Worst Book Ever?

[Zetona]

Either Catcher in the Rye

Oh god I agree with this, I kept hearing references to it everywhere so I figured it must have something going for it and bought a copy. I totally regret it, it's absolute tripe. No story, no bite, no humour, no nothing. The entire book is a complete non-event.

For those who don't know it's about your regular young guy like many of us who's reasonably bright but too lazy to achieve much of anything and looks down on anyone who isn't all bleak and dark like him, professing that anyone who does do anything nice is just doing it for appearances and is a "phony" (this word is used four times on every page).

His brother died sometime ago and he misses him so he skips out of his boarding school and takes a trip sort of no-where for a few days while discussing with himself if life is worth living or he should kill himself. It's basically your average fifteen year-old's diary.

From what I can remember he does not kill himself but neither does he come to any positive conclusion either.

We studied that in school, and it's pretty obvious that Holden is in fact deeply concerned for children; he wants to preserve their innocence, in part to prevent them from entering the adult world he so despises. Catcher, like so many other widely-regarded classics, has very little definite story; the author's message is mainly expressed in the writing.

Ah well, I thought that book was pretty decent, and I thought I'd defend it.

OT: Worst thing I've read recently was a book called Final Theory. It's in the vein of The Da Vinci Code: Einstein discovered a terrible secret and a mild-mannered physicist goes in to save the universe. The writing is pretty shoddy though, also like The Da Vinci Code.

 

[Holyeskimo]

The Great Gatsby, that book bored the living heal out of me so bad i would have rather reread bloodly romio & juilet then it.

 

[supersixfour]

It's nice to see new books like Twilight and Justin Bieber getting hated on before the old classics - like the Bible.

haha i vote for the new testament

 

[ObliviousGenius]

Allow me to contribute "Ferdydurke" by Wiltold Gombrowicz. Google it if you dare. It was a book written in 1932 in Poland and subsequently banned by every political group to pass through, ranging from the Nazis to the Socialists. The particular version I read was translated into English. It won the Best Translation award in 2001 from somewhere, so it's not that the language was "lost in translation." It's supposed to be a superb example of European modernism. I don't get what modernism has to do with torturing readers.

Another perfectly terrible series of books written by a Mrs. Amanda M. Ros. One of her works - the one I am lucky enough to own - is "Irene Iddesleigh." Take a look and feel the pain.

 

[Gidiel167]

The Ruins by Scott Smith. Its one of the few books i threw out after reading it.

 

[Callate]

Of the ones I've actually read (or tried to)- because it's way too easy to point to something by an infamous celebrity- Lisey's Story, by Stephen King. Reminds me of the saw about "This is not a book to be put aside lightly. It should be hurled, and with great force."

After about fifty pages of vagueness, unwillingness to move the story forward into meaningful revelations, and unceasing cutesy references to the title character's marital in-jokes (such as a fondness for using "smucking" in the place of a certain obscenity), I was ready to see the protaganist dragged into the sewer and messily devoured by a monster clown if I had to write one in myself.

 

[GrimTuesday]

Anything by Robert Stanek. He is a self published "fantasy writer" who has all the talent of a brain damaged chimp with a learning disorder. He has hundreds of dummy accounts on Amazon that he uses to write positive reviews for his books and to dump on real, talented authors books.

 

[Thyunda]

The Great Gatsby, that book bored the living heal out of me so bad i would have rather reread bloodly romio & juilet then it.

And I liked reading The Great Gatsby. Can't remember what I liked about it though...been a year or two since I read it

 

[Jfswift]

That's easy. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I hated it, I wanted to burn that damn book but I was forced to read (part of it, I later cheated with cliffnotes) it for class years ago.

 

[Dys]

Why the fuck would anyone go on reading twilight after they'd read into it and established it wasn't for them? Seems rather stupid to me....

The worst book I've ever read was a novel called "walking naked". I had to read it for school, and it was so god awful that the teach apologized and altered the curriculum so we didn't have to write about it.

 

[InnerRebellion]

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

 

[The_Echo]

Every book is the worst book.

Conversely, every book is the best book.

This is a matter of opinion, so unless there's a book that did to literature what Manos: The Hands of Fate did to film, I don't think there's an actual "worst book ever."

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Ruins of Dantooine. Even haters of the Republic Commando series believe that this is even worse than they are.

But I like Republic Commando.

 

[Holyeskimo]

The Great Gatsby, that book bored the living hell out of me so bad i would have rather reread bloody romio & juilet then it.

And I liked reading The Great Gatsby. Can't remember what I liked about it though...been a year or two since I read it

Well i'd only read what you would expect out of an english class, and fantasy books like drizzit up to that point so my taste's probably weren't tempered for that kind of book

I also feel like a spell-tard now, bloody a key

 

[WicketL]

"Justin Bieber: My Story"

ALSO Twilight and anything involving spies (Aside from Chekists)

Most of auto-help books and any book to low steem teenagers, like Twilight or anything like it. Yeah i'm looking at HP now, i don't like so c'mon fan boys.
HP isn't bad, i just don't like that teen thing on it and the way that show wizards and magic at all, totally random like all spells are look alike from the others. But i admit that have a deep inspiration and a lot of researched stuff. Because of that i was only joking putting it here.

 

[Tdc2182]

Jarhead.

A few hundred pages about a person who joined the marines complaining that the Marine Corp was... the Marine Corp.

He was pissed that it was hard and unrewarding, despite being completely prepared for it and wanting to do it since he was a boy. The movie completely missed the point. The guy is whiny complaining idiot.

It was a book about someone who was lazy. A late developing procrastinator who complained about a life he chose expecting something he never would explain in the story. It was completely stupid.

 

[AMMO Kid]

The Alan Wake instruction manual sucked to be honest

 

[Thyunda]

Every book is the worst book.

Conversely, every book is the best book.

This is a matter of opinion, so unless there's a book that did to literature what Manos: The Hands of Fate did to film, I don't think there's an actual "worst book ever."

Literature is not something based solely on opinion. There are rules to literature. Rules you cannot disobey.

 

[The_Echo]

Every book is the worst book.

Conversely, every book is the best book.

This is a matter of opinion, so unless there's a book that did to literature what Manos: The Hands of Fate did to film, I don't think there's an actual "worst book ever."

Literature is not something based solely on opinion. There are rules to literature. Rules you cannot disobey.

That doesn't mean one can't have the opinion that a work of literature which breaks all of those rules is good. Thus, the merit of any given creative work is still up to personal opinions.

 

[Thyunda]

Every book is the worst book.

Conversely, every book is the best book.

This is a matter of opinion, so unless there's a book that did to literature what Manos: The Hands of Fate did to film, I don't think there's an actual "worst book ever."

Literature is not something based solely on opinion. There are rules to literature. Rules you cannot disobey.

That doesn't mean one can't have the opinion that a work of literature which breaks all of those rules is good. Thus, the merit of any given creative work is still up to personal opinions.

If you can find me evidence that 'Living Dinosaurs' by Philip O'Donnell has any kind of merit in anybody's opinion, I'll pay heed to your point.