Jonsgirl

What's the worst book you've ever picked up? Or ones you couldn't even finish?

Mine would be:
Steven King books (who needs seven hundred pages of introduction and 50 pages of story)
The Hobbit (see above. also too much talk about hobbit feet, lol)
and Atlas Shrugged (liked Fountainhead, can't say why I didn't like this one.)

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Silvy

I don't read many books, and I can't remember ever not finishing one...

But I totally disagree with you on The Hobbit. I loved the book! It takes some getting used to the style of it, that's true.

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Derwood

I love Stephen King, but I have to say that I hated "Carrie". Read the whole thing in one day and it is clear that it was King's first novel (not written under the pen name Richard Bachman). King really got much better later in his career.

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Sparhawk

I'm really picky about the books I read, I can't recall reading a book that I hated, or stopped reading out of disgust.

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agentsmith

virtually everything in my college English class........errrr

GSRIDER

The Queen of Whores.

Oh 700 plus pages and it just fuckin sucked... It could of been cool.

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Arc101

The Hobbit was great. I really liked that book as a kid.
OK I know I'm asking for trouble for this but the worst book I've tried to read is the Bible.

johnnymysto

I'm with agentsmith.

Outside of that, I'd say Stephen King's The Gunslinger . BOOOOOORRRRRRIIIIING!!!! I didn't even make it all the way through the book. It was too much work to get through another page.

Ganguro

i really dislike a lot of books that are non scifi written by "modern" authors.
such as Douglas Coupland's "Miss Wyoming", "Microserfs" "GenerationX", and "shampoo planet"
I also read some book that was making the rounds at mtv a while ago called "the fuck up" (i forget the author) it blew heartily.. that's the last time i read a book reccomended by MTV

"The interpreter" by Suki Kim started off..bleh.. got interesting, and wimped out in the end.
I think this is a trend of contemporary writers now.. almost everything has beeen done in some capacity.. they dont know how to wrap up a book effectively.

Katyblu

The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.... god I hated that book sooooo much! I couldn't make it through it. Also I hated the Scarlett Letter. It was just boring....

Redlemon

Bonfire of the Vanitites. Forced myself through the first 50 pages, then chucked it.

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Pellaz

I agree about King, although his short stories/novella's can be excellent.

The Still, by David F..., quite possibly the worst book I've ever read. 500 pages of drivel.

Anything that involves the typical outsider coming into a new world/situation and being the only hope because of his/her outside perspective (Thomas Covenant books come to mind here)

Anything that involves spunky kids saving the day because they're smarter/faster/cuter than the adults (Several Michael Chriton books come to mind here)

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Stare At The Sun

The octopus. It's about farmers, and the west and god damn it blows. so anti-climatic and just arggggggggggggggg. horrible book.

Speed_Gibson

The gunslinger/dark tower books are some of my alltime favourites, can't wait for the rest of the series. I also have read The Stand (the full unabridge version) at least five times.

The worst book I have read in recent years was the first Harry Potter book - haven't gone near any of the umpteeth sequels after being completely unimpressed with the first one.

MadProphet

You're kidding? That book has it all. Sex, drugs, not so much rock n roll, more of a mariachi style dance number. If you ignore all the religious aspects, it's a REALLY interesting read.

Worst book ever is The Sun Also Rises. I GO TO BULLFIGHTS AND NOTHING HAPPENS! It was like a REALLY depressing episode of Seinfeld with all the humor removed.

djtestudo

Which ones? Only one remotely close to that is the Lost World, but it still isn't quite like that. Besides, Crichton is the man (except for Prey).

As for me, I'll agree with The Hobbit as well as the Fellowship of the Ring. Before all the Tolkien-ites send their elves after me, let me add that I was forced to read them in school. That, combined with a semi-dislike of real fantasy literature, gave me a bad taste in my mouth.

I have been meaning to read the booksagain, though, so maybe I'll like them better.

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YaWhateva

When the Legends Die by Hal Borland. I had to read it for school and it was complete horse shit.

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CSflim

heheh... memories of Alex and a Clockwork Orange....

"I didn't so much like the latter part of the book which is more like all preachy talking, than fighting and the old-in out. I liked the parts where these old yahoodies tolchock each other and then drink their Hewbrew vino and then getting on to the bed with their wives' handmaidens. That kept me going.
I read all about the scourging and the crowning with thorns and all that, and I could viddy myself helping in and even taking charge of the tolchocking and the nailing in, being dressed in the height of Roman fashion."

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giblfiz

Yep the bible has some great fucked up stuff. I always wonder about the towns (sodom is probably the best known exsample) where when a stranger would show up the whole town would get together and try to rape him silly. (several towns in the bible display this nasty habit)

anyway, wort book I ever read has to be "player piano" it was short, but Oh so painfull. damd highschool english classes.

