in my universe is Nothing But the Truth by Avi. The 'protagonist' is a whiny little loser and quite frankly an @$$, while the only good character winds up losing their job and dignity and having to move away. And the ending sucked. QUOTE] wow...i totally forgot about that book and i read it only last year....thats sad...now that i think on it that book did suck, it was so stupid!

hi all

the worst book i've ever read, after having it hyped up loads by friends, was The Catcher In The Rye. i see why its considered a classic by many people - the themes of alienation and teenage angst still ring true today - but i just found it immensely boring.

Mannn if I knew you in real life I'd kick your ass!

I'd like to say right now that I really don't like Charles Dickens. His ideas were interesting and I've tryed really hard to read them, but I just can't.

I don't read many terrible books though, and schoolwise I usually skim or use cliffnotes if it doesn't capture my attention after a few pages or I'm busy with something else.


Eragon definitely ranks down there, but the book that I just can't stand to have exist in my universe is Nothing But the Truth by Avi. The 'protagonist' is a whiny little loser and quite frankly an @$$, while the only good character winds up losing their job and dignity and having to move away. And the ending sucked. The worst part is, it's the kind of book that's supposed to make you think- hence the dubious nature of the characters- but obviously from my negativity, it just didn't work. It was bad.

I didn't love that book, but I don't think it was supposed to have a happy ending, nor were you even supposed to like the main character. :\

The worst book I've ever read was The Merchant of Venice, the Shakespeare play. We had to read it for English literature, and I didn't like it at all. Maybe it was because I wasn't used to the format since it's sa play.

Or perhaps wading through the archaic language?

I'm a bit surprised though. The Merchant of Venice is to me one of the more accessible and delightful of Shakespeare's comedies.

Yeah, the language also had something to do with it *g*

"Treason" by Ann Coulter: The vitriolic rhetoric spewing from that woman's pen is beyond what I'd imagined. What few rational points she made in the book were lost in the sea of hate and fear-mongering she sold to her sheep.

"Eyes of the Dragon" by Stephen King: I'm not sure if that's the correct name of the book, but I am sure that I didn't make it past page thirty. Terrible, terrible book.

I wouldnt say the worst book, but a book that i just cannot finish is a novel called Shadow Gate, by Kate Elliot... it sthe second book (going to be 7 all up). I just got half way through book two and said "no more". She just keeps adding new charcters from all over the place (their must be like 15 main charters and they just dont go anywhere. It annoyed me to the book of no return.

Anything and everything by Herman Melville - most specifically Bartleby, The Scrivener. I wanted to die.

And a book I was forced to read in 8th grade called The Cure. I can't remember how it ended or who it was by, I just remember wanting to burn the thing.

Recently, there was a book which I can't remember the title or author of, which I picked up in a bookstore in Oxford because I wanted something to read. I couldn't get past five pages. The writing was horrible - it literally made no sense. Everything was confused and jumbled. I've never not finished a book before, but that one...ugh. Couldn't do it.

~Christian

The Series of Unfortanute Events - My brother made me read it and it was horrible. This child's series is nothing more then an antagonizing read that is repetetive and boring.

aww i liked "Bartleby" he was the first person to go "postal." Driven mad by all the postage sent to the "dead letter office."

The Plague Dogs definitely comes to mind. I don't know what it was about it, but I really didn't feel bad for the main characters, and the little dog was annoying.

I might get scolded (or, perhaps, killed) for saying this, but I HATED 1984. Well, I liked it at first, but some of the plot twists really didn't sit well with me, and I felt the ending was very unsatisfying. It probably isn't fair to say it is a 'bad' book- it is very clever and whatnot, but it was not an enjoyable read, at all.

Oh, and Things Fall Apart. Bloody missonaries. So incredibly annoying.

I must also mention Their Eyes Were Watching God. So, a girl who is 1/4 African American runs around Florida and marries a few different guys while trying to find happiness? Ok...

I could go on.

ETA: NIGHT! (By Elie Wisel.) Dog, how I hated that book! Luckily it is a short book, which is the only reason I didn't quite get around to shooting myself so I could get out of having to sit through any more of it. Reviewing my list, I have to say this book was WAY worse than the others I listed, and the only reason I didn't list it originally is because I was doing my best to forget I ever experienced the painful process of turning its pages.

I've read some dog's droppings in my time... the last piece of canine excrement that I read was called Helen of Troy by Margaret george. It was so tedious and repetative.

Artermis Fowl... I tried to read this book when I was like 14 or 13. I'd got it for my birthday. I began reading and got to about 2nd chapter before realizing I abolsutely hate him. He a contrived ***hole, who had no redeeming qualities.

Deltora Quest: You want cliche, read this? I actually enjoyed these until I read some real fantasy (Try Ian Irvine) but it's so painfully cliche.

Technically I can put this down as it's been put into a book. High School Musical! Kill me. That is all.

Snap by Alison McGhee. I think it's boring and dumb. I've read it several times and haven't gotten anything out of it any time I've read it.

