# What's the worst book you've ever read?



## Joseph_Evans (Jul 24, 2011)

I'm struggling to think of mine . . . Is there one book in your pile that you absolutely hated?


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## sheiler1963 (Nov 23, 2011)

Hands down without even thinking about it I can answer this. It was 'A Child Called It' by David Pelzer. I actually paged to the end to find the punch line or the place where someone was going to admit that the whole thing was a parody or a farce. I never found it. What really galled me is when I read umpteen praises for it on another forum as being, 'gut wrenching/heartbreaking/*insert your adjective here*. Within the topic I posted a link to an article that was in the NYT titled 'Dysfunction for Dollars' that outlined what a bunch of malarkey the book was and even THEN the folks on the other forum refused to accept it. One person even quoted a blurb that David Pelzer himself wrote to promote the book as 'evidence' that the book was a factual story and scolded me for saying otherwise. 
UGH! I need a vomit emoticon to adequately convey my feelings toward this utterly useless waste of paper and my time spent reading it.


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## woulfe (May 22, 2012)

I would have to say Deadly Waters by Pauline Rowson. Truly dreadful plot, one dimensional characters and laughable police procedures, perhaps her other novels are better


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## rweinstein6 (Aug 2, 2011)

I hardly ever put down a book, but the one I remember not getting more than 25 pages into was "Son of a Witch" by Gregory Maguire. I had read Wicked and loved it, but couldn't bear this one. The vocab was too difficult, and I don't mean the SAT words, either!


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## Iris (May 16, 2012)

Hard to say, as I would never finish them.

I do have a few that were much ballyhooed in the press that I just hated and didn't get beyond 100 pages (I give every book 100 pages). There was a really incredibly lauded book by Martin someone. Maybe Martin Amos? Martin Amis? I forget. Started out with an anal sex scene (a really boring one) and I couldn't even force myself to read 100 pages.

It's around here somewhere. I'll go try to find it. Will update.

Edit:I think it was The Information I might have made it 20 pages into this book before simply forgetting it.

Apparently I am unique in this reaction, as it was incredibly well-received by critics. It didn't grab me at all. I had to fail at my 100 page rule! I swear, I didn't even make it 20 pages into this whatever it was (I hesitate to call it a book). Hated it.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

I have a violent dislike for _Empire of the Senseless_ by Kathy Acker, which I was supposed to read for a class on postmodern literature at university and which infuriated me so much that I threw it against the nearest wall and thought, "I'm not reading one more page of this and if I get a bad grade, then so be it." Turned out that no one in the class, from the sweet Christian boy who loved Jesus and his wife (in that order) to the radical feminist lesbian, had been able to stomach that book and that no one had finished it.

Assigned books sometimes provoke violent dislike, because you don't choose them and have to read them whether you want to or not. Apart from _Empire of the Senseless_, the assigned book I hated most was _All Quiet on the Western Front_ by Erich Maria Remarque, which I was forced to read in 10th grade. My dislike for that novel was so strong that I never read anything set during WWI again. In retrospect, there was assigned reading at school that was even worse, e.g. _Emilia Galotti_ by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, an 18th century play that promotes honour killings and caused a lot of fury among the female students in my class. That one is so horrible I wonder what it was doing on the school reading list at all. But I still hated _All Quiet on the Western Front_ more, because in _Emilia Galotti_ there at least was something happening, even if that something culminated in some guy honour killing his daughter, which we were supposed to see as a strike for freedom and democracy. _All Quiet on the Western Front_ was basically just pages upon pages of "war is hell", a message that was as obvious as "water is wet" to me and any other student in that class.

As for books I actually picked myself and hated, I have very bad memories of _Valentina_ by Fern Michaels, a bodiceripper type historical romance set during the Crusades full of rape and violence and the heroine being desired by two brothers and pretty much everybody else in the book, including a lesbian Berengaria of Navarre.

_Demon Rumm_, an early category romance by Sandra Brown, is another really dreadful book (I only finished it because I was in the doctor's waiting room with nothing else to read). This one has an overbearing hero, a big dark secret that had me going, "Huh, that's all." and would have been solved by modern medical technology in five minutes and the worst sexual euphemism in any romance novel ever.