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holtmate

I could never get into Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (I think). It was high school reading, so I was probably prejudiced, but I just despised the book.
As for the Gunslinger, King rewrote it for the rerelease. He even admitted that it was a bit too pretentious. So the rewrite might be a little easier to read for all of you guys who didn't like it the first time.

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Kadath

Well, counting books I chose myself, rather than had forced on me by a class, I'd go with Crichton's Sphere or Prey. And I'll take issue with giblfiz' complaint, for all the good that does.

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nostalgic1

some crazy book my friend told me to read once... it was called "the blue light" or something like that... i can't even remember the author.. i read half the book.. hoping it would get better.. but it didn't... not at all...

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mystmarimatt

um...i absolutely hated "Scarlet Letter", had to read it in high school. i just quit after the 3rd chapter, and BSed my way to an A on the test. although i found it really funny how overly fond of the word "ignominy/ignominious" Hawthorne was. also, this book called "Fortress of Eagles" by CJ Cherryh. gave up after 50 pages, because she thought it would be rad to write all of the dialogue in middle english. now believe me, i love shakespeare, but the fact that she went out of her way to do it was just pompous. and she did a shitty job of it too.

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Menoman

I can't stand the Scarlet Letter :\ heh

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Gman

The Awakening

I had to read it for an AP English class. The only good part about it was the story ended the way you wanted it to end. And everyone who had to read this piece of garbage know EXACTLY what I meant by it ending the way you wanted it to

archer2371

Anything by Hemingway, granted he can write, I just hate how he writes, such a morbid sonofabitch.

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baaa

the scarlet letter. GOD awful.

curbserved

in high school, i had to read madame bovary. while it might have some literary value, it's boring as hell. for some reason, i remember particularly hating that book.

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rev_skarekroe

"Nightmare's Disciple" by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. The only book I've ever thrown across the room with hatred. sk

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Plan9Senior

H.P Lovecraft books, just for the fact that they are so hard to read. I cannot stand how often he uses "I" in his stories.

Mael

i hated "catcher in the rye."

i couldn't finish "the talisman" by stephen king and peter straub.

zubrei

Definately Joseph Heller's Catch-22. Took me 2 months to finish, I normally finish a book in about 2 weeks.

giblfiz

oh oops, allow me to clarify, not player piano the reasonably good book by Kurt Vonnegut (I sort of forgot about that one when I posted)

I'm talking about this really dumb book they made us read about some poor family in Mississippi who owned a player paino, as a family heirloom and wouldn't sell it but liked to fight about selling it.

Its possible that it was called "the piano" but I'm pretty sure it was called "player piano"

I have nothing against the Vonnegut book, which I forgot holds a greater sway on the namespace everywhere but my high school.

oh yeah, and the scarlet letter, as well as everything else by hawthorn sucked. I don't like most fiction about puritans

Edit: My bad. I found it and I was totaly wrong about the name, its called "the piano lession" I was confused because the piano they have is a player piano. Its by August Wilson and some idiot gave it a pulitzer prize.

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QuasiMojo

I can't read Shakespear.

I can watch it though.

GN

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XenuHubbard

I read one Clive Cussler book. He should stick to writing about boats. The action sequences in his books are pretty dreadful.

Otherwise, Anne Rice's books truly piss me off.
She sounds like an overprotected and incredibly bored woman.
Her vampires may have some kind of lure for some people, but to me her creations seem like pretentious wankers.

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gremlinx8

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. It was just boring and I didn't enjoy it at all.

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bundy

don´t tell my mums kindergarten class - thats their favourite.

i´d have to jump on the Stephen King bandwagon here.

CUJO, was the first King i ever read. and i was seriously disappointed. i haven´t read any King since.

this is such an interesting thread.
i think its fascinating to hear why people hated books that i adored.
thanks for starting this one Jonsgirl.

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Kadath

Oh, thank the lord. Player Piano is about the future where machines have taken jobs away from people and it's sort of a dystopia, etc. Standard Vonnegutian brilliance. I will, of course, steer clear of The Piano Lesson.

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warrrreagl

I've never gotten past the first 40 pages of a book I didn't like, so I guess I can technically say that I've liked every book I've read.

I am a fan of Stephen King, and I will say this about his writing; he is a master storyteller who is also obssessed with the language. Some writers tell good stories but don't use good wording (John Grisham). Other writers use great wording but don't tell very good stories. Stephen King does both, but I can understand if some people don't like to muddle through his wording.

If you don't like Richard Brautigan, Ken Kesey, JD Salinger, or William Golding, then you will not like Stephen King, either.

And I'm not suggesting that King is as "good" as those other writers, but his writing is of a similar thrust.

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healyk

Red Mars. Finished that, started Blue Mars, gave up after 20 pages when I realized there was a third book (Green Mars) in the series. All the pretentiousness of a Clancy novel but without Clancy's ability to make technological descriptions interesting. All I remember now was the free love commune under the southern ice cap. Ugh.