# Worst bestseller?



## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

I'll start:  John Grisham The Partner.  OMG, I'm reading this right now and absolutely can't get through it. The pages upon pages of details are excruciating, the plot almost non-existent and the characters are beyond ridiculous.  So far I haven't a clue why I'm supposed to like the lead character, or any characters for that matter.


----------



## ddarol (Feb 5, 2009)

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Worst book ever.  MHO


----------



## Guest (Jun 26, 2012)

"Land of Painted Caves". The mysterious four year gap between one chapter and the next, the endless repetition of the Mother's Song and my (not entirely tongue-in-cheek) disappointment that Ayla did not invent unpowered flight. A series written over 30 years ends like this? I find myself underwhelmed.


----------



## LaRita (Oct 28, 2008)

VH Folland said:


> "Land of Painted Caves". The mysterious four year gap between one chapter and the next, the endless repetition of the Mother's Song and my (not entirely tongue-in-cheek) disappointment that Ayla did not invent unpowered flight. A series written over 30 years ends like this? I find myself underwhelmed.


I'll have to second this. A giant letdown after the extremely long wait.


----------



## AntonioZ (Jun 10, 2012)

Da Vinci Code. I can't even talk about it.


----------



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

Bonfire of the Vanities.  I loathed every major character in the book.


----------



## JFHilborne (Jan 22, 2011)

I'd also go with DaVinci Code - could not get past the first few chapters.


----------



## gspeer (Nov 10, 2010)

It's painful to say this, but -- "Feast Day of Fools" by James Lee Burke. I read an interview of Burke in Writer's Digest several months ago where he said he thought this was his best novel.

Burke is one of my all-time favorite authors, but I had to force myself to get through this one.

Gary


----------



## hamerfan (Apr 24, 2011)

The Partner by John Grisham is one of my all-time favorite books. I love the twists and turns the plot takes. 

Worst for me is The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I finished it, but when I was done I don't know why I took the time.


----------



## Todd Trumpet (Sep 7, 2011)

Most interesting thing to me about this thread is the old axiom, "One person's heaven is another person's hell."

Cases in point:

*1. "THE DA VINCI CODE":*



I've defended it before. Here's that standard defense:

**************************************************

Once again, I'll step in to defend "THE DA VINCI CODE".

Great book?

Arguably, yes:

- Dan Brown has a talent for writing page-turners - literally making readers want to turn pages and find out what happens. This is one viable definition of good writing. He used this talent to noteworthy effect in "ANGELS & DEMONS" and overused it to detrimental effect in "THE LOST SYMBOL" (the first and third books of the Robert Langdon trilogy) but hit the sweet spot in "THE DA VINCI CODE".

- Any book that gets that many people not only reading but talking about it afterward is something rare and special - especially a work of fiction.

- Sales of this magnitude are also rare and special. J.K. Rowling did it - and while I don't consider the "HARRY POTTER" books "literature", I do certainly consider them entertaining. And "great" for what they achieved. It would be hard to believe that so many people were "fooled" into reading them.

So, too, with "THE DA VINCI CODE".

Finally, I sometimes liken "THE DA VINCI CODE" to the presidency of Richard Nixon - not for the reason any haters may be thinking, but because it's odd to me that a book that sells so many copies can be disowned by so many people. It's like trying to find someone who supported Nixon - he was elected by a landslide, but apparently nobody actually voted for him.

Time will tell whether Dan Brown and J.K. Rowling were over-rated...

...but their seminal works were not.

**************************************************

*2. "THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES":*



How's _this _for a difference of opinion? _*I think "The Bonfire of The Vanities" is the best novel of the 1980's.*_

Which leads, finally, to another old axiom:

"To each their own..."

Todd


----------



## JLH3 (Jan 9, 2012)

Breaking Dawn.  I read Twilight and while it was awful, it's sequel was just DREADFUL.  But then again, I'm an adult man and those books were probably not made for me.  Cest le vie.


----------



## AntonioZ (Jun 10, 2012)

@Todd Trumpet

Well, the title of the topic refers to Worst *bestsellers*, so _of course_ whatever book is nominated will have a lot of popular appeal. Which renders your entire argument nonsensical. If someone were to nominate Da Vinci Code, or whatever, for Worst *book-of-any-kind*, perhaps you would be making sense.