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## Atunah (Nov 20, 2008)

CoraBuhlert said:


> As for books I actually picked myself and hated, I have very bad memories of _Valentina_ by Fern Michaels, a bodiceripper type historical romance set during the Crusades full of rape and violence and the heroine being desired by two brothers and pretty much everybody else in the book, including a lesbian Berengaria of Navarre.


OMG I had to look this up after this description . It was written in 1978. That a hard core very early bodice ripper. Its got the sold into slavery theme, and holy moly that cover . I flove looking at them and reading the description as a pop culture kind of thing. I think that was her very first book too, looking at her extensive list.

I am still thinking if I can come of with a worst book I read. I have read so many books in my lifetime, that I don't think I could remember the ones I hated. I am sure there were some, but I must have blocked them out. 
I'll keep thinking. Mine would probably also be from school required reading in Germany. There was some odd reading material, that I do remember. But what it was? Blank in brain.


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## xandy3 (Jun 13, 2010)

I can't remember the name of it...but I had to read it for 9th grade English class.  The heroine was such a mary sue, she might as well have been named Mary Sue. The plot was completely trite, about a nice girl who fell for the bad boy...They ran away together, and lived in the YMCA  

I seriously did NOT want to finish this, but I didn't want to fail the subsequent quiz pertaining to our reading assignments.  

UUGH! It was torture.


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## Joel Snape (Apr 10, 2012)

The Basement, by Stephen Leather. It was a right old mess, quite disturbingly porn-y in places, and it was one of those pieces of fiction where, as soon as you know that there's a twist - which all the publicity material makes abundantly clear - it's incredibly obvious what the 'twist' is going to be. I only finished it because it's barely an afternoon of reading.


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## lucasfernan (Apr 25, 2012)

Eat Pray Love. Without a doubt the worst!


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## Nell Gavin (Jul 3, 2010)

xandy3 said:


> The heroine was such a mary sue, she might as well have been named Mary Sue.


Off-topic: Does anyone watch Top Chef Masters? Only a writer (or a reader with the inside scoop) could appreciate it when one of the contestants was "Mary Sue" - and she was a Mary Sue.


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## marianneg (Nov 4, 2008)

I hated Watership Down and Catcher in the Rye in high school. Otherwise, I'm with Iris - I probably wouldn't finish a book I was hating on if I was just reading for pleasure.


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## Joseph_Evans (Jul 24, 2011)

I think I've thought of mine. It will probably be a controversial decision but . . . I hated The Color Purple by Alice Walker. I studied it for English Literature A Level and I was the only boy in a class of girls, and it seemed like the whole book was completely anti-men. I felt like I had to convince the rest of the class that there are actually decent guys out there.


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## Krista D. Ball (Mar 8, 2011)

Oh, I hated that book.

My university English prof said there are two reactions to that novel: People who love it, and people who learn to love it when they grow up. I've gone back and re-read it a couple of times. It's been 19 years since that comment. I still hate the book (in fact, as I grow older, I hate it even more).

So, I suppose I will never grow up...


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## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

There have been a few I disliked so much I couldn't finish. I'll not name them as maybe they got better. Of the ones I did finish and hated, the one that comes most to mind is At Risk by Patricia Cornwell. Written in first person present tense, it was a mess of a book. Fortunately it was short.


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## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Atunah said:


> OMG I had to look this up after this description . It was written in 1978. That a hard core very early bodice ripper. Its got the sold into slavery theme, and holy moly that cover . I flove looking at them and reading the description as a pop culture kind of thing. I think that was her very first book too, looking at her extensive list.


I picked up _Valentina_ from a bargain bin at the one local bookstore that carried English books sometime in the late 1980s and the paperback was already battered and yellowing back then. I guess I expected something along the lines of Ann Golon's _Angelique_ series, instead I got this prime bit of literary insanity. Fern Michaels apparently started out writing bodiceripper type historicals before switching to the women's fiction stuff she's known for today.



> I am still thinking if I can come of with a worst book I read. I have read so many books in my lifetime, that I don't think I could remember the ones I hated. I am sure there were some, but I must have blocked them out.
> I'll keep thinking. Mine would probably also be from school required reading in Germany. There was some odd reading material, that I do remember. But what it was? Blank in brain.