I can't believe there are people dissing on Bartleby and Catcher in the Rye in this thread.

Call me Ishmael, but sometimes I think people say such things simply to be contrary.

I bet lunch on somebody having already called Kafka "mediocre" in this thread, and Twain "trite and transparent."

Night Games, I forgot who it is by...but it was a really twisted book that made no sense.


Is that the one where they break into the teachers house? And the guy is a ghost or something?

If it is i actually own that book, and agree that it wasn't that good...

I think the only book I hated reading was To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

I just couldn't get into it and Scout Finch annoyed me so much!!!

Some stinkers I've read:

The Shadow Mouse of Everjade. I mean, it was funny, but mostly because it was so awful I kept wincing every few words. I admittedly have not finished it; it was really quite bad, and I don't have that much free time, but I may go back to finish it eventually.

Eldest, by Christopher Paolini. Now, I liked Eragon, because I really haven't seen very many companion-animal plots in which the animal is a character all its own. And Saphira was a really fun, snarky, intelligent character in the first book. But Eldest dragged - the elves were kind of neat, but the moral lessons were annoying, and then Eragon got de-scarred by magic so that he is suddenly better/faster/stronger than other people. Damnit, Chris! It's more fun to read about the hero when he's imperfect. Now he's starting to seem like a Gary Stu, which is no fun at all.

The Catcher in the Rye. I understand why it won a Pulitzer; no one had previously attempted to write a wangst novel. But hopefully they will never try again. It wasn't horrible, but it was awfully tedious.

The Heart of Darkness. Your Mileage May Vary - and I have friends who love this book. Nonetheless, it took me more than a month to slog through, just because I couldn't stand to read more than a page or so at a time.

I suppose that's about it for now.

The Sign of the Chrysanthemum. I was young when I read it and had a hard time understanding it, so I didn't really like it too much. I still have a hard time understanding a lot of books, but I'm getting better. I just thought you all should know.

The Basic Eight by Daniel Handler. Great Author, crap book...

The Quest - Wilbur Smith

I'd heard good things about his others, but I was pretty dissapointed with this one. I didn't even finish it... it's sort of lying abandoned on my bookshelf.

The third book in 'A Series of Unfortunate Events'...UGH. We had to read it for English...it was most irritating book I have ever read. I wanted to squish it into a mushy pile with the wheel of my grandfather's milkfloat.

Which one is that, the Lumbermill one?

I absolutely loathe anything written by JRR Tolkien; The Hobbit was almost bearable, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy was one big, dry spell.

Similarly, I detest the entire Narnia series, by C.S. Lewis (although The Screwtape Letters) was wonderful, in comparison). All I got from the series was a massive Judeo-Christian analogy, and I thought it was poorly written to boot.
Curiously enough, both Lewis and Tolkien were said to have collaborated on their works together. Hmm. :D

Perhaps my general distaste for fantasy doesnt help anything...

-D

I absolutely despised the book A Separate Peace. It was so painfully masculine that I swear I grew a mustache while I was reading it. Gene was annoying and petty, and Finny was sort of an imbecile.

It was such a pain to try to read.

I absolutely loathe anything written by JRR Tolkien; The Hobbit was almost bearable, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy was one big, dry spell.

Similarly, I detest the entire Narnia series, by C.S. Lewis (although The Screwtape Letters) was wonderful, in comparison). All I got from the series was a massive Judeo-Christian analogy, and I thought it was poorly written to boot.
Curiously enough, both Lewis and Tolkien were said to have collaborated on their works together. Hmm. :D

Perhaps my general distaste for fantasy doesnt help anything...

-D

Awww, i absolutely love JRR Tolkien's writings.

I hates the odd books by dean koontz.. hes a good writer, but i mean the books got alot of hype from public reviewers and the series wasn't all that good in my opinion.

I hates the odd books by dean koontz.. hes a good writer, but i mean the books got alot of hype from public reviewers and the series wasn't all that good in my opinion.


Awe. I loved the first odd book. The second and third are... not as good.

Awe. I loved the first odd book. The second and third are... not as good.

Yea, i only read the first one and didn't enjoy it.. :)

I've tried reading several of Jane Austen's books and I stop after a few pages. I actually made it about 30 pages into Pride and Prejudice but that's only because I saw the movie so I actually understood a little.
I have a hard time with the language in older novels. Shakespeare is the equivalent of watching paint dry to me.
I only enjoyed Macbeth in HS because we watched the movie clips after each section so you got a feel for the scene.

All I got from the series was a massive Judeo-Christian analogy

I'm curious; did you know about the intended analogy going in? Because every person I've ever talked to or read about completely missed the Christian analogy on the first read-through (at least until The Last Battle, when it gets a bit less allegorical). Many of the less theistically-inclined felt quite betrayed when they found out.

Eyes of the King by Catherine Banner - still disgusted that I picked it up at all - I got caught up in all the hype. And it really sucks

Middlemarch by George Elliot was awful and Wuthering Heights fills me with dispair for the sanity of all those craz