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Worst book you’ve ever read
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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People often talk about the best books they’ve ever read…but what about the worst books you’ve ever read?
Here’s my worst books:
The Age of Anxiety - Pete Townshend (even being a Who fan didn’t save it)
Afternoon of a Good Woman- Nina Bawden
The Hothouse on the East River- Muriel Spark
Plain Girl- Arthur Miller (tho this is a novella)
So…worst book you’ve ever read? |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Those stupid ones about mr grey and some woman.
Absolutely terrible. Badly written. "
50 shades of grey?
Never read them; I was young when they came out (pretty sure I was just a child). |
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By *tooveMan
over a year ago
belfast |
"Those stupid ones about mr grey and some woman.
Absolutely terrible. Badly written.
50 shades of grey?
Never read them; I was young when they came out (pretty sure I was just a child). "
Yeah. They're absolutely shite. No redeeming features at all. I read them because everyone was raving about them but they were badly written by someone who didn't have a clue what she was writing about.
They were even worse than the old Joe Hawkins books. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"I thought Catcher in the Rye was pants! "
Wow really  I love Catcher in the Rye!! One of my favourite books…though I do see a lot of people saying they hate it so maybe I need to reconsider hahahaha  |
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Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.
I know it's a classic, and deals with some important themes, but I just found it turgid.
But I now just give up on books I'm not enjoying! There's too much to read to struggle through bad stuff! |
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By *riel13Woman
over a year ago
Northampton |
"I thought Catcher in the Rye was pants!
Wow really I love Catcher in the Rye!! One of my favourite books…though I do see a lot of people saying they hate it so maybe I need to reconsider hahahaha "
Hahaha! I felt like I was permanently waiting for something to happen lol |
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I tried to read a book called the years of rice and salt.
I couldn't make head nor tail of it. Its 20 years sitting on a book shelf waiting for me to try again.
It's well reviewed... just too dense for me at the time.
I tried to read Robert ludlum books too and I found them so boring.
Also the silmarillion by Tolkien. Masterful idea, horrible book. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Talking to strangers: Malcolm Gladwell
Neuromancer: William Gibson
A short history of nearly everything: Bill Bryson"
Necromancer is brilliant, full of what were then ground breaking and innovative ideas about the Web and cyber security.
Haven't read it fir years so it may have aged badly I guess. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Lord of the rings, I loved The Hobbit so thought I'd enjoy it, couldn't even make it halfway through, never bothered watching the films either"
Another one of my favourites , though I grant you it’s a long read. I think I love it for nostalgic reasons as much as anything else x |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Lord of the rings, I loved The Hobbit so thought I'd enjoy it, couldn't even make it halfway through, never bothered watching the films either"
Was going to say exactly the same thing!
Wading through the first half of the fellowship of the ring was like wading through treacle whilst platting fog. Truly awful experience and at the time I could speed read a page three lines at a time so (insert entity here) help dyslexics FFS!
The whole Tolkien works are master pieces similar to the Mona Lisa but both have their appeal and maybe their day.
As for reading material I'd rather not have engaged with - most of the recent business propositions and quotes for work I've had to sift through were just dreadful |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"Jane eyre. Hated it at school, hate it now "
One of my most favourite books! Though definitely long, and I’d imagine if I had to read it in a school setting I’d hate it too! |
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"Talking to strangers: Malcolm Gladwell
Neuromancer: William Gibson
A short history of nearly everything: Bill Bryson
Necromancer is brilliant, full of what were then ground breaking and innovative ideas about the Web and cyber security.
Haven't read it fir years so it may have aged badly I guess."
--I read the first page or two of Neuromancer back in the day, but I just couldn't read on. The 'cyberpunk' thing was a keeper though! (though I realise he didn't quite originate it).
The same went for the Bryson, funnily enough.
And off my head, London Fields by Martin Amis. (who always appears at some point on these lists I know).--
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
|
"Talking to strangers: Malcolm Gladwell
Neuromancer: William Gibson
A short history of nearly everything: Bill Bryson
Necromancer is brilliant, full of what were then ground breaking and innovative ideas about the Web and cyber security.
Haven't read it fir years so it may have aged badly I guess.
--I read the first page or two of Neuromancer back in the day, but I just couldn't read on. The 'cyberpunk' thing was a keeper though! (though I realise he didn't quite originate it).
The same went for the Bryson, funnily enough.
And off my head, London Fields by Martin Amis. (who always appears at some point on these lists I know).--
"
Oh god…I read Dead Babies by Martin Amis and crikey…possibly one of the worst books I’ve ever read. Genuinely. It’s awful. The writing is awful, the plot is awful; half of it doesn’t make sense. The characters are awful: basically, the whole book is DREADFUL. |
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By *yronMan
over a year ago
grangemouth |
'Bonaparte's Warriors' by Richard Howard.