Assigned school reading in Germany was dreadful when I was a teenager in the 1980s and it didn't get much better since then. They're still inflicting Schiller's _Wilhelm Tell_ on 7th graders and they're still presenting books with very little in the way of historical context at all (and a contemporary teenager needs historical context even for postwar writing), though I hope the blatantly misogynist works like _Emilia Galotti_ or the noxious _Drachenblut_ by Christoph Hein (based on the title I hoped for a fantasy novel and got East German misogyny instead) have vanished from the reading lists by now.


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## KTaylor-Green (Aug 24, 2011)

There have been quite a few books that I have started but couldn't finish because I just couldn't get into them. But the one I read and just hated was Clouded Rainbow by Jonathon Sturak. And I finished it!!!! Because I just couldn't believe it wasn't going to turn a corner I guess. An amazon freebie that I wouldn't recommend to anyone.


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## Darlene Jones (Nov 1, 2011)

I hated the Da Vinci Code. Now, I stop reading if I think a book is really bad.


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## Darlene Jones (Nov 1, 2011)

Forgot to say The Night Circus - stopped reading that one early on in the book.


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## rweinstein6 (Aug 2, 2011)

marianneg said:


> I hated Watership Down and Catcher in the Rye in high school. Otherwise, I'm with Iris - I probably wouldn't finish a book I was hating on if I was just reading for pleasure.


Oh. My. God. I read Catcher last year and absolutely despised it. I hated the writing, I hated the MC (he's so whiny!!!), everything about it. It was an uphill battle just to finish it!! Watership Down, on the other hand, I loved.


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## Sophrosyne (Mar 27, 2011)

Anything by Gertrude Stein. There was also a Saul Bellow book that I picked up -- I don't remember the name of it -- but after it took the protag. 71 pages to walk across a library, I couldn't take it anymore and I tossed it. I guess I'm a philistine.


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## Tracey (Mar 18, 2010)

Without a doubt Wuthering Heights.  I have tried to read this book 5 times and have just plain given up now.  Just awful.


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## Margo Karasek (Feb 29, 2012)

I'm embarrassed to write this, but . . . Moby Dick. I just couldn't do it. I quit midway and I _always_ finish the books I start. This is the only one I hadn't. I guess I should try again.


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## Verbena (Sep 1, 2011)

I think the worst book you've read were all in our country.For example,Never flowers In Never dream.This was a YA novel,but it's not interesting.


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## HarryK (Oct 20, 2011)

I think the worst book I ever read (or tried to read) was Hardwired by Walter Jon Williams. It was during my "cyberpunk" phase, and I had enjoyed some William Gibson stuff I had read at the time. A friend of mine was raving about this new book he had just finished. Annoyingly he wouldn't let me borrow his copy, and came up with all kinds of excuses for not loaning it out. So I ended up buying my own copy. I think I got about 50 or 60 pages in before I decided I just did not like it. 

It was a long time ago so I don't remember it very well, but IIRC nothing much seemed to happen, and I didn't find any of the characters particularly interesting.


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## Alexandra Sokoloff (Sep 21, 2009)

I'm with Iris. Why EVER finish a book you're hating?  Life's too short.


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## WVMark (Feb 23, 2011)

I have a long list.
Most of the books that were required reading in High School.  Silas Marner being at the top.  But, pretty much anything by Poul Anderson.  Just couldn't stand them.

The really funny part is that I could never get through Tolkien.  I tried and tried but just couldn't finish his books.  I absolutely love the movies, though.  Can't read the books but watch the extended versions of the movies over again.

Mark


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

The Alphabet Versus the Goddess. One of the worst books I ever finished. I finished it so I could properly appreciate how truly bad it was.


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## smallblondehippy (Jan 20, 2012)

Easy: Eclipse from the Twilight series. It's the only book I've ever thrown across a room in frustration. I kept waiting for Bella to stop snivelling and grow a backbone. She never did. Somebody bought me the series so I felt I had to read them all. Ugrh. Makes me shiver just to think about it.


