I will admit that I don't think I will ever finish the Foundation Trilogy, I found it to be extremely tedious and boring, and stopped reading in the beginning of the third book.
Death Stalks Door County by Patricia Skalka. I had to look use Google to find out who wrote it and was rather surprised to find it has some respectable reviews on both Goodreads and Amazon, so I don't know if the problem was with my copy, but it read like it was written and then published without any kind of feedback or editing. The plot was unnecessarily convoluted and full of holes, character motivation was either far too heavy handed or missing entirely, people frequently acted contrary to their established character and/or common sense, and wording and dialog were at some points just odd and so out of place that it couldn't help but break whatever illusion I'd bothered creating.
I came here to post exactly the same thing. I know it's considered a seminal sci-fi epic. But I also found it boring. It didn't really need to be a trilogy in my opinion. An "interesting" bad book was The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro. The whole thing was frustrating, the characters all seemed the same, and it was ultimately pointless. But something about it was compelling and made me read to the end. When I got to the end I couldn't decide whether I loved it or hated it. If the frustration it created was deliberate, it was a work of genius. Otherwise, it was terrible.
If that's the one I think it is, it's one of the books that makes me support Kafka's final request that all of his works be burned unread. "Kafkaesque" is an obscenity in my vocabulary, and I refuse to waste my time one nonlinear gibberish with no point.
It's the one about the pianist in the unnamed city, who spends the whole book trying to practice for the concert, and in the end Spoiler fucks the whole thing off.
There was a science fiction book I can't even recall the title of. It was long-winded, with forgettable characters, a nonsense plot, confusing dialogue (you never knew who was speaking), and the many, many, many, terms that were thrown around, all of which made me feel stupid for not knowing. I eventually gave up searching the meaning for them; it gave me a headache. In fact, the whole damn thing was a headache inducing mess.
Leaving aside books that are simply badly written (SPAG errors, clunky writing, etc) my least favourite book of the past 10 years or so has definitely been Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon. It's the first book in the Outlander series. It came highly recommended to me by an American friend of mine, and sounded interesting. So I bought it. I persevered through to about the 7/8 mark and then I actually threw it in the bin. It was horrible in so many ways, I don't know where to start. Fatuous, unpleasant and cliché-ridden storyline and character development. Poor grasp of what Scotland is like and what the 45 Rebellion was all about. Dreadful hackneyed attempt at the Scottish language. Ken. Ken. Ken ken ken.... Just ...aack. The only thing I found worthwhile was the intriguing notion of what might happen to a woman who discovered she could go back and forth in time. That's the sort of time-travel device that could have made a really good story, in the hands of an author who isn't simply drooling over S&M rape fantasies about a guy in a kilt. I haven't been motivated to watch the TV series based on Gabaldon's story, but I have been told it's 'better than the books.' I find that easy to believe.
I meant this: It's a stereotypical Scottish word, which is why I posted it in response to jannert lamenting the stereotyped Scottish language in the book she was describing.
I had to eject out of this thread when The Catcher in the Rye was nominated three times on the first page. I mean, how am I suppose to take you folks seriously after that?
It might be because it gets foisted on people at school as a Great Work Of Literature. I read it as an adult, and thought it was okay, with Holden coming across as more tragic and damaged than admirable.
That's reasonable. I suspect some folks are using this thread to nominate books they feel are overrated, as opposed to the "worst" book they've ever read. And I agree that Holden is much more damaged than admirable, but in my experience that's well recognized. He's a confused and troubled teenager. That is an archetype that isn't often admired, but when executed properly, is often relatable.
I think a lot of people have a knee-jerk reaction against books they were forced to read in school. That might be a major reason why The Catcher in the Rye is often on people's shit list.
I didn't finish any of Tolkien's books, they felt like they dragged things out too much. I also didn't get past earth blowing up in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, reading the exact same line between the guy losing his home and the planet about to blow might be responsible there. My brother never let me live that down. My mother bought me Emma by Jane Austen, which didn't get very far. I don't remember much, but I found reading it tedious. I admit I've only read the sporking, but 50 Shades struck me as God-awful. Fitting, when one considers it Twilight fanfiction. Oh, and Breaking Dawn. Twilight overall isn't great, but the conclusion was an overdose of wish fulfilment and an attempt to make the final package too neat. That really woke me up as a teenager.
most people. I liked the majority of my summer readings. Catcher in the Rye was just.... i dont know how to describe it. I didnt DIS-like it, but I wouldnt read it again, haha!
When I was young and impressionable I was told that reading Franz Kafka proved that one is an intellectual. So I tried to read The Metamorphosis, 'never did finish it, if you have to read s*** like that to be an intellectual I think I'll stay a peasant. This is the best review of the book I've ever seen.
Agreed! It wasnt terrible or "the worst" book I'd read, but it was so far removed from the first 3 books. it felt forced and like a fanfiction. Like all the books in the Maximum Ride series after the first 3 books. they werent terrible, but it just didnt fit.
I couldn't even get through any of the film adaptations. I've never seen anything so boring. I had to read The Hobbit at school. It was shit.
The Last Temptation of Christ. Good basic premide, utter shit writing, zero knowledge of the setting. No maize in the Middle East then, no sea scorpions in the Sea of Galilee, every apostle is described as a hook-nosed Nazi caricature of a Jew....