----------



## JLH3 (Jan 9, 2012)

Some people just need to get a clue, @Todd Trumpet.  #Can'tSeeTheForestForTheTrees


----------



## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

To the person who said The Partner is was all time favorite book, maybe I just need to give The Partner a chance?  I'm about a third of the way through and still find it excruciating and extremely slooooow.


----------



## NogDog (May 1, 2009)

For me, probably _The Pillars of the Earth_. I gave up after maybe 100 to 150 pages, at which point there was still no character I gave a rat's @$$ about, and I don't think there had been one simile or metaphor in that time, either. It's not like I went into it with a negative attitude: after reading the blurb and then the author's introduction, I was really ready to like it.


----------



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

NogDog said:


> For me, probably _The Pillars of the Earth_. I gave up after maybe 100 to 150 pages, at which point there was still no character I gave a rat's @$$ about, and I don't think there had been one simile or metaphor in that time, either. It's not like I went into it with a negative attitude: after reading the blurb and then the author's introduction, I was really ready to like it.


I was set to get into Pillars, but saw so many comments like yours that I have always held off.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2


----------



## R. M. Reed (Nov 11, 2009)

I loved Bonfire of the Vanities. I found DaVinci code to be ridiculous (though Angels and Demons was even more ridiculous) but I couldn't stop reading.


----------



## Geemont (Nov 18, 2008)

NogDog said:


> For me, probably _The Pillars of the Earth_. I gave up after maybe 100 to 150 pages, at which point there was still no character I gave a rat's @$$ about....


I read it in 1991, so there is no certainty I'd view it the same way now, but I remember enjoying the novel a lot. Memory says 4 stars.

The worst bestseller I've read the last few years is _The Hunger Games_. I'm too old and cranky to care about teen love angst in poorly realized dystopia.


----------



## jwest (Nov 14, 2011)

I am loathe to even say this, because Stephen King is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I apologize to anyone who does not agree, but here goes: Lisey's Story. I bought the audiobook for a long drive, and by the time I got to where I was going, I thought I was losing my mind. The trip ended before the audiobook. I never bothered to finish listening to the book.


----------



## AntonioZ (Jun 10, 2012)

Hmm, loved _Pillars of the Earth_. No accounting for taste, I guess.


----------



## Sean Patrick Fox (Dec 3, 2011)

I would say that The Lost Symbol was much worse than The Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed Da Vinci Code, even if the writing was poor, but Lost Symbol was so unimaginably poor. The only reason I kept reading until the end was to figure out if it somehow became better (it didn't).


----------



## JLH3 (Jan 9, 2012)

jwest said:


> I am loathe to even say this, because Stephen King is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I apologize to anyone who does not agree, but here goes: Lisey's Story.


As much as I love Stephen King, probably half his books could be in this discussion - basically anything after Misery, with a few exceptions. I mean, of the books of his I re-read, none have been from the post-Misery period, though, to be fair, it's too soon to be re-reading Under the Dome and 11/22/63.


----------



## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

Sean Patrick Fox said:


> I would say that The Lost Symbol was much worse than The Da Vinci Code. I enjoyed Da Vinci Code, even if the writing was poor, but Lost Symbol was so unimaginably poor. The only reason I kept reading until the end was to figure out if it somehow became better (it didn't).


I enjoyed Angels and Demons (I kinda have to read series in order, even if they aren't meant to be read that way) and thought I would really like the Da Vinci code (pre movie hype), but I didn't. It seemed like he was losing steam. Then I read the Lost Symbol (b/c, what the heck? I'd already read the other 2) and realized I knew who the bad guy was 1/2 thru the book and why he was a bad guy and I'm not one of those people who figures that stuff out while they read! So, that whole series is horrible. Angels and Demons wasn't that bad, but the books just kept getting worse and worse the more he writes.


----------



## Alton Bock (Mar 13, 2012)

JLH3 said:


> As much as I love Stephen King, probably half his books could be in this discussion - basically anything after Misery, with a few exceptions. I mean, of the books of his I re-read, none have been from the post-Misery period, though, to be fair, it's too soon to be re-reading Under the Dome and 11/22/63.


This is why I love threads like this -- we get such wildly different views! 

I, for one, loved 11/22/63. And so I'm trying to go back and check out more of King's work (never gave it much of a chance in the past) and am struggling with "Insomnia." But from what I hear, even King isn't a fan of that one.


----------



## George Berger (Aug 7, 2011)

I read Pillars of the Earth back in the 1990s, too, and remember it as being not-horrible. Mind you, I've never once since had the slightest compulsion to go re-read it, either. Hmm...