The author tried to get in on the Napoleonic scene that Bernard Cornwell had brought to life with his excellent 'Sharpe' series. The difference here was, it would be centered around the French army.
Good premise and it looked good, as it would be about the elite French Dragoons.
It didn't work. Nothing seems to happen, the dialogue is lacklustre, there's jokes that I'm sure that the author found hysterical, but don't work and you really don't warm to the characters.
I'm told that there's others in the series, but I can't bring myself to read more than one. |
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"Lord of the rings, I loved The Hobbit so thought I'd enjoy it, couldn't even make it halfway through, never bothered watching the films either"
-- It took me a good 10 years of returning to get out of the Shire, but it was worth it in the end though I thought. The second book is the best one and is quite exciting to read (and is better for having a couple of women in). The third one moves along too, and probably covers too much if anything. The films did an ok job of fanning it all out.
I think that most people agree the Hobbit is probably his best book and that LOR starts pretty slow. I know that some find the Silmarillion to be the better written (Tolkien could forget about the finesse of his prose from time to time in LOR I found - a bit like Jackson with his directing), so it will be interesting to see what the new Amazon series will be like. -- |
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By *imbobaMan
over a year ago
Glasgow |
"Lord of the rings, I loved The Hobbit so thought I'd enjoy it, couldn't even make it halfway through, never bothered watching the films either"
I sense the need for a long weekend film marathon in the making. I’ll keep you busy during the boring bits (fortunately not too many not too long.). |
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By *ack688Man
over a year ago
abruzzo Italy (and UK) |
A book that gets a lot of great reviews but which I thought was just awful was A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. I didn’t like the writing style, the story, the characters, I don’t know why I persisted with it really. |
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I normally stick with a book no matter how much it grips me but the one failure I had was The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, after it being recommended to me by a workmate I seem to remember being a fair way in and giving up I had no clue what was going on. |
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Just read James Herbert’s The Fog as thought I’d try a different genre, found that a struggle to get to the end. Then Graeme Souness’s autobiography was also very poor didn’t give any insights at all. I wouldn’t say that to his face mind |
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"I normally stick with a book no matter how much it grips me but the one failure I had was The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, after it being recommended to me by a workmate I seem to remember being a fair way in and giving up I had no clue what was going on."
Dude! That's an awesome book, I urge you to give it another go.
50 shades of grey for me was 50 shades of sh#te. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"Talking to strangers: Malcolm Gladwell
Neuromancer: William Gibson
A short history of nearly everything: Bill Bryson
Necromancer is brilliant, full of what were then ground breaking and innovative ideas about the Web and cyber security.
Haven't read it fir years so it may have aged badly I guess.
--I read the first page or two of Neuromancer back in the day, but I just couldn't read on. The 'cyberpunk' thing was a keeper though! (though I realise he didn't quite originate it).
The same went for the Bryson, funnily enough.
And off my head, London Fields by Martin Amis. (who always appears at some point on these lists I know).--
"
I eventually read the whole of Neuromancer. I was expecting that I will get used to his writing style at some point. That never happened. I ended up reading chapter notes on the internet after every chapter to confirm what's happening really is what I think is happening 
With Bryson book, the problem is he tries to write long passages about scientists who discovered something before actually going into the actual discovery they made which is the chapter's topic. He thinks it makes the book interesting. But it did the entire opposite to me. It felt like there are more pages in the book talking about the scientists compared to explanation of the actual discoveries. No one wants to know which university every damn scientist when to, who their parents were and who they married.
I found David Christian's Origin Story book much more crisp and to the point. |
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By *eavenNhellCouple
over a year ago
carrbrook stalybridge |
100 days of sodom by the marqui de sade
Just dont go there jesus was hard work manged to get a quarter of the way in before I had enough
Closely followed by moby dick 15 chapters in and the fish ain't appeared
Only two books I have never finnished |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Man I love Neuromancer but I think I can see your point. As for Tolkien I love the Silmarillion so LOTR is pretty straightforward in comparison
My equivalent I guess would be Fahrenheit 451 and Catch 22. I just remember 451 being a complete slog. I went into Catch thinking it was a serious account of a bobber squadron and could just never square it away that it was satire. |
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Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I hated the character, and found it too dull to finish it.