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## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

smallblondehippy said:


> Easy: Eclipse from the Twilight series. It's the only book I've ever thrown across a room in frustration. I kept waiting for Bella to stop snivelling and grow a backbone. She never did. Somebody bought me the series so I felt I had to read them all. Ugrh. Makes me shiver just to think about it.


See, and I knew she was a sniveler with no backbone from reading nothing more than the sample of the first book. . .and that's when I quit.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

I didn't find her all that snivelling.  I just thought there was way too much teenage angst and yearning.  And too much where nothing happened.  But somehow I read all three books...my daughter-in-law loved them.

Betsy


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

My detestation for _The Hunger Games_ is an inexhaustible and it is intractable. It proved to me, at least, that adults should never bother with young adult novels unless they want to cultivate their inner thirteen year old.


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## smallblondehippy (Jan 20, 2012)

Ann in Arlington said:


> See, and I knew she was a sniveler with no backbone from reading nothing more than the sample of the first book. . .and that's when I quit.


If only I had done the same... I'll put it down to mindless optimism. "Surely, this book must get better?" It didn't.


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## Craig Halloran (May 15, 2012)

Alexandra Sokoloff said:


> I'm with Iris. Why EVER finish a book you're hating? Life's too short.


Yep.


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## Thumper (Feb 26, 2009)

_1984_.
Absolutely hated it.

But...last year I got an audio copy and listened to it on a couple of long training walks, and hearing it made all the difference. Loved it this time around.


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## adammjohnson (Dec 5, 2011)

Most everything that I've HATED has come from required reading. I was especially unlucky to get an 11th grade HS English Teacher who was a bit of a feminazi and inflicted 19th century proto-feminist literature upon us. Suffice to say that neither 'The Awakening' nor 'Ethan Fromme' were enjoyed. 'Billy Budd' and 'Heart of Darkness' (not the same class) also really annoyed me for some reason. And I hated 'House on Mango Street' and some other novel that was obviously included in my 9th grade English curricula because it had an African American in a wheel chair as a main character (forgotten the title.) Also pretty much everything I was forced to endure in Middle School has been blocked from my mind.

I'm also a little annoyed to this day at what happened to Doug Adams' Hitchhiker books.

In general though I'd agree that life is too short to read lousy books.


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## Betsy the Quilter (Oct 27, 2008)

adammjohnson said:


> I'm also a little annoyed to this day at what happened to Doug Adams' Hitchhiker books.


I'm almost afraid to ask...what happened to Adams' Hitchhiker books?

Betsy


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## Joel Snape (Apr 10, 2012)

Betsy the Quilter said:


> I'm almost afraid to ask...what happened to Adams' Hitchhiker books?
> 
> Betsy


]

They got Eoin Colfer to write one and it was apparently not very good. Not sure if that's what OP is referencing, though...


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## Seleya (Feb 25, 2011)

The worst book I finished? 
It was the only one I read from the 'Sword of Truth' series (I've forgotten the title, and it was the Italian edition anyway). it was the only time in which, reading a book, I could predict what would happen almost scene by scene, it felt like reading a sado-maso mash-up of 'The Wheel of Time', I can only think I finished it out of an horrified fascination (_it can't go on like this till the end... Yes it does _)

The worst I didn't finish was _The Doomsday Book_, I'd heard good things about it but the stereotyped characters, plot-lines that didn't go anywhere, terrible research and the absurd portrayals of academic historians (those characters would be booed out of any junior high school, let alone university) grated on my nerves so much that I gave the book away and will not touch another novel from the same author with a ten-foot pole.


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## grudginglycurmudgeonly (Jun 9, 2012)

*The Bourne Legacy, by coffin shaker Eric Van Lustbader*

*Proof if ever there need be that fan fiction should remain in the forumverse*


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## D.L. Shutter (Jul 9, 2011)

Had to be Silver Tower by Dale Brown, unreadable. I was blown away by Flight of the Old Dog during my Tom Clancy-techno-thriller phase, and I ran out and bought Brown's follow up. Chapter after chapter of agonizing techno babble with nothing happening.


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## xandy3 (Jun 13, 2010)

Thumper said:


> _1984_.
> Absolutely hated it.


Good to see I'm not alone. I actually prefered _Brave New World_ to that one...

