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

Did you honestly expect anything better after the train wreck called the twilight Saga?

 

Did you honestly expect anything better after the train wreck called the twilight Saga?

Well...I wouldn't use as strong a word as 'expect.' More like, 'hopeful.' The Host has a stronger premise, I think, than Twilight. Unfortunately, it felt to me like the execution of said premise was much worse than Twilight. I think maybe what drives me crazy about Meyer is that I see the potential in her stories, but I don't see it delievered. Her seriously warped idea of romance gets in the way.

 

I found the Bible pretty heavy going.

 

Well they weren't exactly aiming for readability and entertainment value...

 

They seriously need to retool it

 

"I found the Bible pretty heavy going."

Aww, I think a lot of the OT is a pretty good read. There's so much drama in there, man! Kind of depends which version you read, too...

 

I found parts of it entertaining. And while I don't believe in it, there's some sound common sense and fundamental truths to be found in that book... What baffles me is the amount of Christians I know who never even glanced at the damned thing.

 

They need to jazz up the characters a bit

 

So, blasphemy aside...what secular books do we dislike?

 

Dissoluton by C.J. Sansom......struggling with this one at the min

 

The Eye Of The World, the first book in the wheel of time series. I don't like reading an entire page devoted to what a minor character's face looks like.

 

Ahhh Wheel of time.

And if you thought the first one (which I thoguht was Ok) was slow, well, it moves at the speed of light compared to some of the later books.

 

Oh wow!

First off, whoever said they didn't like Charles Dickens I take mortal offense because I LOVE Oliver Twist, but I get how the old english makes the book somewhat less enjoyable. Anyways...

Worst book ever, Lord of the Flies. It was a month of reading descriptions about an island and a bunch of boys getting in petty fights. I was never sad when a character died because I didn't feel attached to one of them. It was a waste of my time I will never get back. Sorry if that offends anyone but it is my firm opinion.

 

Eragon is definitely the worst book I've ever read. I don't have a problem, as do many others, with cliches, but Eragon was very contrived, and it didn't speak to my spirit, which is something I expect from good literature.

 

You can't retool the bible. That's like reinventing the law of gravity. It just won't work. As for being entertainment value, that's like saying every non-fiction book is supposed to be entertaining. Non-fiction only appeals to those who are interested and want to learn about what that certain book says.
As for my least favorite book, I disliked it so much, I can't even remember what the title was. It was something of a love story with moles. Yes, I did say moles. Not the ones on your face, but the ones which burrow through the ground. The main character switched so many times, it wasn't even funny anymore. I found the plot boring and hard to follow, and the only reason I ever picked up the book was because it was compared to "The Lord of the Rings." Ya right. After reading it, I dumped it in the recycling bin, and I think someone in my family used it to start a fire. Atleast we got some form of energy from it.

 

The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, hands down.

Cliche idea, but then again, most cliche ideas do have potential --it's why they're cliche in the first place. And he blew it, bigtime.

After minor dissection, I understood and vaguely admired Crane's point about addressing characters by description instead of by name, but I couldnt keep those characters straight, and it wasnt a grandiose cast to begin with. Even that could have been done better --and I've read novels in which it has been executed properly.

Ugh, it was awful.

PS: The Bible has either the biggest or one of the biggest records for copies sold and is also the number one shoplifted book. I get a kick out of that every time.

 

To be fair, a good number of people who own it aren't necessarily picking it up for spiritual reasons. I own three copies, each a different translation, and have read all the way through (except select bits of Chronicles) each of them, and I'm not religious.

I'm trying to read through Angels and Demons because I thought the movie was hilarious. To be fair, the book is pretty damn funny as well, but the writing is abysmal.

 

Shoplifted, or stolen?

The bible distrubuted to hotels across the country by the Gideons is often taken by guests, but many hotels treat this as a theft statistic.

 

Worst book(s) I've read without realizing it was bad until much later:

The Inheritance Cycle/Trilogy/Quadrology/Whatever


Book considered worst to some that I consider one of the best book ever:

The Catcher in the Rye (in my opinion, if you look at it really closely, Salinger did a great and wellthought out job of characterization when it comes to an angsty teenager, as opposed to many other authors)


Worst book I've read, period:

Most of the Newbery Medal stories I read in Middle School. Personally, I can't think of any at the moment, but I mentioned this on other threads, I just hate how predictable the stories could get. Basic plot of most Newbery Medal stories:

1. MC, a young kid, must learn to grapple with some tough social issue (or win some contest that somehow is related to some tough social issue), something like racism, comingofage rites in a tribal society, colonialism, piracy, whatever.

