Books you finished and just thought: "Well...that was shit"

[TheRussian]

Well, I read the Twilight books on a bet, but since everyone already said for me what kind of shite Twilight is, I'll just pick something else, like Atlas Shrugged. Oh boy, was that bad. I barely remember a single character or plot element. Tedious and uneventful.

 

[poodlenoodles]

I can't help but feel that the ending to Lord Sunday came right the hell out of nowhere.

the garth nix books? i am reading them right now so don't tell me what happens, even if they end really stupid

 

[A_Parked_Car]

On War by Carl von Clausewitz

I have a passion for military history, so that is pretty much all I read about. I therefore decided that I had to read On War, since it is THE western military text. Well...it was terrible. I couldn't even finish it. I had to stop before that moronic, aristocratic, Prussian prick caused me to slip into a boredom induced comma.

He had a couple of good points (such as the idea of 'friction' in war), but overall he endlessly repeated himself and went into needless detail. He would make you read about a hundred pages just to make that point that the defense is inherently stronger than the attack. Umm...yeah? Why did you make me read dozens of pages to reach that 'shocking' revelation?
To make it worse, it was all written in the most dry, uninteresting prose I have ever seen.

It made me appreciate the Seven Ancient Chinese Military Classics even more. Those guys knew what they were talking about and summed it up in a concise, interesting manner. Hell...I would take Sun Pin's Military Methods over On War, and Sun Pin is so fragmented that you can only read every 10th word at times.

 

[I-Protest-I]

Battle for the abyss, it's got to be the weakest book in all of the HH series. Can't remember the names of the characters it's only been a bloody month.

Seriously, thing can eat a big juicy thingy majig...

 

[WaysideMaze]

The Man Who Ate the 747.

It was one of the few summer reading books I actually read, and it was terrible. It's literally about a guy who eats a plane by shredding the pieces into a powder. Dumbest premise ever.

I don't know if anyone else has pointed this out yet, but Michel Lotito [http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Lotito] is known for having eaten a plane. Not a 747 but still.

O/T i'm a big Pratchett fan, and after loving the folklore of Discworld book, I wanted to read the science ones as well.
Could not get into them at all. I like my science but these just felt lifeless and flat.

 

[zehydra]

Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

Very boring book.

 

[TheTurtleMan]

When I got finished with Catcher in the Rye I was just glad it was finally over. When you look at the book analytically, it's pretty brilliant, but reading it just became dreadful and pointless. It was just some emotionally unstable douche bag walking around New York for two and a half days.

I'm sure I probably missed something because I'm not a brooding teenager like the intended audience for the book, oh wait, I am a brooding teenager. Guess it was just the book after all.

 

[warhammerfrog]

the Third book of the Hunger Games trilogy, i mean shooting down planes with arrows??? come on!!!

 

[Timedraven 117]

Rome and ju- Wait, you said not forced by the school. Okay then, How ot kill a Mock- Oh wait, never mind i don't have any then, And i read a lot of books.

 

[CarlsonAndPeeters]

I feel like I should be able to come up with a more interesting, but the first thing that came to mind was Mockingjay, the last book in the Hunger Games series.

I actually loved the first book, and while the second suffered from being a boring bridge between the beginning and end of the story arc (pretty common in trilogies, though still not good), the third was just awful. It lost the rapid-fire pacing that made Hunger Games exciting and relied instead on the "thoughtful social analysis" and "deep character relations" that I had always rolled my eyes at, even when I liked the Hunger Games.

 

[Existentialistme]

A lot of people are adding Mockingjay to the list, but imo this was by far the best one. The first two had good premises and raised some interesting moral questions, but they're NEVER explored thoroughly. *SPOILERS* It would've been great had Katniss been actually pitted against Rue or Peeta in the games, but the entire story cops out. Rue is killed so Katniss doesn't have to worry about it anymore, and for practically the whole time she doesn't worry about Peeta because there was an incredibly convenient rule saying there could be two victors. Sure, they take that away in the end but I mean - duh - it was obvious from the start that this wasn't going to last. And people complain Mockingjay is predictable, but not that The Hunger Games was, are you serious? The Hunger Games was sooooo predictable. Like, leaves a bad taste in my mouth predictable. The men swooning after her have no flaws to speak of and the only character development is with the main character. Also, she's a complete ***** throughout the first two books and no one seems to bat an eye - it kind of pissed me off. Both of the first two books were more frustrating to me than anything.