I provisionally nominate _American Psycho_, with the caveat that I only made it about two chapters in before giving up in (several kinds of) disgust. For a bestseller I actually managed to finish... Bridget Jones' Diary, which progressed from awkward to embarrassing to excruciating.


----------



## Margo Karasek (Feb 29, 2012)

ddarol said:


> Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Worst book ever. MHO


Couldn't agree more. Glad I'm not the only one who had that reaction!


----------



## Margo Karasek (Feb 29, 2012)

Just thought of another one: _Girl With the Dragon Tattoo_. The writing and pace in that one is just awful. I thought the plot was okay, once you got past the first 200 pages, but how the book got to be such a huge bestseller is beyond me.


----------



## AntonioZ (Jun 10, 2012)

Hmm, again; I liked _Dragon Tattoo_, and the sequels, and the discursive storytelling is what I like best about them. I really enjoyed all the minutiae and the way the characters emerge.

It's almost as if&#8230; people have&#8230; different taste?

Mind blown!


----------



## Margo Karasek (Feb 29, 2012)

AntonioZ said:


> Hmm, again; I liked _Dragon Tattoo_, and the sequels, and the discursive storytelling is what I like best about them. I really enjoyed all the minutiae and the way the characters emerge.
> 
> It's almost as if&#8230; people have&#8230; different taste?
> 
> Mind blown!


I know! Amazing


----------



## Dakota Franklin (Dec 16, 2011)

Da Vinci Code. The movie was even more ridiculous. Who will believe that a scholar will keep such a secret?


----------



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Bad as the irrelevant digressions in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were, the 90 or so pages of pointless tourist brochure for Grenada that Larsson inserted in The Girl Who Played with Fire makes that a definite contender for the worst bestseller of all time.


----------



## Daniel A. Roberts (Jul 1, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Bad as the irrelevant digressions in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were, the 90 or so pages of pointless tourist brochure for Grenada that Larsson inserted in The Girl Who Played with Fire makes that a definite contender for the worst bestseller of all time.


I have to agree with you, Andre. Anytime a Larsson book is loved, somewhere in the world, a grammar fairy dies.

My own worst best seller nightmare is the Twilight Series. I actually read the first book from start to finish, and only bits of the others as I couldn't finish them. Well written, constructed nicely, I can't stand it when vampires love their food to the point of seduction.

I love pizza, but that doesn't mean I want to cuddle a slice, protect it from other hungry pizza lovers just to end up bedding it. /shivers


----------



## bookuniverse (Jul 1, 2012)

The Da Vinci Code


----------



## Elizabeth Black (Apr 8, 2011)

Another one here for "The Davinci Code".

I must also name "50 Shades Of Grey". That book made my teeth hurt.

I wonder why books like these sell so well when there are many other better-written books out there. I honestly don't get it.


----------



## AntonioZ (Jun 10, 2012)

My fear is that the bad grammar and writing aren't bugs… they're features.


----------



## Margo Karasek (Feb 29, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Bad as the irrelevant digressions in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo were, the 90 or so pages of pointless tourist brochure for Grenada that Larsson inserted in The Girl Who Played with Fire makes that a definite contender for the worst bestseller of all time.


. . . which makes me glad that, after the first, I never bothered picking up the other two.


----------



## AntonioZ (Jun 10, 2012)

Now you tell me, after I bought my ticket for Grenada…


----------



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Daniel A. Roberts said:


> Anytime a Larsson book is loved, somewhere in the world, a grammar fairy dies.





AntonioZ said:


> My fear is that the bad grammar and writing aren't bugs&#8230; they're features.


Well said, gentlemen. Andrew McCoy and I speculated that the very poverty of Larsson's language and structures might be attractive to the least well educated and least sophisticated readers. "Look, I could write like that." It is also obvious that those who find our book about their hero least acceptable are those without the background to grasp that literary criticism isn't a branch of hagiography. Such people feel that Larsson has made them part of a great crusade, and resent every word questioning him. I've since concluded that Larsson was made into such a monumental bestseller by people who read no other books, or very few other books, than Larsson's. They just don't know better.



Margo Karasek said:


> . . . which makes me glad that, after the first, I never bothered picking up the other two.