(Coincidentally, I had to read 1984_ IN 1984_. Made it seem even worse somehow. LOL)


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## smallblondehippy (Jan 20, 2012)

adammjohnson said:


> Most everything that I've HATED has come from required reading.


Yep. At school I was forced to read Of Mice and Men, 1984 and Down and Out in Paris and London. Hated them all. Now I won't read anything else by those authors, even though I know I'm probably missing some great literature. Oh, the scars of school...


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## Katja (Jun 4, 2011)

That would be...



pretty much the only book I've ever marked as DNF. I just hated it. The MC was annoying to the point of making me furious. Not to mention the story was ridiculously dull. I made it about half way through. Usually I finish all the books I start reading, no matter how bad, but this one I just couldn't.


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## drenfrow (Jan 27, 2010)

One that sticks in my mind is _The Bridges of Madison County_. It was on the bestseller list for an incredible length of time. I detested it and hated how weak the main character seemed to me. I remember ranting about it to an older woman and saying "Who? Who likes this book?", and she said "Women who stayed." Wow. Put it all in perspective. On the other hand, I thought the movie version of it was actually quite good.


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## C_Routon (Jun 7, 2012)

The worst that comes to mind is one of Nora Roberts' early romances, _Blythe Images_. The hero was one of the cocky billionaire types and the heroine was supposed to be a model, but she was always doing her own hair and makeup. It was one of those I don't like you, yes, I do, no I don't type romance novels. It's the only Nora Roberts I never finished, although I did come close with _The Villa_, one of her stand alone novels. It read like an episode of Falcon Crest and I was left with, okay? So what? Abosolutely nothing happens to this family in this villa. They make wine, they live their lives, the end. She could have tossed a ghost or a mad ex-wife or mother in the attic and made it a Victoria Holt gothic at least.

I never finished the first Laurell K. Hamilton Anita Blake novel. My husband told me since I liked Charlaine Harris' books I'd like the Anita Blake books too. I couldn't get through the first one.

For school books, I read _Stones for Ibarra _ in a college fiction class. It wasn't bad, but it's not a book I would go back to over and over again.


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## nmg222 (Sep 14, 2010)

The Gate House by Nelson DeMille.  700 pages of nothing.  No character development, no plot, nothing.  It was the sequel to The Gold Coast, one of my favorites which made it even more disappointing.

Honorable mention to Moby Dick.


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## Lady Runa (May 27, 2012)

_Foucault Pendulum_. The irony of it was, it was right up my alley, a tongue-in-cheek story about esoteric conspiracies. But it just dragged and dragged and had no emotional peaks at all. It was the only book I very nearly returned to the shop. The problem was, I bought it to read on a train and by the time I knew I hated it, the train was already 500 miles away from the shop


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

smallblondehippy said:


> Yep. At school I was forced to read Of Mice and Men, 1984 and Down and Out in Paris and London. Hated them all. Now I won't read anything else by those authors, even though I know I'm probably missing some great literature. Oh, the scars of school...


I've begun to think that high schools shouldn't make students read classic literature. It doesn't lead to a love of literature, it leads to a _hatred_ of literature. Let them read what they like, and see that they can comprehend what they read. I think more students would enjoy reading this way. Other students could still read the classics if they wanted, perhaps they could even get extra credit by reading tougher material. If you made every student in physical education classes do a triathlon, that might be great for the best athletes in school, but it would just make the rest hate physical activity.

If high school students need to be exposed to Shakespeare, it should be a play or a movie, the scripts is difficult enough to follow in the first place, and it is meant to be seen rather than read.


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## Patricia (Dec 30, 2008)

Great Expectations.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

It wasn't awful - but I was really disappointed in Mockingjay - after loving the first two books.  So disappointed..


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## Patricia (Dec 30, 2008)

Thanks, I'm still trying to get through Mockingjay.  But to be fair, I've had a lot going on in my life lately.


