The worst book you've ever read or had to have read

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.

 

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

 

The Da Vinci Code

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. (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