2. MC comments on the said social issue in the most unrealistic and forced way possible, in my opinion. MC then tries to manage their way around said social issue.

3. Either the mentor, the best friend, a close relative, or the dog of the MC dies. Yes, it's always one of these, usually, especially the dog.

4. MC must "mature" (yeah, sure) and goes "beyond" the social issue or something like that.

Frankly, I'm sorry, but even children can distinguish sometimes between bad stories and more decent ones, especially if it gets pushed in our face a lot.

 

Many Bibles would also be stolen because historic Bibles are often very valuable. Some of the most valuable "old books" are Bibles.

In fact, while I was researching my novel "The Jefferson Bible Code" which uses a lot of historical/factual information as the backdrop for my fiction, I learned about a theft that I incorporated as a part of my story. Some years back, four books were stolen from the historic Stone Library built by the instructions of John Quincy Adams to house the Adams library at their Quincy Massachusetts home. Of the four books stolen, three of them were Bibles owned by John Adams or John Quincy Adams, and they were quite valuable. They were later recovered and returned to the museum. They were most likely stolen for the purpose of reselling them for profit.

The fact that many Bibles are stolen may be a funny fact to the irreligious, but in all honestly, many aren't stolen by religious people for the purpose of reading them.

 

Well, I just thought I'd let rip a rant.

I'm usually quite a fan of gritty thrillers, and I was overjoyed when I got my paws on the new Martina Cole novel 'The Business' for the princely sum of £3.74 out of Tesco. I saved it for after my exam and essay, for when I was sunning myself on a sandy beach on the coast of Scotland on my holiday.

The synopsis made it look so promising. And then I started reading.

What a pile of rubbish. Apart from the fact that the whole novel could be half the length due to blatent and irritating repetition of facts already known to the reader, the writing... oh the writing... I sat, reading it, with the sad knowledge that, having spent just a few weeks reading reviews of other people's work in the review room, if this book went in there, it would be torn to shreds.

The plus side to having (forced myself to) finished it was that I felt a renewed hope in my heart. Because if rubbish like that can get published, and SELL, then there's hope for me.

But Martina Cole-? I want my £3.74 back, please.

 

The very worst book I have ever read is most likely The Dream-Hunter, by Sherrilyn Kenyon. In essence, it's a silly story that has boring characters who are all basically the same - that being tall and beautiful - and a predictable plotline.

 

The Isle of Stone by Nicolas Nicastro.

After reading all the praising reviews, I decide to take a chanve and see if it appealed to me. After the first 3 pages, I came to one magnificent conclusion... it didn't appeal in the least. The language was down right awlful, both in choice of vocabulary, and in the supposed action scenes. Then again, this is just in my opinion.

 

Just a comment: The Bible is actually a pretty shoddy book, perhaps because the standards were low at the time. Who among even Christians ever gets through it?

Once, a preacher came to my door, preaching Christianity. I began a conversation with him about The Bible. When I asked him, the man standing at my door discussing Christianity, "How many times have you read The Bible?" his answer was: "I read it once. It's possible."

"It's possible" was the key expression. He was going door to door preaching about a book that he had read only once, which might take all of three days to read in its entirety.

I think that qualifies it as being a very poorly-written book.

 

It actually tickles me a little, the bible. Apart from it's incredibly contradictory nature, the old testiment in particular, is actually filled with sex, violence and betrayal, and reads like a thriller. Of course, you have to get through fourteen pages of 'Shablom, son of Daniel, Son of Ishmael, Son of David, Son of Macnamasit, Son of...' before you get to it.

My particular favourite is the story of Lot that wasn't told in School. The part where the Angels came to stay with him, and the townspeople of Soddom and Gomorroah knocked at his door and asked for the Angels so they could have sex with them and he offered his daughters instead. Followed of course by them fleeing, his wife turning into a pillar of salt, and then hiding up in the hills, just the two daughters and the father. Deciding their bloodline would be lost, the girls took it in turn to then get their father drunk (and possibly drugged him) and slept with him, in order to get pregnant.

I mean, for a 'child friendly' book, there is some very disturbing content in there.