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## WVMark (Feb 23, 2011)

QuantumIguana said:


> I've begun to think that high schools shouldn't make students read classic literature. It doesn't lead to a love of literature, it leads to a _hatred_ of literature. Let them read what they like, and see that they can comprehend what they read. I think more students would enjoy reading this way. Other students could still read the classics if they wanted, perhaps they could even get extra credit by reading tougher material. If you made every student in physical education classes do a triathlon, that might be great for the best athletes in school, but it would just make the rest hate physical activity.
> 
> If high school students need to be exposed to Shakespeare, it should be a play or a movie, the scripts is difficult enough to follow in the first place, and it is meant to be seen rather than read.


For the most part, I definitely agree with you. Most of the "Classics" aren't worth reading. I think the only reason they are called the "Classics" is because the teachers keep making students read them. How many people actually read them outside of school?

Mark


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

WVMark said:


> How many people actually read them outside of school?


I read a few every year. They're some of the best books ever written. One chapter of Faulkner, Melville, Hardy, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Steinbeck, Hemingway are better than all the novels of J.D. Robb, E.L. James, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Charlaine Harris, John Grisham, John Sandford combined. IMHO.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

WVMark said:


> For the most part, I definitely agree with you. Most of the "Classics" aren't worth reading. I think the only reason they are called the "Classics" is because the teachers keep making students read them. How many people actually read them outside of school?
> 
> Mark


As I see it, it's not about their being worth reading. Only the reader can decide if something is worth reading. Teachers mean well, they want to inspire a love of reading, so they shove the classics at students. For some kids, this works great, they devour them. But for others, this discouorages them from reading at all. There are classics that are kept on life support, and aren't read that much unless people have to. But there are plenty of classics that are still widely read. I can go into any bookstore and pick up Jane Austen or Dickens, just to give a couple examples. They wouldn't stock them if people weren't reading them.

But just because there are a lot of people who will read these books doesn't mean that all students will want to read them. The language changes can be a significant barrier for a lot of students. There are plenty of contemporary books that students could read, we're not talking about students doing book reports on Captain Underpants, for example.

The option should always be open for students to read more challenging books, of course.


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## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

_Great Expectations_ by Charles Dickens. I only got through the first chapter and just couldn't read more. Let's just say it didn't meet my expectations.


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## John Blackport (Jul 18, 2011)

WVMark said:


> For the most part, I definitely agree with you. Most of the "Classics" aren't worth reading. I think the only reason they are called the "Classics" is because the teachers keep making students read them. How many people actually read them outside of school?


Not only that . . . some of the classics were written in the nineteenth century. Back when the literacy rate for children was _much lower._ When teaching children to read was not compulsory, or not enforced, particularly with children whose families weren't rich. Back when many children worked on farms or factories. Back when reading books was entertainment for adults, when parents buying books for children was not nearly as common as it is now.

Books like _Lord Jim, Moby Dick_ and _Great Expectations_ are not for children, because most children reading them will get _bored._

It doesn't necessarily mean the books are crap, but it does mean that literature classes for children should focus more on short stories than on novels.


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## QuantumIguana (Dec 29, 2010)

John Blackport said:


> Not only that . . . some of the classics were written in the nineteenth century. Back when the literacy rate for children was _much lower._ When teaching children to read was not compulsory, or not enforced, particularly with children whose families weren't rich. Back when many children worked on farms or factories. Back when reading books was entertainment for adults, when parents buying books for children was not nearly as common as it is now.
> 
> Books like _Lord Jim, Moby Dick_ and _Great Expectations_ are not for children, because most children reading them will get _bored._
> 
> It doesn't necessarily mean the books are crap, but it does mean that literature classes for children should focus more on short stories than on novels.


There is a mythology that in the past kids spent all their time reading, and not only that, they spend their time reading great literature. But a whole lot of people didn't read, and when they did, they were reading the Penny Dreadfuls.


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## Michelle Hughes (Dec 12, 2011)

woulfe said:


> I would have to say Deadly Waters by Pauline Rowson. Truly dreadful plot, one dimensional characters and laughable police procedures, perhaps her other novels are better


I honestly have to disagree with you on this one. While the story was hard to stomach I think it brings in an awareness to child abuse that refuses to let people just turn their back on. My daughter chose to do a high school book report on this or I would have never found it since I mainly read romance.


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## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I am interested to read the responses, but not going to add my own.  I fear one of my books will end up on this list...


