# The worst book you ever read and why. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2006, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507 "2006-12-01T18:44:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![jacob\_wrestling](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/76d3ee/32.png) [@jacob\_wrestling](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jacob_wrestling)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/101 "2006-12-03T10:57:07Z")
It appears that **Great Expectations** is required reading for pretty much every American high school student - that’s how it was inflicted on me, too. Aside from the hate that other Dopers have so lavishly and articulately heaped upon it, what really bothers me is that there are so many other wonderful books out there that we could be reading instead. **Rubystreak** , I would have infinitely preferred Lord of the Flies. I thought of another classic that I personally detest, though I can at least understand the literary merits: **Madame Bovary**. Mon Dieu, I wanted to slit my wrists and die a quick death, which is what Mme Bovary should have done. ---
**Author:** ![williambaskerville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f14d63/32.png) [@williambaskerville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/williambaskerville)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 11:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/102 "2006-12-03T11:23:59Z")
Those of you excoriating The Bridges of Madison County (which would be in my bottom 10), should keep an eye out for “The Ditches of Edison County”, My wife loved the original, and I made her read the parody, and know she can’t even think of any scene in the original without laughing. She’s never forgiven me. My flat out worst book ever was “Mutant 59, the Plastic Eater”. An airport, a long flight closing in 2 minutes,a book required, and the result was this. The damn thing… a professionally published book, with covers and everything,… had SPELLING mistakes. I finished the flight reading the inflight magazine. Don’t ask me anything about it, I’ve blotted it from my memory. Worst book by a writer who can actually write was Ian McEwan’s “Saturday”. I reread it recently, and it’s effectively already dated and largely unreadable. It will be his most ignored book in 20 years, I confidently predict. ---
**Author:** ![Caprese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9a28c/32.png) [@Caprese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Caprese)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 11:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/103 "2006-12-03T11:37:06Z")
[QUOTE=ACC\_Expat] I knew there was no way that I’d be the first person to list _Great Expectations_. To give Dickens credit, I rather like _A Tale of Two Cities_. I did not like _The Scarlet Letter_ either, but before you give up on Hawthorne, try reading some of his short stories. I think he was really gifted with that form. [/QUOTE] Yes. I loved Dickens’ Bleak House. And I remember enjoying Hawthorne’s short stories, such as The Birthmark. My mom told me we were related to Hawthrone, perhaps that’s why I made a point of giving him another try. But The Scarlet Letter was a grim slog for me. ---
**Author:** ![jabiru](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/bbce88/32.png) [@jabiru](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jabiru)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/104 "2006-12-03T11:47:44Z")
Joseph Heller, _Something Happened_. No, it didn’t. I persevered unto the end; these days I wouldn’t. ---
**Author:** ![eleanorigby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@eleanorigby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eleanorigby)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/105 "2006-12-03T12:01:54Z")
I agree with GE, and most of the choices here. For me, the worst book-which I have tried to read 3 times and failed after about page 17–is _Bonfire of the Vanities_. I don’t know who wrote it-I dont’ care. I didn’t care about the protagonist one whit, in fact, I disliked him enough by page 17 that I truly hope he ends up dead or hurt or something. Ugh. Other books that I hated and will not read again and do not recommend in the slightest: _Bastard Out of Carolina_ --to say the author has an agenda would be mild. _We All Fall Down_ -by some right wing fundamentalist who writes shite and can only get published from some online source. I had to read it for a book club (a book club mind you who does a _recipe_ book once a year–I no longer belong) and to use this book for kindling would be a kindness. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/106 "2006-12-03T14:16:35Z")
I had en English teacher once who told me, “You need to read Great Expectations before you die.” So I went and read it and it was astoundingly bad. I went back to him and told him it sucked and I hated it and he said, “Now death won’t seem as scary.” ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/107 "2006-12-03T14:45:27Z")
I never read GE in high school. I was, however, assigned _The Bear_ by William Faulkner. That piece of trash was so confusing I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. I know it was supposed to be representative of “stream of consciousness” but Faulkner took three paragraphs to say that a boy was 10 years old. I had to have the teacher explain it before I rolled my eyes and said, “Why didn’t he just say that?” I truly believe the only good thing Faulkner wrote was _A Rose for Emily_. Is it because we’re “forced” to read the books in school that we don’t like them? I did enjoy _Watership Down_, but I don’t see a lot of schools assigning _Gone with the Wind_ or _Tom Sawyer_, although we did get assigned _Huckleberry Finn_. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/108 "2006-12-03T15:23:20Z")
