What is the worst book you have ever read?

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This thread is for the worst book you have ever read, and why.

I find it difficult to answer this question since I only read highly reviewed books, and classics. My answer would probably be the Aeneid. It is not that I wouldn't recommend it. The fall of troy scene is well done. I hate it for its half assed characterisation. The Iliad, and the Odyssey put a lot of work into creating dozens of cool and fully realised characters with different skills, strengths and fighting styles. The Aeneid basically puts all of their attributes into one character, which makes the whole thing very boring. You know nothing is going to happen to him, and there is no drama because he is perfect. One wonders why Homer barely mentioned Aeneas if he was so great.

Last edited by Stannis on 06 Jul 2014, 9:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

rosemary's baby

"Dream Catcher: A Memoir" because I did not bond with any of the people.

If they are that bad, I quit reading before I finish.

I find it easier to remember books I love.

But a few that I read and did not like were:

What was the sparkly vampire one? - does the why need explaining?

Tales of the City - predicable and sugar sweet.

A Tom Perotta book about a child molester? Can't remember the name - not sure. Wasn't the subject matter, more like how he handled it.

HATED The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Autistic people aren't like that and as a writer I feel he cheated by leaving out the character's emotions (which are the hardest part of writing).

And I feel guilty admitting this, but I cannot get through Game of Thrones (first book). I try and try and think I'm going to make it, then I put it down and forget about it.

If you asked about books I liked I'd have a long list!

Edited because I forgot that you asked why.

Last edited by wozeree on 06 Jul 2014, 10:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Did you watch season 1 first? I would recommend that people at least watch the first season before reading the books, just because that's what I did, and it worked for me. I had an easier time remembering who was who having done that, I think. It also gave me a lot of confidence in the author.

Last edited by Stannis on 06 Jul 2014, 10:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

No, no tv. I'm not the type to watch tv over reading a book (as you might guess by the fact that I don't own one)>

Anything that was written by Flannery O'Connor.

"Swim The Fly" by Don Calame.

Full of crap humour (I wish that was less literal), a ridiculous caricature of teenage sexuality, and a terrible plot. Plus the copy I read had loads of random capital Ms in the middle of words, which framed everything else badly.

Grr, that book is annoying. My dog puked on my copy. And took a dump on my copy of "the sparkly vampire book". No joke. He's a smart dog.

My personal worst read though, would have to be this book I borrowed. It was one of those harlequin novels, I can't remember the name. It was about a murder that happened on an island. There were only about 6 suspects, and it was SO obvious who the murderer was (the main characters boyfriend, of course). At one point she actually went through a mental list of all the suspects and their motives, left her boyfriend off the list, and then said, "well that's everyone, but they all have alibis, so who did it?".

EDIT: I didn't read this one through, but also a gay magical-realism erotica anthology on clearance at the book store. One of the stories was about a leprechaun, and a guy who made a wish and got a mummified whale penis instead of what he asked for. How did I forget that one?

J.K Rowling's"A Casual Vacancy.

In someone's mention of Harlequin, that reminds me -- one whose title I can't recall was an old book I picked up at a book fair years and years ago. It was a public library sell-off and this book had no dust cover, and I didn't notice the publisher. I think the title sounded intriguing and the first page looked interesting, in a setting in France, so I bought it. I started reading it only to realize it was a Harlequin-type Mills & Boonish romance novel with all the worst cliches. I normally avoid that type of novel like the plague. I skimmed the rest just incase I could be wrong about how bad it was -- nope, it was bad.

I also read Flowers in the Attic when I was much younger, and thought it was just terrible; badly written and a bad premise filled with cheesiness. The book has its devoted fans but I'm not one of them.

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Hmmm.... I guess the worst stuff I've actually finished would be EVERYTHING I've ever read by Mary Wollstonecraft. DAMN! Is she tedious?

YES, SHE IS!

PS

A few words in defense of the Aeneid... I've found that the quality of translation (assuming you aren't reading the original Latin) has a big impact on enjoyment. Also, the Aeneid is more interesting if you read it in its historical context.

When you view it as state propaganda, it's pretty informative and says a lot about Roman values and self image... right from the start, when Aeneas leaves Troy carrying his father and leading his son--that says a lot about the ideal Roman character.

Not sure how many of the thuggish, psychopathic, status-driven numpties who populate The Iliad can be described as "cool" or "fully realised"! I think that assessment fits the characters of The Odyssey a lot better.

Homer barely mentions Aeneas because he was a shadowy, minor mythological figure in his (Homer's) time. Virgil's Aeneas is very much the poet's own creation. Many people would argue that Aeneas's treatment of Dido makes him a less than perfect figure. Have to agree that he's pretty boring though.

Now about non-fiction?

In one of his essays, Ralph Waldo Emerson gave three rules for selecting books to read. I don't remember which essay and it has been 35 years since I read it, but if I remember correctly the three rules are:

1) Read only that which is famous.
2) Read only that which is highly recommended by someone who you trust to come up with a good recommendation.
3) Do not read anything less than some number of years old. I don't remember the number of years he said.

His basic idea is that there is too much to read to just read anything. It is much better to concentrate on reading that which will offer us the greatest intellectual reward and so we need some ways to determine what we should read and what we should ignore.

Perhaps someone can identify the particular essay and we can quote this directly.

In any event, Emerson did say this which is quite appropriate here:

i don't read many fiction books. my tastes lie in nonfiction.
but to answer your question, the worst book i've read was...Mein Kampf. yes, that one.
his famous political and racial viewpoints weren't the only reasons that book was horrible.
700+ pages of incoherent ramblings, self contradictions, jumping from one subject to the other, etc etc. badly organized, i'm shocked i ever mustered up the attention span to finish that travesty.

he wrote a sequel too.

Stephen King's It.

I know, that's virtually blasphemy for fans of Stephen King, and horror in general, but I just found the whole thing irredeemably boring. It was far, far too long, and most of the characters were poorly thought out. I've tried reading it more than once, and each time I failed to finish it.