It’s rare that I don’t finish a book once I start it, even if it’s not the best, but those Thomas Covenant books–AAAGGH!!!
I didn’t finish the third one, I don’t know where they went, and I don’t care. I think I wouldn’t even give them away.
But how could anybody not like Jane Austen? Pride and Prejudice? Right up toward the top of my favorites list.
When you’re reading “Pride and Prejudice” you have to be in a certain mood. It’s a slow-paced book, and there’s lots of subtle humor that you won’t catch if you’re reading for the plot.
Compared to reading , for example, “Day of the Jackal,” which I read this year for the first time and enjoyed the heck out of - reading a book like P&P is utterly different. For either kind of book, you have to be in the mood, which may be why people who have to read things for school hate them. (Then they go to Amazon and write mispelled reviews about “dont reed this teribl bok” …)
And I liked “Earth” too, but not as much as Brin’s short story “Thor Meets Captain America” which appeared in S&SF I think.
Somebody gave me some Sven Hassel books with a glowing recommendation. I should have realised what to expect, as he collected guns and only ever wore combat gear.
As far as a book I actually finished, the razzy has to go to The Horse Whisperer. A coworker got it for me for Christmas after overhearing me badmouth it at lunch one day. I was saying then how cheesy it seemed, how lame the plot sounded, and she defended it (in a friendly way) and got me the book to read, saying it was so good, give it a try, etc. So, I did. And I read that entire thing. The chapter with the accident was interesting, but the ending was so ludicrous, cheesy, and infuriatingly lame that my poor friends got earfulls of complaints while I was finishing it.
Now, as for books that were too painful to read, nonetheless finish, then Jane Eyre and Crime and Punishment are the winners. Jane because the storylines were so painfully soap-operaish, and Crime because the writing style was so convoluted.
You know, I always used to be one of those people who said, “It’s OK for people to disagree on movies, books, etc. People are different, and their tastes and opinions …” blah-blah-blah.
Until this board, that is.
First “American Beauty” sucked, according to many. Then “Sixth Sense” blew, according to many. Now I’m reading that “Catcher in the Rye” was an awful book?
You people should have your opinion privileges revoked.
Milo wept.
“We are here for this – to make mistakes and to correct ourselves, to withstand the blows and to hand them out.” Primo Levi
It’s pretty easy to dislike an author who can write entire novels where nothing happens.
Slow-paced is a pretty major understatement, IMO. The entire book involves writing letters and drinking tea. Absolutely nothing happens. The characters are incredibly one dimensional - the women’s lives revolve around getting married and are apparently incapable of thinking of anything else, while the men just hang around. I admit I missed any humour in the book, but by the end, I was just reading to get it over with. Entire chapters of “Oh, Mr. Darcy, perhaps you and young Mr. Darcy might join us for tea this afternoon?” That just doesn’t do it for me, I’m afraid. You’re free to enjoy it all you want, but you’ll likely not make me appreciate it any more.
Thought of another one that disappointed, big time: Toni Morrison’s Paradise. If Toni’s progressing to another level or something, I’ll stay behind with Song of Solomon and Sula, thankyouverymuch.
(I liked Geek Love, the two Wally Lamb books, and Deep End of the Ocean though.)
My ex-husband LOVED Green Mansions, and anything by Hermann Hesse. I cannot believe I read GM and several Hesse books. Normally I would have stopped after a page or two of that drivel, but true love compelled me on. I should have taken notice–how can anyone like this crap and have half a brain???
Add to this Joyce Carol Oates, A.J. Cronin, and Thomas Hardy. Might as well slit your wrists and be done with it as read these depressing authors.
I thought those books were decent until the ends; then they just got lame.
I also didn’t like Geek Love–I went to an arts high school my junior and senior year, and that was the book to read, and I hated it.
Douglas Coupland’s new one, Miss Wyoming, is pretty bad. Just not a very interesting story, and he tried to go back to a lot of the themes in Girlfriend in a Coma, and they just don’t work.
Worst book I’ve read in school–“Seperate Peace” by John Knowles. I thought it was just terrible, and the thing is we didn’t have to read it in class; our test was on the movie version of it. Of course, the teacher tells us this the one day I’m out, and I read the entire damned thing.
“I need the biggest seed bell you have. . . no, that’s too big.”–Hans Moleman
Well I just figured that Gerald’s Game was a given for this list.
I read Weaveworld, and a couple other Barker novels (The Great and Secret Show and The Damnation Game before I realized that the man basically makes it up as he goes. I guess you’ll never write yourself into a corner if you can just change the logic of the story at a whim and bring in some magical fantasy to rescue the plot. As a reader, I demand more.
My daughter’s recommended (fortunately) reading list for 7th grade included Chuck Yeager’s autobiography. I read it first, would have thrown it across the room if it hadn’t been a library book, and substituted “Lost Moon” for her.
The thing was sexist, profane, arrogant, and every other terrible thing I could think of. The line that made me want to hurl the book against the wall was a quote from his wife about a female pilot who had set international records for speed - that she obviously did those things because she wished she was a man.
Master of the Five Magics was the absolute worst piece of tripe I have ever read. Well, I guess I can’t actually say I read it all the way. It was so bad that I stopped reading it and gave it to some pyromaniac friends to do what they would with it (they set it on fire). The author, whatever his name was, was so bad. He never actually formulated any cohesive sense of a plot, nor did he make any of his characters interesting enough to continue reading. It was awful.
Now for a series of books that I actually read most of the way through. The Wheel of Time books by Robert Jordan were pretty awful too. At first they were pretty good until you realized that there were only two characters: the male and the female. All the females were played as evil, bitchy, manipulative shrews even when they weren’t supposed to be and all the males were played as power hungry madmen. What made it even worse was I was in the middle of the fifth or sixth book (all of the books had well over 1000 pages, so it took a pretty significant chunk away from my life just to read them) and saw that the series was not even close to ending. I put the book down because all of the characters were irritating the crap out of me by that time and there was not going to be any sense of resolution anytime in the near future. It bit so hard.
After Trina throws McTeague out, she takes all of her lottery money out of the bank in gold and rolls around in it in bed. Then McTeague comes back, kills her, takes the money and heads out for the Panamint range, ending up in Death Valley where he and Marcus die horribly.
I’ve never read the worst book I’ve ever read. I came to the conclusion years ago that it’s silly to feel guilty about not finishing a book, so if it fails to grab me after the first couple of chapters, I follow the advice of Mrs. Parker: “This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It is to be thrown with great force.”
You don’t know how glad I am to know that someone agrees with me about that book. You should see the reader comments at amazon.com - they’ve given it a 4 3/4 star out of 5 rating. Unbelievable. Who are these people that liked that ridiculous nonsense?
“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” - Anne Frank
“Mom, he’s a neo Nazi! He’s a doctor also? Well…” - WallyM7
Ms. Rand should have done more research before she portrayed Architecture as a profession that punishes the individualistic. Or at least had lunch with Phillip Johnson.
That and the part when the suicidal young man is cured of his depression when he happens upon a resort designed by Roarke and is moved by the architecture made me nearly wet myself laughing.