The worst book I’ve finished voluntarily is _Eragon_, because my Dad gave it to me as a gift. In the first few pages it appeared clear that the writer had a so-so grasp on the way English idioms are used in fiction, and a sophomoric love of dropping lingo into places it shouldn’t be (f’rinstance, and I’m paraphrasing: “two of them had longswords, and two of them had hand-and-a-half swords”: umm, sorry but that seems like a passage straight out of a D+D module.) This became so annoying that halfway through I read the author information to verify my hunch that it was written by a teenager, which it indeed was. Now, normally I’d give him credit for this, but his connections in the industry he had to get this pile of dreck published more than make up for his youth in terms of how much credit is due. Of course it doesn’t help that it’s filled with every cliche in the fantasy world, and several cliches that were invented purely for the book :). That said, I am going to see the movie because it’s physically impossible to film it without lots of sweeping panoramic wilderness shots, and I’m a sucker for fantasy wilderness cinematography. Now, I don’t know where it was filmed, but I’d even give it a huge stinkin pile of pass if it was filmed in New Zealand, because the terrain in the book is much more suited for New Zealand than LOTR was. In fact, that’s about the only thing I wouldn’t think would be a cliche. Which of course means that they filmed it in Switzerland or France or somewhere 😉 ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/109 "2006-12-03T15:25:37Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] The worst book I’ve finished voluntarily is _Eragon_, because my Dad gave it to me as a gift. In the first few pages it appeared clear that the writer had a so-so grasp on the way English idioms are used in fiction, and a sophomoric love of dropping lingo into places it shouldn’t be (f’rinstance, and I’m paraphrasing: “two of them had longswords, and two of them had hand-and-a-half swords”: umm, sorry but that seems like a passage straight out of a D+D module.) This became so annoying that halfway through I read the author information to verify my hunch that it was written by a teenager, which it indeed was. Now, normally I’d give him credit for this, but his connections in the industry he had to get this pile of dreck published more than make up for his youth in terms of how much credit is due. Of course it doesn’t help that it’s filled with every cliche in the fantasy world, and several cliches that were invented purely for the book :). That said, I am going to see the movie because it’s physically impossible to film it without lots of sweeping panoramic wilderness shots, and I’m a sucker for fantasy wilderness cinematography. Now, I don’t know where it was filmed, but I’d even give it a huge stinkin pile of pass if it was filmed in New Zealand, because the terrain in the book is much more suited for New Zealand than LOTR was. In fact, that’s about the only thing I wouldn’t think would be a cliche. Which of course means that they filmed it in Switzerland or France or somewhere 😉 [/QUOTE] IIRC, they filmed it somewhere in Eastern Europe. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/110 "2006-12-03T15:30:14Z")
[QUOTE=ivylass] Is it because we’re “forced” to read the books in school that we don’t like them? I did enjoy _Watership Down_, but I don’t see a lot of schools assigning _Gone with the Wind_ or _Tom Sawyer_, although we did get assigned _Huckleberry Finn_. [/QUOTE] It’s probably safe to say that everyone in this thread reads for pleasure (so that’ll weed out anyone who would complain about having to read anything.) But we all have our own genres of interest and often authors of interest inside those genres and aren’t likely to pick up something way outside when we’re reading for pleasure. Heck, my bookshelf is basically nothing but science fiction and a little fantasy (filled with Asimov, Card, Heinlein, Niven, Morressy, Steele, Adams, Swanwick, King, Rowling, lots of anthologies and issues of the commerical magazines, and several other authors), a few non-fiction (mostly on chemistry and not counting my textbooks) and humor books, and lots of Calvin and Hobbes. I’ll read other things (I discovered a liking for Chekov and Tolstoy, for instance, while having to read them in high school) but when I’m reading for pleasure I generally stick in those genres. And I can like things I normally wouldn’t have read, or at least appreciate them as literature, but some books are just not worth it. For instance, I had to read Camus’ _The Plague_. I’m not about to pick up anything else by Camus, but it’s not because I hated what I had to read. On the other hand, for a somewhat-related class (same professor, different subject) I had to read one of the Left Behind books (Apocalypse, which I think is the penultimate book in the series.) Besides my own personal conflicts with the entire freaking premise of the book it reads like badly ghostwritten Tom Clancy. I’m talking like those books that have Clancy’s name on them but are written by a completely different guy, like “Tom Clancy’s Op-Center”. I think some of the problems are that books are forced on students at the wrong time. It was pointed out above with _Lord of the Flies_ versus _Great Expectations_. I was probably too young when I first read _1984_ but it wasn’t forced on me. Heck, I loved Tolkien as a kid and my parents had _The Lord of the Rings_ sitting right there on the bookshelf, but I couldn’t actually manage to read it until fairly late in high school. I was told once that one shouldn’t read Ecclesiastes until the age of 30 (or something like that.) ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 3:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/111 "2006-12-03T15:47:07Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] The worst book I’ve finished voluntarily is _Eragon_, because my Dad gave it to me as a gift. In the first few pages it appeared clear that the writer had a so-so grasp on the way English idioms are used in fiction, and a sophomoric love of dropping lingo into places it shouldn’t be (f’rinstance, and I’m paraphrasing: “two of them had longswords, and two of them had hand-and-a-half swords”: umm, sorry but that seems like a passage straight out of a D+D module.) This became so annoying that halfway through I read the author information to verify my hunch that it was written by a teenager, which it indeed was. Now, normally I’d give him credit for this, but his connections in the industry he had to get this pile of dreck published more than make up for his youth in terms of how much credit is due. Of course it doesn’t help that it’s filled with every cliche in the fantasy world, and several cliches that