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch was turgid
But my one true hate was the poems of Carol Ann Duffy. I studied them at A level and despised them. Absolute dross. Self obsessed bullshit. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"But my one true hate was the poems of Carol Ann Duffy. I studied them at A level and despised them. Absolute dross. Self obsessed bullshit. "
Oh lord you’ve just given me flash backs to things I thought I’d suppressed!!! |
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By *lynJMan
over a year ago
Morden |
"Lord of the rings, I loved The Hobbit so thought I'd enjoy it, couldn't even make it halfway through, never bothered watching the films either
-- It took me a good 10 years of returning to get out of the Shire, but it was worth it in the end though I thought. The second book is the best one and is quite exciting to read (and is better for having a couple of women in). The third one moves along too, and probably covers too much if anything. The films did an ok job of fanning it all out.
I think that most people agree the Hobbit is probably his best book and that LOR starts pretty slow. I know that some find the Silmarillion to be the better written (Tolkien could forget about the finesse of his prose from time to time in LOR I found - a bit like Jackson with his directing), so it will be interesting to see what the new Amazon series will be like. --"
JRR didn't actually finish writing the Silmarillion. His son Christopher completed it after his death. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Spycatcher by Peter Wright. Originally banned in the UK for security reasons, a friend got me a copy on her trip to NY. Seriously, I was falling asleep at the end of every page. |
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"I tried to read a book called the years of rice and salt.
I couldn't make head nor tail of it. Its 20 years sitting on a book shelf waiting for me to try again.
It's well reviewed... just too dense for me at the time.
I tried to read Robert ludlum books too and I found them so boring.
Also the silmarillion by Tolkien. Masterful idea, horrible book. "
I couldn't get into the silmarillion either...could read lotr forever  |
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"But my one true hate was the poems of Carol Ann Duffy. I studied them at A level and despised them. Absolute dross. Self obsessed bullshit.
Oh lord you’ve just given me flash backs to things I thought I’d suppressed!!! "
My apologies. It really was awful stuff wasn't it |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"
My apologies. It really was awful stuff wasn't it "
Luckily my memories of them are really vague. I just remember doing them at GCSE and, having always been an avid reader, feeling that literature was just not for me. Which, looking back, is actually a tad sad. I’ve always been a fantasy/sci fi nerd and I think English lit at school mostly put me off reading other genres and poetry. A prejudice that I’ve only just started to overcome. |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"
Also the silmarillion by Tolkien. Masterful idea, horrible book.
I couldn't get into the silmarillion either...could read lotr forever "
It was always the epic scale of the Silmarillion that got me. Sure LOtR has a balrog, the Sil has the elves fighting an army of balrogs!! Teen me swooned. |
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By *a LunaWoman
over a year ago
South Wales |
Kestrel for a Knave (or Kes)
We read it in School and it left a lasting impression on me (which I guess is good) of hardship and gloom.
It was hard going. And it made me appreciate my home comforts and getting home from School to a good tea! |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Peig by Peig Sayers
Autobiography about an Irish woman living on an island off the south coast of Ireland about 100 years ago.
Rain, misery and deprecation.
Makes Angela's Ashes seem like Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
It's in Irish too ... |
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"Peig by Peig Sayers
Autobiography about an Irish woman living on an island off the south coast of Ireland about 100 years ago.
Rain, misery and deprecation.
Makes Angela's Ashes seem like Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory
It's in Irish too ..."
Oh god I'd forgotten about that. I've just had flash backs to reading that utter utter shite. I'm pretty sure I'd blanked them out prior to this |
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So interesting to see people's different tastes - there's a couple of books here that I really like, in fact.
From my own point of view, the book that have found least enjoyable was Middlemarch as a teenager but I couldn't objectively say it was a bad book.
The accolade of worst book has to go to The Da Vinci Code, which I read when there was a brief craze for it about 20 years ago. The premise is interesting but I have never read such formulaic, mechanical prose with cardboard cut-out characters either before or since. |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"So interesting to see people's different tastes - there's a couple of books here that I really like, in fact.
From my own point of view, the book that have found least enjoyable was Middlemarch as a teenager but I couldn't objectively say it was a bad book.
The accolade of worst book has to go to The Da Vinci Code, which I read when there was a brief craze for it about 20 years ago. The premise is interesting but I have never read such formulaic, mechanical prose with cardboard cut-out characters either before or since."
I have a copy of Middlemarch that I’m hoping to read- the thing that’s putting me off is it’s length! I don’t do well with long books |
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By *ack688Man
over a year ago
abruzzo Italy (and UK) |
"100 days of sodom by the marqui de sade
Just dont go there jesus was hard work manged to get a quarter of the way in before I had enough
Closely followed by moby dick 15 chapters in and the fish ain't appeared
Only two books I have never finnished "
I thought 120 days of sodom was really interesting, so well structured and considering it was basically a first draft written on toilet paper while in the bastille it’s incredible. |
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By *ack688Man
over a year ago
abruzzo Italy (and UK) |
"Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I hated the character, and found it too dull to finish it. "
I don’t think you’re supposed to like any if the characters, there are so few redeeming features of any of them, but it’s about obsession and derangement, the prose is striking and unusual too |
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"So interesting to see people's different tastes - there's a couple of books here that I really like, in fact.
