Ever read a book so bad that you actaully stopped reading?

[Gavmando]

I will probably catch a lot of shit for this, but Lord of the Rings.

Dude, me too. Dear god it was boring! I tried twice to read it and I just couldnt do it. "Here's a blade of grass. It's green. Light green at the tip and becomes darker green at the base. And right next to it is another blade of grass. It's also green... *200 pages later* ...And this one is also green at the base. And now there's a rock..." It was a really good way for me to get to sleep.

And Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. It wasnt quite as bad as LoTR, but almost.

 

[Shockolate]

Well, it's not technically a book. More like a manual.

The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer.

My brother told me it was hilarious. I found it wanting.

 

[Siuki]

Because its pretentious and long winded. Oh and Tolkien coudnt just use common sense in battle scenes.

I agree. Getting through that last mile of Return of the King with Frodo and Sam mucking about was hell.

Off-topic: Hey, Boyvirgo666.

You think the end was bad? here ill ruin the second book for you. why didnt the humans just run into those caves in like...the first few seconds of the battle with the orcs at helms deep? I mean its much easier to defend or they could have just run and left like 50 guys behind to distract the orcs...and why didnt the orcs have a troll throw the bomb at the wall?

off-topic: Sup mate.

Well there's always the Eagles. You could call the eagles to ride yourself off Saruman's tower but you couldn't send a fleet to carry Frodo to Mount Doom? Gandalf the Grey does not look like the kind of person who has people give him "one time only" favors. Besides, the only remotely dangerous flying creature in Middle-Earth is the wyvern that the Witch-King was riding. And that died pretty easily. One good chop and you're home free.

 

[DrunkPickle]

Not sure if this is relative, but I used to be a huge fan of the series Cirque du Freak. I got through the first 9 books in less than a month. Then after waiting about a year for the new series to come out; after reading through a single chapter of the 10th book I said to myself, "How could I ever read this crap?". It was awful, childish, and just plain stupid. I'm not sure whether I just grew out of my vampire stage, or if the author just got lazy.

Kind of reminds me of the episode from South Park...

 

[Ham Blitz]

The Scarlet Letter. I had to read that for a class, I hated it so much.

 

[Infernai]

^ This, This piece of shit right here.....OH GOD! It was so fucking atrocious. For the sake of all sanity, don't subject yourself to this most foul of books. No seriously, y-you'd be better of reading even Twilight compared to this crap.

I also would like to give special mention to Remembering Babylon which i was forced to read for class in high-school. While not anywhere near as bad as...the book above, it was still damned bad. Uninteresting setting and characters, writing that's all over the place and pacing that is so terrible that you start to wander how long Mr. Maloufs attention span is and whether or not he's being distracted by something ever five seconds in the middle of writing. David Malouf, no offense, sure you are a lovely man but, if i ever meet you I AM going to punch you.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

Moby Dick.

Oh, god. Moby Dick.

I mean... I am a fourth-year English major. I like reading "classic" literature. I count Dracula as one of my favorite books. But... ugh. I just couldn't get through Moby Dick.

 

[wyrmslayer1991]

great expectations. That book is torture. I really can't understand why Charles Dickens got so famous. He's so drab and boring in the way he writes that it honestly sounds like he'd rather be doing anything else instead of writing the book you're reading.

 

[Mirror Cage]

Some series called 'Orcs' that I got cheap during the closing sale of my local Borders.
Standard fantasy setting, with humans raping the land of its majiks and all the native creatures being enslaved, genocided by the racist and oppressive pseudo-Puritans, or conscripted into the also-evil counter army. The story follows a warband of Orcs that are an example of the latter. Basically ends up a 'quest for the maguffins' story (In this case, star shaped objects. 'Cause it is always stars). Never read far enough to find out what the fiddly little things did.

 

[Composer]

Walden
pretentious asshole

 

[Rin Little]

I wish I would have put down Basilisk and The Warrior Heir, they both sucked so badly...

 

[the Dept of Science]

I'm somewhat depressed about the amount of real classic literature on this thread.

I've got an ass-tonne of books I've started but haven't finished, but that's mostly because my reading level is not as I want it to be (I read barely any books until I was 19). I would hesitate to call any of these books bad. I put my failure to finish As I Lay Dying, Nausea, Great Expectations, Pride and Prejudice and others as a problem with me not the book.