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## Aaron Scott (May 27, 2012)

I really was unable to get too far in the Da Vinci Code - though I wince to criticize someone else's writing, but I think at least when someone gets to readers who hate their work, it means they've reached a larger audience.


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## bltackett (Jun 13, 2012)

A couple of my friends were just talking about this last night and it got me thinking, so here it is.  There is only one book on my book shelf I couldn't finish, it wasn't a badly written book, but the style just wasn't for me.  That is Tad William's The War of the Flowers.  It's a hefty little 900 page tome crammed full of over description and dare I use a pun "flowery" prose.  I got to a part where I felt like I needed a map to understand the trip the main character was taking to the kitchen in a house.  So yeah, I won't say it's a bad book, but I'll gladly say it was a bad book for me.


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## bordercollielady (Nov 21, 2008)

Another book I had problems getting into and finally gave up was Hunt for Red October by Clancy.  Too many characters with long names I couldn't remember.. I couldn't see the forest for the trees.  I know some adore Clancy but this was my first and it put a bad taste in my mouth.  On the other hand, I saw the movie and enjoyed it.


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## psychotick (Jan 26, 2012)

Hi,

For me it would have to be The Men in the Jungle by Norman Spinrad. It's just too dark. I detested the world, I detested the main character. Cannibalism, rape and torture, it's just too much for me.

But I'd also have to give an honourable mention to Stephen Donaldson's Gap series, for exactly the same reasons. And I love the other books by Donaldson. He just needs to take his Prozac!

Cheers, Greg.


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## xandy3 (Jun 13, 2010)

Geemont said:


> I read a few every year. They're some of the best books ever written. One chapter of Faulkner, Melville, Hardy, Dostoevsky, Kafka, Steinbeck, Hemingway are better than all the novels of J.D. Robb, E.L. James, Clive Cussler, James Patterson, Charlaine Harris, John Grisham, John Sandford combined. IMHO.


^^That. The classics are classics for a reason. I really never tire of them.

I faithfully read_ A Christmas Carol_ every December as tradition, and enjoy all of the rest of Dickens' works. I've also read _The Scarlet Letter_ post high school, for enjoyment.

To each their own, though...


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## A. Cross (Jun 13, 2012)

I studied Ulysses by James Joyce in school.  I guess I had higher hopes for it given the praise it's received.  I didn't care for the stream of consciousness technique; I found it to be incredibly distracting.  In fact, I don't think I even bothered to finish the book.


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## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

A. Cross said:


> I didn't care for the stream of consciousness technique; I found it to be incredibly distracting.


I absolutely love stream of consciousness. It can be as exciting as exploring a maze; it exorcises the mind in ways simple declarative prose can't. The twists and turns of thoughts, memories, dreams, and observations are wonders to read. I also love unreliable narrators.


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## tru_blu32 (Jun 19, 2012)

The Candidates by Inara Scott


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## chilady1 (Jun 9, 2009)

The 50 Shades of Gray series were hands down some of the worst books I have ever read.


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## intisark (Jun 19, 2012)

Red Riding Hood (the novel that recently became a "major motion picture). I have a policy to finish a book if I get past the first chapter. I don't know why I have this policy, but I gave the book until page one hundred something, and when I realized that I was avoiding reading because I didn't want to sit down to this book, well, I gave it up. Incredibly shallow, pointless and infuriating. If the main character had enough intelligence to think about her own actions / thoughts for more than--well, at all--she would also see how hypocritical she is in her shallowness. Sigh. I kept thinking there would be some character development, that she would develop depth or self-awareness or maybe just a little intelligence, but I couldn't hold out to the end. As far as I can tell from other sources, she doesn't change much through the story. Clearly, some readers must have loved the novel since it was made into a movie, but I'm definitely not there myself.


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## Phil Berry (Jun 22, 2012)

James Patterson, can't remember which, it was one of only three books, the other two being German, on a shelf in some Bolivian jungle hostel.  Had to put it back with a warning on the inside cover.  And I'm no book snob, honestly.


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

The worst book I ave ever read was Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. It seems to me too long and unrealistic romantic... i do not put under doubt the writer's qualities but I 'm not a type of person who's gonna read this book twice!