Actually, I'm a fan of Larsson. I like cheap airport thrillers of the Robert Ludlum variety. Inside the fat pretentions of Larsson's turgid books, and inside the gross editorial failures, lurk perfectly good cheap airport thrillers. You just have to skip the huge digressions, most of which are only intended to prove to Larsson's mistress Eva Gabrielsson (she of the punishing silences) that he is a good feminist, the editorial failures, and the endless aspirational shopping lists of a poor journalist. Then close your eyes to the plodding language, and, bingo, there you are at three interesting if much smaller conspiracy thrillers. Doesn't meet Daniel and Antonio's objections, of course, but I did start by saying I was justifying cheap airport thrillers, not literature!


----------



## R. Doug (Aug 14, 2010)

And they're neck and neck in the last straight, heading for the finish line.  And, and . . . it's a PHOTO FINISH!  A DEAD TIE!

The Lost Symbol
The Celestine Prophecy


----------



## Daniel A. Roberts (Jul 1, 2012)

Andre Jute said:


> Actually, I'm a fan of Larsson.


Oh no, Lilly just died! She fell off the edge of my keyboard while eating a grape, her glow forever gone! LOL just messing with ya, buddy. Lilly's still alive and kicking.

I'm sure a large amount of Larsson's fans might not have a wide literary range, over and beyond what was required reading at school. Believe me, when students are 'forced' to read something outside of their interests, no matter how classic, old, new or well written, they won't absorb it. Reading becomes a punishment, and they're driven from it to a degree. Those of us who are voracious readers are cut from a different cloth. We visualize what the words tell us. We're not reading about an event, we're inside that event, feeling the moment. The excitement. The passion. The doom. The insanely funny moments that make us laugh out loud in a Library before we can catch ourselves, only to hunch down in the seat and hope nobody shushes you.

In my High School years, I was considered a trouble maker because I asked questions teachers didn't care for. I was sent to the library many a time. I was the only guy in that school who read at least 300 books before the school year was up.

Oh, my 'disrupting the class' question that doomed me to reading every day, not counting what I checked out to take home?

Me: Why do you think your students are dumber than bunny rabbits? 
Teacher: This is sex ed class, we said nothing about rabbits. 
Me: If I put a boy rabbit in a cage with a girl rabbit, they know what to do and they do it well. We get baby rabbits to sell. Showing us a film and saying we need to know how to do it says you think we're dumber than bunny rabbits. 
Teacher: Go to the library for the rest of the year, punk.

Sorry for digressing a little. I guess everyone has their own story of what turned them into a book reader. And like some voracious readers, becoming a writer just felt natural.


----------



## Geoffrey (Jun 20, 2009)

I would have to say the worst Best Seller I've read is Twilight. A neighbor got me to read it and I thought it was just awful - but then I'm not a teenage girl enamored with bad boys either ... well, and I'm more of a Lestat de Lioncourt fan ...


----------



## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

Regarding Stieg Larsson, I suspect that many of the grammar and style issues are due to his English translator rather than to Larsson himself, since it's only ever English speakers who complain about Larsson's poor writing, which hints at a translation issue. It's impossible to confirm without reading the original Swedish however, since the German translator (which is the version I read) may well have improved the prose.

Some of the other complaints about Larsson, e.g. that the names of people and places are confusing and difficult to tell apart and full of umlaute, are clearly issues of English speakers. Plus, Scandinavian crime thrillers are stylistically quite different from Anglo-American thrillers, so those expecting a typical airport thriller would have been disappointed. And Larsson is closer to the Anglo-American airport thriller than some of his compatriots.

Though I do agree that Larsson would have needed more editing. His editors were probably reluctant to liberally employ the red pen because of his untimely death or because they were afraid of Ms. Gabrielsson.

As for the question, I tend to ignore blockbuster bestsellers, unless they actually interest me, so I didn't bother with _The Da Vinci Code_ or the various John Grisham thrillers. I did read _Twilight_ and found it okay, though not worth the hype and inferior to many lesser known YA paranormals.

The international mega-bestseller that annoys me most is _Fifty Shades of Grey_. Not just because the sample is just bad, but also because the stone age gender relations annoy me. The trilogy has thrown the romance genre back by twenty to thirty years.

