I was going to say there couldn’t possibly be a book so bad that I didn’t want to remember it at all. But then I remembered that a book gave me a phobia as well.
The book is Tangerine by Edward Bloor. It’s YA fiction and I read it in an 8th grade English class. The true cause of the main character’s near-blindness and the great reveal of the novel is
his brother and another boy held his eyes open and sprayed spray paint into them.
You went to my high school? I hated those books with a passion, and Great Expectations is what I came in here to have burned out of me.
If you tell me you also had to read The Pearl, by Steinbeck, I’m going to have to ask you where you went to school.
Oh god, I had almost forgotten The Pearl. That and The Red Pony almost turned me completely off of Steinbeck. Fortunately he redeemed himself with The Grapes of Wrath.
“Lisey’s Story,” by Stephen King. “Lisey took the smucking smuck and gave it to the smucker, who smucked it while smucking the smuck. Smuck smuck smuck.”
I’d like to erase all of the Jean Auel books, except the first one, which I read so long ago I have forgotten it anyway. Also Anne Rice’s vampire books (a “friend” encouraged me to read them back when they were really new and trendy, and I read the first two or three and just never saw the appeal). And the Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever series. Bought it all second-hand, and when I actually slogged through it I was mad at myself for wasting the money. Oh, and the Sword of Shannara.
Is that too many?
I was going to opt for the Da Vinci Code, too, but I agree with the poster who says it is fun to be able to discuss why it is so bad. 
Just out of idle curiosity, what is it about the rape scene that so disturbs you? That is, is it the simple act of rape itself (as the scene isn’t that graphic); what the rape reveals about
Covenant’s character,
or the idea that
you’re being asked to sympathize with a rapist as the protagonist?
A TIme to Kill. I still have nightmares about the rape scene, and since having the Celtling they are particularly, well, nightmarish.
Also Lord of the Flies, which might have been fine except that they assigned it to us in the 5th grade. I mean come on, we were advanced readers, not mini adults!
And Pet Sematary. ewww!
*My Sister’s Keeper *by Jodi Piccoult–she is an author who betrays her characters to fulfill some kind of weird agenda of her own. That’s my take on it, anyway. I’m not going to defend or explain further, but I will say that as a healthy child in a family that had 2 chronically ill sibs, Piccoult knows nothing about how those kids (and their parents) react to stuff.
We All Fall Down by Mike someone–it was only published on demand online and it’s by some fundamentalist nutjob. I read it for my bookclub–it’s a horrid book that has nothing to do with redemption, compassion or Jesus’ teaching re tolerance and love for one another. Reading it was like drinking dust. All I can say is thank god we none of us wanted to buy the book, so we chipped in to buy one copy and passed it around. I would not want to contribute to this jerk’s profit margin any more than I need to.
I’m sure there are more, but those 2 come to mind immediately.
I’m much the same way. I’ve read some pretty bad books, but I usually think “Well, this may be bad, but at least the author managed to write an entire book, something I have never and probably will never do.” With Twilight though I thought “If I were writing a book this bad, I would have stopped. I would have realized that I wasn’t meant to be a writer and quit.”
If I’d read Twilight in the usual way I probably would want it erased, but I read it (actually not even the whole thing, about 1/3 of it) out loud with friends during a weekend visit. We had a lot of laughs over that book – one of my friends actually fell off the couch at one point – and I wouldn’t want to forget that.
How did I neglect to mention Twilight? It was so stupid, it was actually a kind of marvel in its amazing degree of stupidity…
Both. Mainly it’s because i don’t like rape scenes in anything. I refuse to watch movies like The Accused and I’ve marked the rape chapter in Mists of Avalon because I will never read it again.
WORST.STEPHEN.KING.EVAR!!! Smuck you Steve-O for writing that horrible piece of trash. Anyone care to wager that Lisey’s favorite jam is Smuckers?
Also whatshisface constantly referring to Lisey as babylove just seemed so…trailer trashy.And yes, I 100% agree on Jodi Picoult. Her books are just so…Lifetime Movie of the Week. Although I think they’re more along the lines of the semi-decent Lifetime Movies, like the Pam Smart/early 90’s ones, rather then My Fat Daughter Is Beingn Beaten By My Pschotic Alchyholic Husband.
I put the book down at that same place (and never picked it up again), primarily because I just can’t sympathize with a rapist. A rapist isn’t a hero, or even an antihero-- If I read a book with a rape scene, the rapist is automatically the villain, regardless of what the author intends.
Ugh… how about anything by Kurt Vonnegut? Since one of my friends really loved his work, he convinced me to read a number of them, including Slaughterhouse Five, Breakfast of Champions, and Cat’s Cradle. Utterly worthless drivel, all of it. I fail to see how poor misguided souls can eat up such rambling and non-sensical literature apparently written by a schizophrenic mental patient. Where do I sign up for the neuralizer treatment?
OMG yes. Especially the one about the incestuous genius twins. While I understand what he was going for, the ultimate societal good at the cost of the ultimate taboo, I still just found it disgusting. And not a terribly good exploration of the conflict and society’s response.
The Name of the Rose
Seriously. I heard people rave about it, so read it and wondered “what’s all the fuss about?”
I’d not erase The Da Vinci Code, because I read it specifically to find out what the flaws were. I kept hearing people say things like, “I didn’t know there were secret societies” etc. Boy was that book a doozy.
Not a whole book, just an excerpt posted here on this board about the book “Hogg” by Samuel Delany. The short excerpt posted (I will not link to it here, not only because I still don’t know how to do that, but also because I will spare the unsuspecting) made me nauseated, and STILL makes me nauseated when I remember reading it. I’m feeling like I’m going to throw up right now.
The Hotel New Hampshire, by John Irving. Also the World According to Garp, same dude.Both disturbing, probably made worse by the fact I read them around age 13 or 14. I like quite a lot of his other work. Prayer For Owen Meanie, Cider House Rules, (disturbing at times, but I wasn’t haunted by it) Widow for One Year, also enjoyable.
But the Hotel New Hampshire, and all the sad Vienese post war dispndency, bears, (what is it with John Irving and bears?) and naming the baby “Egg” I just couldn’t stand it. At that age I read books right through, begining to end and never considered stopping because the story was terrible or disturbing.
Also all those VC Andrews books, the Flowers in the Attic, and Sweet Audrina… I got that out of my system even younger probably age 12. Evil evil books. Incest, abuse, locking children up… rape, abortions… was nothing untouchable? However they probably mostly cured me of reading trashy paperbacks.
(My mother had an odd view of censorship. If I could read it, I was “allowed” to read it. she figured if I didn’t understand it or wasn’t ready for it I would put it down. Infact the only book I ever remember her not wanting me to read was a trashy pree-teen girl meets boy book. I read it anyway, but she really didn’t think it was my style. She was right. It was an odd capitulation to peer pressure, is all)
Og help me, now I actually want to read Twilight.
There has been only one book that I pissed myself off for reading. The Nanny Diaries. Made me swear off chick lit right out of the gate. Everything you need to know about the book:
Whine, whine, jellyfish spine. Everything’s everyone’s fault but mine.
Hee, I like the rhythm of that. Can I have that burned into my brain instead? Please, Mr. Rhymer? bats eyelashes
No fair! I actually had forgotten that book! I didn’t even read the spoiler (and deleted it in the quote) and I still remember too much of it now. My 9th grade civics teacher had the weird habit of reading us books during free time, and this was one of them.