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

[eakers]

the first shopaholic book. utter trash and now there are 3 of them wtf?!

..and i got the second one for christmas

 

[GagHalfrunt]

Originally posted by: Yossarian


For me, pick any TekWar novel. Shatner's writing style scarred me for life.

His writing style isn't nearly as disturbing as his acting style.

 

[Zanix]

Originally posted by: loki8481
Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce :|

Were you high on drugs when you read it? I think that's a requirement to understand it.

 

[nakedfrog]

Originally posted by: Yossarian

Originally posted by: mandala
There are several that tie for worst:

A Clockwork Orange
Catch 22
Heart of Darkness
Red Badge of Courage
Billy Budd

OMFG how can you say Catch-22 is the worst book? It is a brilliant satire!!!

For me, pick any TekWar novel. Shatner's writing style scarred me for life.

What kind of a name is Yossarian, anyway?

 

[ggnl]

Originally posted by: Yossarian

Originally posted by: mandala
There are several that tie for worst:

A Clockwork Orange
Catch 22
Heart of Darkness
Red Badge of Courage
Billy Budd

OMFG how can you say Catch-22 is the worst book? It is a brilliant satire!!!

For me, pick any TekWar novel. Shatner's writing style scarred me for life.

This from the guy with Yossarian for a forum name...

Edit: doh! Too slow.

 

[rasholianmon]

the Phat Beach pop-up book...

 

[FrustratedUser]

Win 95 for dummies.

 

[jpthomas]

Crossroads of Twilight

 

[Yossarian]

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
What kind of a name is Yossarian, anyway?

Assyrian

 

[hop12]

Moby Dick.

I had to read this back in highschool. My english teacher was a fanatic about this book...really. She thought it was the best book ever written, she wore whale shirts, jewelry, the works to class while we were reading that horrible horrible book. I still cringe every time I think about having to read that ungodly number of pages that described the different types of whales. Thanks for reminding me of that!

 

[Encryptic]

Originally posted by: Yossarian

Originally posted by: nakedfrog
What kind of a name is Yossarian, anyway?

Assyrian

Good one. You just opened yourself up to a slew of "Assyrian" comments.

 

[Mucho]

Alice don't live here anymore

 

[OffTopic1]

When the Moon Waxes Red - Trinh T. Minh-ha

The most pretentious book/author that I ever read.

 

[n666]

Scarlet Letter

 

[jjones]

Originally posted by: GagHalfrunt

Originally posted by: cchen
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man
WTF? This was the most terrible book ever.

Good choice there. Joyce is a bad joke forced upon students by brainwashed clueless English teachers who were told to like it and are too cowardly to admit that they don't.

"Stream of Consciousness" is a synonym for "inept writer who can't handle characters, plot development or coherent dialog".

Yeah, I have to say I could never get into Joyce no matter how hard I tried. I've read quite a bit of classic and esoteric literature but Joyce just seemed like crap.

 

[mwtgg]

Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man - Joyce
[*]Uninspired and sloppy.

Moby Dick - Melville
[*]Painfully long and boring. No one cares about the damn classification of whales.

The House of the Seven Gables - Hawthorne
[*]Meh.

A Separate Peace - Knowles
[*]Meh x2

Henry V - Shakespeare
[*]Incredibly slow.

Hard Times - Dickens
[*]Couldn't finish the first page.

 

[lobadobadingdong]

The manual to a motherboard....it was in Chinese(or one of those pictograph languages) (I had an american board too)

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: TheLonelyPhoenix

Originally posted by: tami
i think that a lot of you have a lingering anger over school assignments. almost all of these books you've rated horribly are books that i've had to read for high school projects or essays.

No kidding. Almost all of the ones stated so far are in any high school curriculum... and a lot of these are really great books. Catch-22? Heart of Darkness? Portrait of an Artist? Scarlet Letter? Great Expectations? WTF is wrong with you people? Do you think Playboy and Maxim are the epitome of great reading material or something?

You can't "read" pictures, dork.

 

[loup garou]

The Lake House James Patterson.

Actually, to be fair, I never finished it, so I can't really say I've read it. Ugh, it's so bad. Patterson usually writes predictably mindless mysteries that are great for killing time at airports or leaving on the back of the toilet for brief reading (or emergency TP), but this one was just painful. The hardcover copy I have is currently has a couple of strands of christmas lights wrapped around it, keeping them from getting tangled. At least it's good for something.

 

[AtlantaBob]

A Heatbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is up there. Never did get through the whole thing, which is a big rarity for me.

 

[MrBlahh]

Originally posted by: EarthwormJim
Probably Huckleberry Fin. At no point in that book was I even slightly entertained, enlightened, or inspired. That book is a failure and I hated having to be forced-read it.

I totally agree. I couldnt stand how he tried to write out the dialect of some of the characters. This is the type of book where cliff notes really shine.

 

[Encryptic]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: TheLonelyPhoenix

Originally posted by: tami
i think that a lot of you have a lingering anger over school assignments. almost all of these books you've rated horribly are books that i've had to read for high school projects or essays.

No kidding. Almost all of the ones stated so far are in any high school curriculum... and a lot of these are really great books. Catch-22? Heart of Darkness? Portrait of an Artist? Scarlet Letter? Great Expectations? WTF is wrong with you people? Do you think Playboy and Maxim are the epitome of great reading material or something?

You can't "read" pictures, dork.

Do they publish a Braille version of Playboy?

 

[EyeMWing]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
Its a play actually, called "Our Town" Absolutely worst piece of trash ever written. Had a Newberry Award or somesuch too. That book really ruined my respect for book awards.

A Seperate Peace was pretty bad too, but Our Town takes the cake.

I read both of those.

Essentially, if you read it in HS English, it's garbage, with the exception of a FEW well known and noted novels - Lord of the Flies is the only NOVEL that I've read in class that deserved any bit of respect. Shakespeare, Dante's Inferno, the great epics, etc. also deserve a lot of credit that they usually don't get in High School courses - because everything seems so novel-centric, and I'm not sure why.

 

[DrPizza]

I actually enjoyed Conrad's Heart of Darkness, only because our teacher played a couple scenes from the movie based on it. (particularly the beach scene with "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning"

Oddly, I've never read a book that sucked. I've read a small portion of books that sucked, but never the whole book. If I didn't have to read it and it sucked, I quit reading it.
If I *had* to read it and it sucked, then I got the cliff notes, and paid extra good attention during class.

 

[Ilmater]

Originally posted by: DrPizza
I actually enjoyed Conrad's Heart of Darkness, only because our teacher played a couple scenes from the movie based on it. (particularly the beach scene with "I love the smell of Napalm in the morning"

Oddly, I've never read a book that sucked. I've read a small portion of books that sucked, but never the whole book. If I didn't have to read it and it sucked, I quit reading it.
If I *had* to read it and it sucked, then I got the cliff notes, and paid extra good attention during class.

Pick up "House of Sand and Fog." It will initiate you into the list of books that are truly bad.