However, my most hated bestsellers are two German examples, _Deutschland schafft sich ab_ (Germany abolishes itself) by Thilo Sarrazin and _Feuchtgebiete_ (Wetlands) by Charlotte Roche. Both were hyped into the stratosphere by journalists and cultural commentators, since they were positioned as controversial even before they came out. _Wetlands_ is just annoying, the erotic misadventures (written in the most unappealing way possible) of a young woman in Berlin, pushed by the prurient interest whether the details were autobiographical. Roche's follow-up, _Schoßgebete_ (Prayers from the groin region) was actually worse, since Roche exploited a personal family tragedy (the death of her mother and brothers in a car accident) in order to peddle her erotica - after suing a tabloid for reporting about the tragedy.

Thilo Sarrazin, however, is a thoroughly nasty person and former politician, who peddles racist and sexist claptrap and somehow got the mainstream media to discuss him and his thesises ad nauseam, pushing the sales of his book. So _Deutschland schafft sich ab_ is my most hated bestseller. I've been known to "accidentally" put other books on top of the Sarrazin tome on bookstore display tables.


----------



## Patrick Skelton (Jan 7, 2011)

I agree with you on American Psycho. I couldn't get past chapter 2 without wanting to pitch the book in the garbage. Don't even get me started on that one.



George Berger said:


> I read Pillars of the Earth back in the 1990s, too, and remember it as being not-horrible. Mind you, I've never once since had the slightest compulsion to go re-read it, either. Hmm...
> 
> I provisionally nominate _American Psycho_, with the caveat that I only made it about two chapters in before giving up in (several kinds of) disgust. For a bestseller I actually managed to finish... Bridget Jones' Diary, which progressed from awkward to embarrassing to excruciating.


----------



## raychensmith (Jul 11, 2012)

The Celestine Prophecy.  New Age psychobabble set in Peru, and if the author James Redfield has set one foot in that country, I'd eat my 2003 Nissan Altima starting with its muffler.  I can't tell you how annoying that book is.  Flat characters, cheesy dialogue, the ridiculous characterization of a Latin American country (I half-expect a chihuahua to pop out of nowhere and say, "Yo quiero Taco Bell").  I even hate the font--a dull Times Roman 12 that anyone would be sick of having spent hours looking at it on Microsoft Word.  I HATED HATED HATED this book.

Okay, that's about it.


----------



## Austin_Briggs (Aug 21, 2011)

NogDog said:


> For me, probably _The Pillars of the Earth_. I gave up after maybe 100 to 150 pages, at which point there was still no character I gave a rat's @$$ about, and I don't think there had been one simile or metaphor in that time, either. It's not like I went into it with a negative attitude: after reading the blurb and then the author's introduction, I was really ready to like it.


I started this book 3 times, and couldn't get through the opening chapter once. It was well-written, but ... just couldn't get through it. It somehow got associated in my mind with lifting heavy weights... maybe the sheer size of the required commitment depressed me (the size didn't bother me with "War and Peace" though, which I read 3 times, nor with Shogun, nor with Aztec or Journeyer).

I really loved his massive tome about London. Maybe because I happened to live in London as I was reading it.

I still intend to read "Pillars of the Earth". One day.


----------



## cheriereich (Feb 12, 2011)

I'd have to say _Breaking Dawn_. I read all the Twilight series, but by _Breaking Dawn_ it was beyond ridiculous and the ending. Yeah, don't get me started on the ending. Of course, not any of the books were the greatest.


----------



## anne_holly (Jun 5, 2011)

raychensmith said:


> The Celestine Prophecy. New Age psychobabble set in Peru, and if the author James Redfield has set one foot in that country, I'd eat my 2003 Nissan Altima starting with its muffler. I can't tell you how annoying that book is. Flat characters, cheesy dialogue, the ridiculous characterization of a Latin American country (I half-expect a chihuahua to pop out of nowhere and say, "Yo quiero Taco Bell"). I even hate the font--a dull Times Roman 12 that anyone would be sick of having spent hours looking at it on Microsoft Word. I HATED HATED HATED this book.
> 
> Okay, that's about it.


No word of a lie, I got THREE copies of this book from different "Friends" that year, since I was a religion student and they thought I would appreciate it. I wanted to ceremonially burn them all.

The next year, someone gave me one of the "spin off" books.


----------



## Figment (Oct 27, 2008)

raychensmith said:


> I even hate the font--a dull Times Roman 12 that anyone would be sick of having spent hours looking at it on Microsoft Word.


OK, now this is funny! You even hated the font in which it was printed... You got me with the chihuahua comment, but then the font...