From my own point of view, the book that have found least enjoyable was Middlemarch as a teenager but I couldn't objectively say it was a bad book.
The accolade of worst book has to go to The Da Vinci Code, which I read when there was a brief craze for it about 20 years ago. The premise is interesting but I have never read such formulaic, mechanical prose with cardboard cut-out characters either before or since.
I have a copy of Middlemarch that I’m hoping to read- the thing that’s putting me off is it’s length! I don’t do well with long books "
A woman on Fab who is put off by length - surely you are a true Unicorn  |
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By (user no longer on site) OP
over a year ago
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"I finished 1984 out of a sense of duty, but couldn't say I enjoyed it. Thought provoking, yes. A chore? Absolutely.
Some of people's most hated are some of my favourites ha"
I love 1984; I love it so much I’ve acquired 3 copies of it hahaha |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
By Stig someone or other.
I kept thinking, it's got to get better. Something will happen soon.
Three quarters in and still nothing.
Didn't finish it."
I loved that book. It's the suspense that keeps the book going. Did you already watch the film by any chance? If yes, it takes away all the fun of it because you already know the killer |
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50 Shades of Grey is the worst book I have ever read, closely followed by A Day In The Life of Ivan Desisovic, which I had to read for English Lit at school.
At least the latter was well written... |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"100 days of sodom by the marqui de sade
Just dont go there jesus was hard work manged to get a quarter of the way in before I had enough
Closely followed by moby dick 15 chapters in and the fish ain't appeared
Only two books I have never finnished
I thought 120 days of sodom was really interesting, so well structured and considering it was basically a first draft written on toilet paper while in the bastille it’s incredible."
Just finished reading the Wikipedia entry and now I feel sick  |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"100 days of sodom by the marqui de sade
Just dont go there jesus was hard work manged to get a quarter of the way in before I had enough
Closely followed by moby dick 15 chapters in and the fish ain't appeared
Only two books I have never finnished
I thought 120 days of sodom was really interesting, so well structured and considering it was basically a first draft written on toilet paper while in the bastille it’s incredible.
Just finished reading the Wikipedia entry and now I feel sick "
I have read the plot of the film. Have the same feeling |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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Oh I loved The Silmarillion and all other things Tolkien 
The book I most hated reading was American Psycho, which I had to read at Uni. It was well written I suppose, but the monologues about Phil Collins and Whitney Houston albums on top of the ultra violence was more than I could cope with. |
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"Oh I loved The Silmarillion and all other things Tolkien
The book I most hated reading was American Psycho, which I had to read at Uni. It was well written I suppose, but the monologues about Phil Collins and Whitney Houston albums on top of the ultra violence was more than I could cope with."
The Silmarillion audio book on Audible is really good. I definitely picked up some things I had missed reading it. |
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"I normally stick with a book no matter how much it grips me but the one failure I had was The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime, after it being recommended to me by a workmate I seem to remember being a fair way in and giving up I had no clue what was going on."
Bloody love that book! |
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"I wonder how much of the Bible people have actually read? It's actually a collection of books, translated differently at different times."
I've read it all the way through about a dozen times. (Former career path; don't ask!)
Song of Songs is beautiful, as is Jonah. I don't see many other redeeming features (maybe Ecclesiastes?). |
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By (user no longer on site)
over a year ago
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"
The Silmarillion audio book on Audible is really good. I definitely picked up some things I had missed reading it."
I can second this! I think some people bounce off the first part of the book, the one that covers the valar (gods). I think once you’re past that and into the “history” part then it becomes much easier to read. |
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The Welsh trilogy of books by Alexander Cordell. Once popular, they now read as trite and more a parody of industrial revolution Wales. Even the Welsh dialogue doesn't ring true to me - and I grew up in the Valleys. |
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I can normally plough through even the worst of books (you never know if they'll improve in the final chapter), but there are half a dozen that I've just not been able to force myself to finish.
The one that stands out for me was the Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It's not that it was badly written, it was just so incredibly dull while also being as far fetched as a bucket of shit from China. It wasn't entertaining enough to make the world believable and I gave up half way through.
It grieves me that I couldn't force myself to finish it, particularly as a few of my friends loved the book and it had such great reviews, but I found it a terrible waste of paper and ink. |
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I recently tried The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen and got about 200 pages in (it sits at around 700 pages). I found it to be pretentious and incredibly misogynistic. Awful book.
Similarly, I've never understood the appeal around Jack Kerouac's On The Road. |
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