Oh, man, this book was awful. I read it this summer when I was in Europe and the supply of English books was extremely short - I had no idea it was popular in the US (probably a bit before my time).
It was terrible - the main character is such an obvious Mary Sue for the author - she’s oh so sweet and nice and perfect, but nobody in town can possibly understand her because she has this worldly magical background. Also, it was clear that the author did absolutely no research on anything - every topic that I knew even a tiny bit about was presented hideously incorrectly. There was a part when they were putting on a play (with, of course, the main character as the brilliant director) and it was like the author had never even been to a theatre, but instead had one vaguely described to her by some third party. So I have to assume all the other ‘facts’ in the book were equally poorly researched.
The only other book I hated this much was Eat, Pray, Love - the woman was so rediculously self-involved and so cruel about her husband (who, as far as I can tell did nothing wrong), it made me angry. She whinged endlessly while having the luxury of travelling the globe while being paid, and acted like not getting together with another man for gaspless than a year after her divorce was like the most moral thing in the world and made her an amazing person.
Review that made me totally uninterested in reading it - not that this is my cup of tea anyway. It asks what the plot would seem like if it were written by a man. Even if it’s half-accurate, it’s pretty damning.
I’ve never made it through the first paragragh. Does not engage.
My hatred for Twilight is pretty intense, but my 9 year old wants to read it and when I got it for her from the library ( after months of ‘It’s complete GARBAGE for your brain’ lectures, I decided she needs to decide for herself what is good and bad book writing. You have to read bad books to appreciate good ones.
If she starts sporting Team Edward crap I will have to sell her to medical research.
There are a lot of good (meaning bad) choices here. Anne Rice? Unreadable. Robin Cook? Ditto. And so forth and so on.
I’m going to cast a vote for just about anything written by Ken Follett. I have tried to read several of his books, without having much luck finishing any of them (I guess I’m a glutton for punishment).
I’m in the minority, but I did not like/in fact could not get through Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I know it’s a first person memoir but even so it came across as the most self absorbed “Get a load of me being clever” (which the better first person memoirs don’t) and surprisingly shallow considering it deals with losing his parents and his family trying to stay together for the sake of his kid brother and other serious issues. By far the best parts were in his foreword, and in discussing his relationships he comes across as a total prick. (His sister famously disputed many of its factual claims about him selflessly raising his brother as well.)
Ditto. TCP was just teeth grindingly bad. I remember it being for people who want to feel spiritual without having to actually do or think much at all.
Clancy I started almost flipping through: “Aaaaand there’s the speech about how the valiant good guys get no appreciation from whiny liberals. Now, where was the plot again?” And I’m not liberal. Doesn’t he have a Chinese guard let the hero just run by because he’s more programmed to follow orders than he is afraid of going to prison for letting the hero escape? Just ridiculous.
The counselor at our little K-12 school discovered last year that the 6th grade girls were texting each other “HSE” or something meaning “he’s so Edward” (or whatever), showing that they had no higher praise for a boy than to compare him to the Twilight Edward.
11th grade girls brought in a large newspaper Twilight ad today at lunch and squealed over it. Last year I was able to crack up a class by grabbing a copy of Twilight and reading from it at random. It’s that treacly.
And how about Eric van Daniken? Very popular in the 70s, for more than the 20 seconds he deserves. I remember reading Chariots of the Gods when I was 12, and I was impressed by how bad it was. He spent most of his introduction telling the reader to never trust archaeologists, because they make up crazy nonsensical stuff based on no evidence, and then insist you believe them because they’re experts. Then von D. spends the rest of the book making up crazy nonsensical stuff based on no evidence, but insisting we should believe him because he’s an expert. :rolleyes: Every single chapter was like that. Oh, and Eric baby, if you can’t think of another explanation for anything except aliens, maybe you’re the one with the problem.
Just out of curiosity, is this before or after the movie? If after, are they really comparing guys to Robert Pattinson? If before, I find this really interesting, actually - that somehow, the book presented an image of a man so attractive that he “leaps off the page” for these readers. If this is the case, then Meyer might be doing SOMETHING right, at least with her descriptions and characterization.
I submit Twilight; any of the Left Behind Series; a book entitled We All Fall Down by Michael somebody that I had to read for my old book club and it was not only terrible, it featured apocalyptic nonsense–a very fundie book. Blech.
Da Vinci Code, any Barbara Cartland book… (she’s known for her ellipses).
I’m sure there are more, but my memory is merciful.
I probably should read threads all the way through prior to posting.
Anyway, I third Eat, Love Pray. What a spoiled, whiney brat she is.
Is now a good time to confess that I never understood Johnathan Livingston Seagull? I got the book when I was about 10 for Xmas. It neither moved me or gave me pleasure. I thought the pics could have been better. I’m still wtf about it.
There was some Oprah book re Living Simply(Simple Abundance?) or some such that had to go through 35 publishers before it got published. It was utter tripe.
Bridges of Madison County; Love Story; Catcher in the Rye (not the worst book written, but truly one of the most annoying.)
I second Eragon and the rest of the trilogy.
I do think that some books are best read at certain ages. Teens seem to appreciate Catcher, but upon reread in middle age, Holden comes across very differently, for just one example.
There was a long series of those books, and then he went away for a while, and now he’s back. He’s been popping up in lots of interviews on The History Channel (aka the Nostradamus/Bible Code/Gangland/Ice Road Truckers/UFO Channel). For a few years he had his own theme parkbut it closed after only 3 years in 2006.
I can’t stand Jodi Picoult’s formulaic and faux-controversial writing. Her book My Sister’s Keeper seems universally loved but it is the single worst book I have ever read in my life.
Dangerosa, I used the same justification for a little while, because at a certain age, I read my V.C. Andrews to tatters. But it kind of falls apart when I try to imagine camping out for tickets to the movie version, or wearing buttons proclaiming my allegiance to Team Chris or Team Bart!
I KNEW I was forgetting something. That book was terrible–and she betrayed her characters and her theme in the end. What a tool of a writer. What a complete and utter hack. I loathed this book so much that I will never read another thing by her.