----------



## hs (Feb 15, 2011)

Anything by Stephen King. I've tried reading several of his novels (The Stand, The Shining, It, Pet Sematary, Cell), and I still haven't been able to make it through one of them.


----------



## raychensmith (Jul 11, 2012)

hs said:


> Anything by Stephen King. I've tried reading several of his novels (The Stand, The Shining, It, Pet Sematary, Cell), and I still haven't been able to make it through one of them.


Blasphemy! 

You might try The Running Man if you like quick novels. If you can't get into Running Man, then, well, I guess Stephen King is just not your thing.


----------



## dinojay2 (Jul 12, 2012)

For me Grisham's worst was An Innocent Man. He couldn't have made that story more boring if it was read by my grandpa after 8 beer.

Also, I am literally shocked at the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey. That is one really poorly written book, and as far as "erotica" or "acceptable porn" goes it didn't seem particularly unique.

I just started reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and then found it on this list. Hmm.


----------



## CoraBuhlert (Aug 7, 2011)

anne_holly said:


> No word of a lie, I got THREE copies of this book from different "Friends" that year, since I was a religion student and they thought I would appreciate it. I wanted to ceremonially burn them all.


The books, not the friends I hope.


----------



## anne_holly (Jun 5, 2011)

CoraBuhlert said:


> The books, not the friends I hope.


I went back and forth on that, actually.


----------



## Daniel McHugh (Aug 15, 2011)

How about Left Behind? Try trudging through that without getting pissed off.


----------



## Mia Grace (Jun 21, 2012)

ddarol said:


> Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Worst book ever. MHO


You got my vote on this one too!


----------



## Indy-One (Jan 28, 2012)

Daniel McHugh said:


> How about Left Behind? Try trudging through that without getting p*ssed off.


Another vote for the Left Behind Series.
First book or two kept a good pace, but the authors really slowed things down to a frustratingly slow pace the rest of the series.
I'm $ure they has a good rea$on to $tretch out the $eries like that.


----------



## Alexis-Shore (Feb 20, 2011)

Anything by Dan Brown.


----------



## anne_holly (Jun 5, 2011)

In the end, I think I'm going to have to go with _Mein Kampf_.


----------



## Audrey Finch (May 18, 2012)

Catch 22.  But it does have the distinction of being the only book I have ever not finished


----------



## Fola7 (Mar 25, 2012)

The Secret!


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Worst bestseller?

That's easy.

50 Shades of Gray.

No question.

Any time I see that book on a bestseller list, this is my reaction:


----------



## Fola7 (Mar 25, 2012)

The Secret...


----------



## raychensmith (Jul 11, 2012)

The Book Thief is Markus Zusak.  Very gimmicky, and beneath the gimmicks, not a very impressive writing talent.  The gimmicks?  Let's see:

1.  Have the story be narrated by Death so he could describe all the other people being killed during WWII.

2.  Insert random and very annoying definitions of words used in the narrative.

3.  Set it in the Holocaust and of course have a Jewish character in hiding in the basement of a Gentile family.  

I don't know if it worked for you or not, but it truly didn't work for me.  Want read a young(ish) writer with immense talent?  Read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.


----------



## Audrey Finch (May 18, 2012)

One man's meat..... I really enjoyed The Book Thief, gimmicks and all


----------



## Alle Meine Entchen (Dec 6, 2009)

raychensmith said:


> The Celestine Prophecy. New Age psychobabble set in Peru, and if the author James Redfield has set one foot in that country, I'd eat my 2003 Nissan Altima starting with its muffler. I can't tell you how annoying that book is. Flat characters, cheesy dialogue, the ridiculous characterization of a Latin American country (I half-expect a chihuahua to pop out of nowhere and say, "Yo quiero Taco Bell"). I even hate the font--a dull Times Roman 12 that anyone would be sick of having spent hours looking at it on Microsoft Word. I HATED HATED HATED this book.
> 
> Okay, that's about it.


the movie's nothing to sneeze at either. DH and I watched it and just wondered why we had wasted money on it.


----------



## lvhiggins (Aug 1, 2012)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  Unrelentingly grim.  Ugh.


----------



## Robert A Michael (Apr 30, 2012)

THE SHACK.  Terrible writing, incredibly patronizing, and awful dialogue.  Others are on the list, including King (as much as I hate to say that), Rice, and Grisham.  But, GERALD'S GAME, QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, and THE JUROR were some pretty big stinkers.  I am sure there are more. 