The only book I've been tempted to stop reading out of pure hatred was the Alchemist. I only finished it because it was pretty short and by the time I was getting properly angry about it, there wasn't that far to go. I probably never would have read it, but some people who's opinions that I generally trust said it was good, so I thought I would give it a go.
Aside from just general poor writing, the whole book is basically a fable that tells us that if we follow our dreams, the universe will conspire to help us achieve our destiny. It also has a bunch of stuff about following omens, finding true love (in the form of the one soul mate) and speaking "the language of the world". The thing is, I can take some corniness or sentimentality, but this book just took it to a whole new level.
The whole thing about the "universe conspiring to help us achieve our destiny" I actually find to be a destructive philosophy. It basically says that if you want something enough, then the universe will hand it to you on a plate. I guess if your Oprah, that theory gets proved true on a pretty regular basis. However, while the universe seems willing to conspire to fulfil celebrities dreams of becoming more rich and famous, it seems less willing to fulfil, say, the famine stricken's dreams of having enough food to stop them from dying.
I could go way further on just that one aspect of the book. I could fill a decent few pages ranting about the things I hated about that book.

 

[Furioso]

I had to read "The House on Mango Street" for school, oh whats that? You wrote an entire paragraph about tying your shoes? Well that's weird and very dumb but maybe it picks up later in the chapte....that was the chapter, ok well lets see how the next one goes.... an entire chapter about a red dress you saw... and the """"""chapter""""" is only 2 paragraphs long....the entire book keeps going like this...listen here book, I don't give a FLYING FUCK ABOUT YOUR SINGLE PARAGRAPH CHAPTER RAMBLINGS, GO TO HELL YOU TERRIBLE BOOK oh yea and this piece of shit book has the audacity to try to pull some convoluted rape chapter near the end of the book, oh yea just keep telling yourself that makes the book "deep" you horrible author



Also I noticed most books on here are just boring books, that doesn't necessarily make them bad, I would rather read about your experiences with shitty shitty books, although I am not the OP so this edit means absolutely nothing

 

[Abbystraction]

Lord of the Flies. It isn't a bad novel -I'd actually say it's a fantastic novel- it just emotional unsettled my twelve year-old self to the point where I would have nightmares about the pigs head.

The fact that my class adored it terrifed me.

 

[Kiziku]

I feel like I will get my head chopped off for saying this ..but maybe its cause between work and school I'm to tired to pick it up and try to get back into it buuuut Anne Rice's The tale of the body theif.

also The chronicles of narnia and something else but I can't recall it at the moment...it was that bad I have a mind block on it apperently.

 

[zombiestrangler]

Catcher in the Rye.
I picked up a copy because it was supposed to be some big controversial thing and that piqued my interest. Unfortunately, it turned out to be about some whiny bastard and the only reason it was controversial was because it made a couple of whack jobs kill somebody.

I eventually had to sit through the whole thing for school. Bored me to tears.

 

[ace_of_something]

Most of the offending books were assigned reading in middle/high school.
The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick, Great Expectations. I fucking hate 'period' books and pieces. Always have. I don't even like period films, with a few minor exceptions. My twin brother hated them too and we would take turns skimming the chapters and then explaining them to each other got B's and C's out of it.

great expectations. That book is torture. I really can't understand why Charles Dickens got so famous. He's so drab and boring in the way he writes that it honestly sounds like he'd rather be doing anything else instead of writing the book you're reading.

Cause that's how EVERYONE wrote back then apparently. (now watch as english lit majors jump down my throat to tell me I'm wrong)

 

[luna_moth]

Yes, one called "The Forest of Hands and Teeth", it was very dark and normally I wouldn't mind that. However, at the time I was reading it, I was having some personal problems and reading such a depressing book wasn't helping my mood improve. So I stopped

 

[Lady Nilstria]

Bonfire of the Vanities (1/4 of the way through)
Atlas Shrugged (Half-way through John Galt's speech)
Breaking Dawn (Up until the werewolf falls in love with the hell-fetus)
The Jungle (After the third unspeakable tragedy visited on the poor of New York, it gets old)
Pride and Prejudice (Four Chapters in)

Watch the 1995 Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle. It's much more enjoyable and the acting is superb. I watched it twice just today I enjoy watching it so much. (Don't get me started on the Kiera Knightly version. I try to forget it exists.)

OT:

Oh, several. The most recent is Spellfire by Ed Greenwood. Pardon me, but the story is stupid. It has no sense of verisimilitude and character development at all.

I usually force myself to finish a book, just to make myself feel the time wasted was at least worth something. At least I will have learned what not to do right? Right?

Cause that's how EVERYONE wrote back then apparently. (now watch as english lit majors jump down my throat to tell me I'm wrong)

No, you're right. They were paid by the word in those days. It isn't a system lending itself to concise writing.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

There are a few I've not finished because they were simply too bad. Of course, there are others that were even worse that I finished anyway just because. I just forced myself through 2 Dragon Age books despite them being absolutely terrible.