were invented purely for the book :). [/QUOTE] Ah, _Eragon_. That’s one of those books I just can’t decide whether or not I want to pick up and read. I’ve seen a lot of reviews just like yours, that it was written by a teenager and it shows, being very cliched. Heck, I’ve seen the previews for the movie and can’t decide if the guy’s deliberately ripping off McCaffery and several other writers or not. Reviews like this don’t help: > [@Two-star Amazon review](#): > > If an adult had written and published this, I would have been disgusted (as I was with the Sword of Shannara) with the clear calculation that had gone into the work: ok, I’ll take a lot of Tolkien, a lot of McCaffery, a good amount of Leguin, some Dragonlance, some Star Wars, etc. It will be a can’t miss book." Since it’s the product not of an adult but of a teenager, it comes across much more positively–as a work of fiction by someone who has read lots and absorbed lots of fantasy and simply didn’t have the experience (or the good editor) to take out all of his favorite parts of other works. How can I dislike or be too critical of someone who so obviously loved some of my own favorite authors, loved them so much that they simply took over his book through I’m guessing no fault of his own. I have an Audible subscription and it’s time to pick another audiobook (hard for me since I’d rather read a book than listen to it.) I’m not coming up with anything else I want to get, so I’m trying to decide whether or not to get the audiobook of Eragon. ---
**Author:** ![Lissa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/85f322/32.png) [@Lissa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissa)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/112 "2006-12-03T16:06:00Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] The worst book I’ve finished voluntarily is _Eragon_, because my Dad gave it to me as a gift. In the first few pages it appeared clear that the writer had a so-so grasp on the way English idioms are used in fiction, and a sophomoric love of dropping lingo into places it shouldn’t be (f’rinstance, and I’m paraphrasing: “two of them had longswords, and two of them had hand-and-a-half swords”: umm, sorry but that seems like a passage straight out of a D+D module.) This became so annoying that halfway through I read the author information to verify my hunch that it was written by a teenager, which it indeed was. Now, normally I’d give him credit for this, but his connections in the industry he had to get this pile of dreck published more than make up for his youth in terms of how much credit is due. [/QUOTE] Was it originally written in English? If not, the fault could lie with a piss-poor translator. ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/113 "2006-12-03T16:08:36Z")
[QUOTE=Lissa] Was it originally written in English? If not, the fault could lie with a piss-poor translator. [/QUOTE] I’m pretty sure the kid is an English speaker… ---
**Author:** ![Stan\_Shmenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/94ad74/32.png) [@Stan\_Shmenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stan_Shmenge)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/114 "2006-12-03T16:15:09Z")
[QUOTE=Alpine] I’m surprised no one has mentioned **The Bridges of Madison County**. Maybe you weren’t fools enough to read this piece of dogshit. [/QUOTE] I haven’t read the book, but I liked the movie. Maybe it is the magic powerz of Meryl Streep! ---
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/115 "2006-12-03T17:04:56Z")
_A Time to Kill_ by John Grisham. I couldn’t read another Grisham book after that rotten piece of menudo. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/116 "2006-12-03T17:40:56Z")
[QUOTE=Happy Wanderer] I haven’t read the book, but I liked the movie. Maybe it is the magic powerz of Meryl Streep! [/QUOTE] From what the critics were saying, Eastwood kept the bones of the story and tossed the glurgey dialogue. Anyone else tempted to try some of the clunkers mentioned here? Great Expectations is in the TBR. I think I’ll give it a go, just to see what all the fuss is about. ---
**Author:** ![WolfpackJeep](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpackjeep/32/2921_2.png) [@WolfpackJeep](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WolfpackJeep)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/117 "2006-12-03T18:22:02Z")
Previously on this board, I’ve mentioned how much I despised _The Pushcart War_ when I had to read it for a sixth grade book club/book trivia competition. At the time, I thought it was silly bordering on stupid – come on, puncturing truck tires with little pins? I recently looked it up again, and it’s just as bad as I remember – mainly because it seems to be nothing more than a big piece of socialist propaganda (something that went completely over my head as a child). ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/118 "2006-12-03T18:41:36Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] Anyone else tempted to try some of the clunkers mentioned here? Great Expectations is in the TBR. I think I’ll give it a go, just to see what all the fuss is about. [/QUOTE] It’s one of my favorite books. I think it’s pretty accessible for Dickens. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/119 "2006-12-03T18:45:33Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] Ah, _Eragon_. That’s one of those books I just can’t decide whether or not I want to pick up and read. I’ve seen a lot of reviews just like yours, that it was written by a teenager and it shows, being very cliched. [/QUOTE] It’s a book that’s better when you consider the author’s age than it is alone. Definitely not the worst book I’ve read in the past five years, but nowhere near the top 100. I finished it, and I no longer bother to finish books that I have no interest in. I do hope the book is inspirational to kids, though. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [December 3, 2006, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507/120 "2006-12-03T18:49:09Z")
[QUOTE=AuntiePam] From what the critics were saying, Eastwood kept the bones of the story and **tossed the glurgey dialogue**. [/QUOTE] You mean there was **more?!?** :eek: 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-worst-book-you-ever-read-and-why/382507.md?page=7)