For the most part, I try not to be critical.  I like to read.  But when you open up the question with "worst bestseller" then the gloves come off.  All is fair in love and literary criticism.


----------



## anne_holly (Jun 5, 2011)

Robert A Michael said:


> THE SHACK. Terrible writing, incredibly patronizing, and awful dialogue. Others are on the list, including King (as much as I hate to say that), Rice, and Grisham. But, GERALD'S GAME, QUEEN OF THE DAMNED, and THE JUROR were some pretty big stinkers. I am sure there are more.
> 
> For the most part, I try not to be critical. I like to read. But when you open up the question with "worst bestseller" then the gloves come off. All is fair in love and literary criticism.


I couldn't make it through _The Shack_, though I sure tried.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Hmm, I get defensive when it comes to Stephen King. He's my top all-time writer, pretty much.

That's not to say there aren't books of his I dislike. There are.

Whether writing as King or Bachman, here are a list of his books that I don't care for:

THE STAND (a controversial choice, but people who love horror hate THE STAND. People who hate King love THE STAND because it's more of a fantasy novel.)
THE LONG WALK (couldn't finish this Bachman book)
ROAD WORK (or this one, either)
The entire DARK TOWER series (for the same reason I hate THE STAND. It's fantasy, not horror. Not my cup of tea.)
CREEPSHOW
CYCLE OF THE WEREWOLF
THE TALISMAN (blech. more fantasy)
EYES OF THE DRAGON (puke. high fantasy, at that! gross-out!)
DESPERATION
THE REGULATORS
DREAMCATCHER
THE BLACK HOUSE
FROM A BUICK 8

That's about it. 12 novels and the entire series of  DARK TOWER books. About 20 works.

That leaves 51 books of his that I've enjoyed (including collections, which I may have enjoyed overall, even if not every story clicked with me).

So, 20 books I dislike, 51 I've liked... of those, I could easily name a dozen works that rank above most anything anyone else has ever written, in my book.

That's roughly a 71-percent batting average, which would make him the greatest player in the game if he were a baseball player. (I imagine him as a catcher.)

I did go off of King for a long time, though.

That period basically starting with THE REGULATORS and DESPERATION really did a number on me, and then he was doing nothing but DARK TOWER stuff for the longest time.

But a combination of CELL and UR brought me back to King, just in time to enjoy his renaissance period, with books like UNDER THE DOME, 11/22/63, and even one I'm highly anticipating for next year... DOCTOR SLEEP, the sequel to THE SHINING. (I think it may even be the first time ever King's written a sequel to one of his own works... I don't count DARK TOWER, because that's a series... which isn't the same as writing a sequel to a one-off.)

Although THE BLACK HOUSE was the sequel to THE TALISMAN. But I blame Peter Straub for that.


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

Let it be noted that I'm not anti-fantasy in general.

It's just that I don't care for sword-and-sorcery from the pen of King.

I want him exploring people's nightmares, not their dragon-slaying fantasies.


----------



## Rebecca Burke (May 9, 2011)

Probably dating myself, but The Bridges of Madison County has to rate as one of the most rancid love stories of all time. Set in my home state--Iowa--so naturally I hate it even more passionately than is warranted because of its rural stereotypes. 

I actually enjoyed the first two Stieg Larsson books, but agree that the authors' editors were MIA. The third one gave me fits...still haven't worked up the energy to finish it. As an editor myself, I can't see the forest for the trees!


----------



## Andre Jute (Dec 18, 2010)

Rebecca Burke said:


> I actually enjoyed the first two Stieg Larsson books, but agree that the authors' editors were MIA.


That's a most polite way of stating a massive failure of nerve!


----------



## balaspa (Dec 27, 2009)

I am a huge Stephen King fan, but his Madder Rose was unreadable for me.  I did not care at all about any of the main characters and just jumped to the en d to see how the bad guy got it and then closed it and never opened the book again.

I loved Cormac McCarthy's The Road, by the way...for an earlier post...


----------



## CraigInOregon (Aug 6, 2010)

balaspa said:


> I am a huge Stephen King fan, but his Madder Rose was unreadable for me.


You mean Rose Madder.

Yeah, it was tedious for me, but not unreadable. It was like his fourth or fifth book focusing on spousal abuse themes... got old. Just like how all those books he wrote about writers wore thin. (Misery was great, but by the time he got to The Dark Half.... time to move on, Steve.)


----------

