Ever read a stunningly horrible book? You know when you get to that 2/3 point where you realize that it isn't going to get any better, only worse, so you start skipping pages of poorly hidden exposition and moralizing by the main characters to find out whether Peter really did love Diane, even though you know it couldn't end any other way? What about the books that smell from the beginning, or lead you along only to disappoint in the last five pages?
We've all read stinkers. I just finished one. I find them disappointing, like finding out that Santa Claus isn't real, and slightly hopeful, like that means his job is open. So here's a place to talk about the books you mildly dislike to absolutely detest.
A Farewell to Arms (detest)
The Girl Who Could Fly
Neuromancer
Inkheart (couldn't finish it)
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4,145 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 14 44
Wow, you didn't like Nueromancer?! O_O What didn't you like about it specifically?
I myself found The Catcher in the Rye utter nonsense thinly disguised as something attempting to be much deeper.
25,115 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 15 20
I liked Inkheart. But the book that I thought was stunningly bad was "Angela's Ashes." I finished it and thought, "I waded through all this mildew and tragedy for THIS?"
53,240 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 15 24
Oh, I loved Angela's Ashes, and didn't hate Catcher in the Rye, though I didn't love it either...
The ones that really annoy me are The DaVinci Code, Twilight and Eragon. I hate them all passionately.
51,493 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 15 34
The only book I have read that I have actually HATED (and I love almost all of the books I read) was Walk Two Moons. It's kind of a kids book, but I read it a couple years ago and it was just awful.
The only other book I haven't liked was The Hobbit and that might have been because I was in third grade. LOL
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106,888 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 15 52
lol! I don't like Eragon or Inkheart. Couldn't stand any of them and the same for the Harry Potter...ugh...just so, annoying. I find myself wanting to rewrite the whole thing. *sigh* that's when I know I should stop reading.
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51,000 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 06
catcher in the rye!! i HATED that book.
(though Greg Nagan did a hilarious spoof of it in "The Five Minute Illiad and other instant classics")
i liked the first few Harry Potter books but then i got really tired of hearing about how horrible the Dursleys were and there was always some issue he had to overcome to get back to Hogwarts and he always ended up confronting Voldemort and 'winning' but not killing him... yeah. it got tiring after a while.
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blithely defying "write what you know" since... oh, well... ever.
50,112 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 21
The House of Seven Gables (and anything else by Nathaniel Hawthorne)
Julius Caesar (just awful. how could someone who wrote Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream create such crap?!)
Breaking Dawn (I've unfortunately read all the Twilight books, they're a guilty pleasure, but really, Breaking Dawn was worse than most of the fan fics out there.)
50,515 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 26
I loathe Tolkien with a passion. I've tried to read his books several times, on the theory that I should because they're "classics", but they're just awful. Pages and pages of boring, flowery description puts me to sleep. And I hate hobbits. They're creepy.
OTOH, I loved Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive. Of course, I was a teenager at the time; I might not find them so fascinating now. :)
Laurell K. Hamilton's books went from mildy amusing to "throw it against the wall" awful. I've read fanfic set in her universe that is vastly superior to her actual novels. (It's no wonder she's rabidly anti-fic.)
----------5,867 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 41
This thread just goes to show how diverse people's tastes could be. Various people keep commenting on how much they loved books that other people loathe.
Like, for instance, I CANNOT BELIEVE that you hated Tolkein. Granted, they are probably far longer than they should be, but I am an LotR nut nonetheless.
The one book that I can think of that I actually hated (deeply, oh so deeply) was To Kill A Mockingbird. I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for that, but I can't help it.
This is how I saw TKaM. Bunch of random southerners doing a bunch of random southern things, and there's this one guy with what could be autism and he puts soap dolls in a tree, and oh yeah, theres a trial that lasts all of about a chapter or two and that s the only part anyone remembers but then its BACK to the randomness. The End.