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## Tony Richards (Jul 6, 2011)

bordercollielady said:


> Another book I had problems getting into and finally gave up was Hunt for Red October by Clancy. Too many characters with long names I couldn't remember.. I couldn't see the forest for the trees. I know some adore Clancy but this was my first and it put a bad taste in my mouth. On the other hand, I saw the movie and enjoyed it.


I generally like Tom Clancy, but ended up throwing _Clear and Present Danger_ across the room. The guy spends three or four pages decribing high tech items, and then spends half a page describing a woman committing suicide because her new lover has tricked her into revealing information that leads to the death of her boss? Not much emphasis on character there.


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## Sam Kates (Aug 28, 2012)

A couple of classics: _War and Peace_ - the war bits were fine, but the peace... I couldn't keep up with who was who (Count So-and-so, Prince Thingummy) and gradually sunk into a pit of tedium.
_Bleak House_ - I so wanted to get through this, but gave up after wading through page after page after page of nothing much happening.
Also: _Naked Lunch_ - have absolutely no idea what that was about.


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## CandyTX (Apr 13, 2009)

I tried to read Catcher in the Rye a year or two ago because I decided to read a classic banned book. I finished it, but I thought it was total crap. I still don't know what the big deal is with that book. Blerg.

I only made it 20 pages in to Atonement by Ian whomever, I STILL don't know what the hell that book was talking about in those first 20 pages and I don't care.

Eat, Pray, Love - I made it less than half way and I hated the main character so much that I couldn't do it anymore.

Hundred Years of Solitude - again, tried to read because someone told me to.

From now on, I'm sticking to crap books because apparently anything hoity-toity is beyond me.


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## dalton_wolf (Sep 11, 2012)

King Chondos' Ride (Dark Border, Vol. 2) by Paul Edwin Zimmer
It's Fantasy, sword and sorcery stuff.

I hate it. I will never read another book by this person. Not necessarily because of bad writing. The writing was fairly good, and the action sequences were great. But he spent an entire first book, and 90% of the second book making you love two different main characters, each of whom loved and respected the other, and then it has a ridiculous and very poorly thought-out ending...



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And then he has the two characters meet in battle in circumstances that could easily have been avoided by one of them explaining the situation to the other, but no, they fight to the death, with one killing the other, AND THE ONE PROTECTING THE BAD GUY WINS!!! So, you've followed this other guy through the entire series as he prepares and does everything right. You're sure somenow he's gonna make it come out right, right? Any good writer would. Nope. Let's kill off the young hero as he tries to save the kingdom and have the older hero defend the evil monster. And the loser, the true hero, says something lame like, "Take care of my wife..." What the $#@@ was this guy thinking. Who wants to read a book like that? I want escapism, not some sick, sadistic whatever this was. One hero killing another to protect the bad guy? I was done. I threw this book in the fireplace and swore to never read any of this writer's books again. He


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## vikiana (Oct 5, 2012)

CandyTX said:


> I tried to read Catcher in the Rye a year or two ago because I decided to read a classic banned book. I finished it, but I thought it was total crap. I still don't know what the big deal is with that book. Blerg.
> 
> I only made it 20 pages in to Atonement by Ian whomever, I STILL don't know what the hell that book was talking about in those first 20 pages and I don't care.
> 
> ...





sheiler1963 said:


> Hands down without even thinking about it I can answer this. It was 'A Child Called It' by David Pelzer. I actually paged to the end to find the punch line or the place where someone was going to admit that the whole thing was a parody or a farce. I never found it. What really galled me is when I read umpteen praises for it on another forum as being, 'gut wrenching/heartbreaking/*insert your adjective here*. Within the topic I posted a link to an article that was in the NYT titled 'Dysfunction for Dollars' that outlined what a bunch of malarkey the book was and even THEN the folks on the other forum refused to accept it. One person even quoted a blurb that David Pelzer himself wrote to promote the book as 'evidence' that the book was a factual story and scolded me for saying otherwise.
> UGH! I need a vomit emoticon to adequately convey my feelings toward this utterly useless waste of paper and my time spent reading it.
> 
> I did read Catcher in the Rye just a month ago and just like you I can not understand what's the big deal with that book... I realy know for sure the are numerous good classic books but this one is not one of them )


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