The Worst Book You've Ever Read?

[HotKarl]

Eragon. I might still be bearing a grudge against it though, having paid twelve pound upon its release and then never managing to read past the first few chapters. That's the only book that really comes to my mind as 'bad'.

Not surprising considering that the author was a teenager when he wrote it.

[madmaudlin]

I know that this is a play, but Our Town by Thorton Wilder is possibly the worst thing I've ever read. The point of the plot is to be as mundane as possible, and, well, isn't the point of literature to escape from the mundane?

Otherwise, I would have to say the Lord of the Flies was dreadful.

[Dark Muse]

I personally enjoyed Lord of the Flies, it was not the best think I have ever read, but I liked it well enough

[madmaudlin]

The message was fine, and I believe that the ending was the best part because of what it revealed about civilization. And beside that, it provided for a release from the book...

[Lady Raven]

Love Story by Erich Segal.

[johann cruyff]

I didn't like The Old Man and the Sea - yes,I know talking against Hemingway is a blasphemy around these boards,but I really hated this book.

This is,of course,as far as serious literature is concerned - I shall not take authors such as Coelho,Rand or Brown into account - if I did,this post would turn into a VERY tiresome rant.

[kelby_lake]

Lemme think:
1) To Kill A Mockingbird. No, to bore it to death. It might have been a very good book had it not been for the rubbish that is part 1 and atticus' moral lessons. Really, I understand that to backwards towns in South America in the '60's, the idea that racism was bad was revolutionary but nowadays we've realised that it's kinda pretty obvious. All it's doing, at least now, is saying 2 +2=4 in a very smug white middle class way

2)The Immoralist by Andre Gide. It was a bit strange but nothing really happens. Just right at the end he goes super-weird and paedophilic: it's never mentioned for that even though the narrator says some quite creepy things (he only likes young boys)

And some of the best books, a mon avis, that I've read (if we balance it out we can see why people have put these books as being the worst they've read):
Lolita, the Great Gatsby, Les Enfants Terribles, Brideshead Revisited, Giovanni's Room...
I've read loads good stuff.

[whf800]

Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe

[Kafka's Crow]

I am reading The Sun also Rises and finding it quite pointless. Nothing has happened in the first 60 pages that I have read so far. Getting tired of all the monosyllabic drones! Read A Farewell to Arms 18 years ago for my first MA and loved it, read The Old Man and the Sea last year and didn't hate it either (although can't recall anything!) but The Sun also Rises is heavy going. I hated As I Lay Dying as well.

[moose gurl]

Interesting. I hated The Sun Also Rises as well. Couldn't stand it, in fact. I've been told that if you really like the characters, the book is a lot better. But I didn't. I couldn't stand Jake or Brett, and I thought they were whiny and meaningless. But oh well.

I loved As I Lay Dying, on the other hand, but I'm nuts for Faulkner.

I also really hated Great Expectations. But I'm loving A Tale of Two Cities.
Also strongly disliked Wuthering Heights. Too many characters with the same name, not enough plot.

But as far as the WORST book I've ever read, I think I'll nominate The Joy Luck Club. Could not under any circumstances get through that book. I thought the characters were incredibly whiny and pathetic. Maybe I missed the point. I don't really hate the book per say, but it bored me to tears and I quit reading it. Probably the worst thing I've ever tried to get through...saw no literary merit.

[Kafka's Crow]

I remember putting this book down after two pages, then, on a second attempt, putting it down after the first chapter. Maybe someday I'll try to drag myself through it, but that day is not today - and hopefully will not be for a while.

As for the 'worst', it seems to me that, given the preponderance of bad writing in the world, it would be more informative to fellow readers to confine my selections to so called 'important' books. Thus:
Atlas Shrugged is obscenely long, and full of contrived thriller-style writing - and, for all its tiresome aspects, says little that one might not find in Rand's nonfiction. A chore to read; ultimately unrewarding.

Melville's Pierre was probably an even greater pain to go through. The only justification I've heard of this absurd novel is that it is a 'satire of the popular Gothic novels of the time'. It is far too long for one either to be amused or to take it seriously as an act of criticism.

Most recently I grew rather frustrated with Hawthorne's The Marble Faun; while the story is interesting, and the first half of the novel more or less promising, he falls into a pattern of alternatingly criticizing Italians and Catholics and describing the Italian scenery, even through the last few chapters. This work has made me glad that he did not venture much past his native sphere in his other work; in my opinion, he only properly handles America.

Oh yeah, and anything by Beckett.

"O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!"

[RJbibliophil]

Hmm... I dislike anything too dismal. I was not particularly fond of House of Seven Gables or The Red Badge of Courage, though I did finish both of those.

[islandclimber]

I think people are putting the classic books they disliked the most in here.. I mean who can seriously say the worst book they have ever read is Hawthorne, or Melville, or Hemingway, or Dickens... seriously people... you are trying to say you have never read a truly piece of junk book in your reading career???

So, if I go to works considered literature... I really disliked Kerouac's "On the Road" and wish I had the time I spent reading it back... I thoroughly disliked it...

but the worst books I've read, written for adults... would be "The Da Vinci Code" and "The Alchemist"... and I think I saw someone on here say "Fear of Flying" by Erica Jong I think it is... I read part of that when I was a lot younger.. and that has to be the worst piece of garbage ever written!!!

[aeroport]

"O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!"

Precisely how I feel while reading Beckett.

[Kafka's Crow]

Precisely how I feel while reading Beckett.

I've been trying to avoid saying this but two novelists I can't bring myself to read, just can't read more than a couple of pages by these two individuals: Charles Dickens and... wait for this one... Henry James. As far as Beckett is concerned, he rules the realms of heaven and earth jointly along with Dostoevsky. We are talking about REAL Gods here not some fake 'God of my idolatry' or something. This is real greatness beyond which everything else diminishes into nothingness.