Actually I also hated the ending to Stuart Little. But the rest was pretty good.
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50,062 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 41
I myself found The Catcher in the Rye utter nonsense thinly disguised as something attempting to be much deeper.
I hated the characters. I don't mean it was poorly written, or anything, it probably wasn't - but I found myself despising everybody in the book. I finished it, but only barely.
50,264 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 41
I couldn't stand One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest. For some reason that I cannot pin down, it annoyed me.
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51,395 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 46
I absolutely hated The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. Biggest bunch of crap I ever read. Could not get through any of the LOTR books or Potter books, too freaking boring. Just could not get into them. Hated most of the "classic contemporary lit" I had to read way back when in school (I'm 47) except for the African American studies and the American Indian studies I took.
Now, I like a lot of "fluff" reading, because I'm a busy mom and would rather read than write in my spare time.
----------"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia." ~E.L. Doctorow
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20,334 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 46
Compared with Twilight, anything could be a best seller. I read up to when she met that guy only because my friend told me to, I had to force myself to go through to that part, it was like a horribly written fanfic writer's attempt at writing original.
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"I don't care about breeding. A sword doesn't need a fine lineage, it just needs to be sharp" ~ Luca Blight
60,369 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 16 54
God, the Inheritance and Twilight series make me want to stab my eyes out.
I loved Inkheart and Inkspell, but Inkdeath killed it for me. So boring, so unconnected, so many wtf? moments...and all the characters became plot devices, i.e. their characters/personalities changed to make a plot, even when it was just STUPID for them to change. Gah.
25,115 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 17 22
I didn't know there was an Inkdeath. Hmmm.
2,702 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 17 46
Anna Karenena. I tried and tried and tried to read it but it bored me half to death.
18,083 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 17 47
I liked Inkheart and Harry Potter... Oh well.
I absolutely detested Peter Pan, Homecoming, and, so far, Twilight.
But, just to brighten up the thread a bit, I absolutely ADORE The Scarlet Pimpernel. That s one of my favorite novels of all time.
6,972 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 17 48
Inkdeath's the new one.
As for me...I remember that the first time I read the Hobbit, I hated it. Then I read it again years later and found that I actually liked it. I don't know why I wasn't interested in it until AFTER I read through the entire LotR trilogy first...
There are two books I know that cause me to feel vaguely ill whenever I contemplate reading them. A Confederacy of Dunces was one - I got to the part where the guy masturbates to the vision of his dog and couldn't stand it any further. The other was The Curious Incident of the Dog that Happened in the Nighttime. I can not STAND that book - and I got really, openly upset when my parents gave me a copy for my birthday.
33,133 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 07
I can only think of two books that I just didn't like, (Maybe its because I always find something that I like about a book or something) and that was Angel and Demons by Dan Brown and Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice. I haven't picked up a Anne Rice book since then.
64,038 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 10
Okay, this is not a reference any of you will get but... ugh. Les Chevaliers d'Émeraude. Keep away at all costs. It's 12 books long, and it makes me die inside. Not that the first few were actually that bad in themselves but... ack, I can't stand the characters, because all of them strike me as unrealistic. And so are the interactions. And the idea that nearly no one ever dies when they're in a f***ing war! Long lasting war!
*breathes*
I actually had to try twice to read LotR too. Why? I made the mistake of trying to read all prologues the first time around when I was only 11. Bad idea. When I actually started the story, however, I couldn't put the book down. And I read all three 11-12 times, 9 of which in a single year span. Yes, I'm nuts about Tolkien.
----------Le Mauve c'est le Mal!
12,801 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 12
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Despised it. It's pretty much the only book I've ever read that I didn't like.
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50,080 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 16
Haha, I read the book after watching the movie, and I remember finishing and going, "What?" The movie was so much better, and I think that's the first time I've ever thought that. I usually prefer the book to the movie.