*SPOILERS* Mockingjay fixes all of this. Katniss finally gets what's coming to her in the form of Peeta being brainwashed when he no longer thinks the sun shines out of her bum. The moral questions Collins brings up in the novel are actually explored well enough that I didn't feel dissatisfied. The men finally have flaws, i.e. Gale being a dumb a-hole. Shit actually HAPPENS to Katniss with the rebellion so that when she is bitching (as she tends to do), she's bitching about things she's experience personally with Capital and the fighting instead of whining about how she's a helpless pawn and how unfair everything is. Oh, an important main character actually DIES - been waiting for that for a while. And to me Mockingjay was a lot less predictable as far as the characters go. So much better than the first two, idk why people hate it so much.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

Christine, by Stephen King. Although, my reaction was less "what a load of shit" than it was "huh... well, that was pretty bland. That's a couple hours I'm not getting back."

 

[Dangit2019]

Give A Boy A Gun.

I've been waiting so long to tell the world how crappy this book is.

It's basically a story that's supposed to show a realistic depiction of the events leading up to a school shooting in the (fictional) shooters' lives. You have the basics: bullying, deception, planning, and the final catalyst, and then the ending ruins. it. all.

I won't even put a spoiler banner up for this. They take an entire gym hostage during prom, shoot 2 people (without killing them), and then proceed to spend 30 pages SHOOTING AT THE FREAKING CEILING. They describe how bullets were bouncing off but didn't hit anyone, and how INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS THIS WAS (even though it did nothing). Then 1 shooter actually offs himself and the other is tackled and arrested. That's it.

Now, suicide is no small thing to chew, but the book was 300 pages long and was building up to a HUGE tragedy, but in the end nothing (with the exception of the shooter's death) brought an ounce of sadness to me. The whole thing ends on a note of gun control (instead of a message of, I don't know, anti-bullying, spending time with the loners/your kids, standing up for the little guy, etc.) and the book wanted us to feel sorry for the jock that had played the villain the entire time because he was shot in the foot.

I might sound heartless, but this book's experience was like what would happen if, at the end of Julius Caesar, Caesar gets killed and everybody's perfectly okay with it and nothing else happens.

 

[Dangit2019]

Lots of hate for Twilight here. I haven't read it myself, but I've watched this series of videos and that put me off the idea for good. Well worth a look if you can't be bothered wasting valuable watching paint dry time by reading it yourself but are wondering what you're missing (if anything):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L253VLwH3w

Thank you for posting this. I needed a good laugh and that video supplied.

 

[TheRundownRabbit]

Catcher In The Rye is one of them.
And for the next one, DRUMROLL PLEASE....Hunger Games, yeah, I said it.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Chalk up the Hunger Games for me. I got through the first book, and tried to figure out when Peeta's brain got removed.

 

[Mayhaps]

I don't remember what it's called but there is a book that's the unoffical sequel to "catcher in the rye", it was complete and utter shit.

Captcha: well read

its "the catcher in the rye"

and i think the sequel was call "coming through the rye".

I think you're right, thanks.

 

[Lunance]

While not a whole book, but one of the stories in Halo Evolutions named Palace Hotel written by Robert McLees. It is just so bland and forgettable, argh. HENRY!! *ahem*

 

[Lunance]

While not a whole book, but one of the stories in Halo Evolutions named Palace Hotel written by Robert McLees. It is just so bland and forgettable, argh. HENRY!! *ahem*

 

[Unia]

I actually read all the way through the first Twilight. Yeap, I'm some kind of a masochist.

I'd add Da Vinci Code but I only got to chapter 2 before going "No, just no" and dropping it like it was hot. I've read fanfiction with better writing!

Solaris by Stanislav Lem is another unfinished contender. Reading it was headache-inducing. It was like observing someone's dreaming mind from the sidelines. That might sound neat but in practice I had trouble keeping track of pretty much nothing happening.