LOL, I guess I'm the only Twilight fan here then? Anyway, I read Twilight when it first came out, and since I hadn't read anything in that genre before, and I really liked it, I tried looking up related genres and book reccomendations. I think the book was called... Vampire Kisses or something? Not. Good. Never again did I try vampire books outside of Twilight. Well, actually, I tried a few that were alright, but still...
And Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck. Though, maybe it was because we had to read it in English, and over analyze everything? I don't know, the CD they read the book on probably didn't help. I just couldn't stand it.
15,821 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 20
As an incurable fantasy author, I find that the Eragon books are the perfect "Good Christ, I could do better with a pickaxe in my forebrain" reading material.
53,092 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 21
Ah, what fun!
I read about a third of "Middlemarch" and discovered that it was pretty much an 18th-century soap opera girlie book about spoiled rich people. Just not my thing. Bleah!
50,018 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 30
When I first read Eragon, I thought, wow, this was great! Then two years went by and I picked it up again. And then I realized what total crap it was. I could not make it through the entire book, I hated it so much the second time around.
When Eragon came out, everyone was all hyped up about it. but the third book came out and I didn't even know until I saw it in the bookstore. I walked by without even reading the back cover.
To the people who hate LOTR, I don't understand where you guys are coming from. LOTR is incredible and rocks. I'll admit, I could not make it through the chapter entitled Elrond's Council. That one was way way too long and rather dull. I skipped it. But other than that, LOTR totally pwns.
Another book I strongly disliked was 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Vern. Yes, it's a classic, but it is so DULL. And racist and elitist. I'm sorry, but there it is. Jules Vern was brilliant, I'm not going to argue with that, he came up with so many things and was so ahead of his time, but just because someone is brilliant doesn't mean they merit getting read. Einstein was a genious, but who here has read his book on relativity?
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18,083 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 36
Hah, I didn't even make it through the book the first time. I got about fourteen chapters in and gave up, since nothing had happened. In FOURTEEN chapters. Uhg.
4,589 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 43
Oh god, I absolutely hated The Pearl by John Steinbeck. I mean, I can understand its literary merit but jeebus, that book was painful.
Sorry, another mild Twilight-hater here. The first three books didn't bother me. They were cute, they were mind candy, they were diverting, that was it. But Breaking Dawn, disappointment doesn't even begin to cover it. Stephenie Meyer essentially did everything I didn't want her to do. For any future books, unless I hear some major critical acclaim, I cannot see myself ever picking up another one of her books.
Can't say I hate the Inheritance series. I read Eragon back in grade seven, I have Eldest sitting on my bookshelf but I've lost interest. A similar fate befell Inkspell, read Inkheart but the former is just collecting dust on my bookshelf.
I tried reading Lestat, I tried. I just couldn't get through it.
50,044 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 47
Oh my god, Farewell to Arms is THE. WORST. BOOK. I have ever read. I wanted to kill myself. I had to read it for school. There is nothing redeemable or at all enjoyable in that "novel". Actually, ANYTHING by Hemingway needs to die.
I couldn't finish Eragon. I was bored, so very utterly bored.
I hated To Kill A Mockingbird the first time I tried to read it and never finished it. I eventually had to for school and hated it a little less.
I want to say The Hobbit, too, because I never finished it, but I shouldn't, because I only got like...12 pages into it before I just couldn't go on anymore. XD I don't think that's a fair judgement then.
----------18,083 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 18 53
Huh, I liked To Kill a Mockingbird, too, but that might have been because Atticus rocked my socks. I'm not sure why, but I liked him.
50,077 / 50,000
Oct 16, 2008 - 19 01
When Eragon came out, everyone was all hyped up about it. but the third book came out and I didn't even know until I saw it in the bookstore. I walked by without even reading the back cover.
That reminds me of my Animorphs stage. Good lord, I was young. (I'm sure future me is thinking that about present me now.) I started reading it when the second book came out up to book twenty something and lost interest. So did the authoress if the ghostwriters are any indication.