Worst Book Ever?

A Weary Exile

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kingcold32 said:
The Great Gatsby, that book bored the living heal out of me so bad i would have rather reread bloodly romio & juilet then it.
Oh god that book was terrible. To me it was essentially "Laguna Beach-1920" a bunch of rich people whining over nothing for a hundred-odd pages.
 

thethingthatlurks

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Arsen said:
Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five".

I fell asleep reading it three times out of pure boredom, lack of prose, and the inability to be entertaining. Literary classic my ass...
*fanboy rage*
The distinct writing style served to underline the message the book tried to convey: war sucks, tragedies suck, but ultimately we can't prevent them. Let's just move on, etc...
That's also why the Tralfalmadorians are included. They serve as the antithesis to this, being completely aware of their own demise, yet unwilling to counteract that.
*/fanboy rage*
But who am I to criticize the literary choices of others?
 

Katbot

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Jun 8, 2010
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Well basically they talk shit. :) My bullshit detector went off like 10 times per page.

From memory, in the intro they say something like "we went through years of research in the fields of biology, sociology and psychology and it all pointed to one thing." Excuse me, but most of the time, even just ONE research article doesn't point to one thing. How the fuck can they make a claim like that?!

They confidently state that the differences between the sexes are due to "nature" and biology, despite the fact that all the differences they describe in the book could also be due to socialisation and upbringing. The truth is that it's most likely a mix of both - but I have a feeling that would have conflicted with their dumbed-down, misleading, and pretty damn sexist version of human relationships.

My partner does listen and I read maps better than he does. We must be aliens from space coz we're certainly not anywhere near "average men and women" according to this book!
 

Katbot

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Katbot said:
I'm a psych student so the most cringe-worthy books for me are those awful self-help pieces of trash. I actually had this one recommended to me by a friend:

"WHY MEN DON'T LISTEN AND WOMEN CAN'T READ MAPS" by Allan and Barbara Pease.

I got about 20 pages into it before I had to stop for the sake of my brain cells. Who buys into this two-dimensional "men are like this and women are like this" BULLSHIT?!? Holy shit it insulted my intelligence. And apparently this stuff is really popular.

*sigh*
Interesting. I read this and didn't think it was half bad. What specifically bothered you about it?

EDIT: Eh, I just found a copy and thumbed through it. You're right, it IS pretty obnoxious. Still, I don't see any actual logical fallacies.

How about that 'quote' function huh? :p


Well basically they talk shit. :) My bullshit detector went off like 10 times per page.

From memory, in the intro they say something like "we went through years of research in the fields of biology, sociology and psychology and it all pointed to one thing." Excuse me, but most of the time, even just ONE research article doesn't point to one thing. How the fuck can they make a claim like that?!

They confidently state that the differences between the sexes are due to "nature" and biology, despite the fact that all the differences they describe in the book could also be due to socialisation and upbringing. The truth is that it's most likely a mix of both - but I have a feeling that would have conflicted with their dumbed-down, misleading, and pretty damn sexist version of human relationships.

My partner does listen and I read maps better than he does. We must be aliens from space coz we're certainly not anywhere near "average men and women" according to this book!
 

TheLazyKnight

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Out of everything I've ever read, I would have to say that Gears of War: Aspho Fields is the worst book ever. Horrible writing by Karen Traviss plus main characters that are basically monster trucks on legs lead to a book about manly men yelling at each other and presenting a horrible attempt at showing any emotion besides rage.

Just thinking about it makes me mad that I actually bought it.
 

nicholaxxx

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Jun 30, 2009
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The Lottery by Beth Goobie.

apparently teenagers are supposed to related to the characters and situations, but I found them to be annoying whiny idiots. I asked everyone who had to read this book, they agreed.
heroine - "I have issues and problems with people, whenever I'm forced to do something that I secretly enjoy I'm going to pout about it in my room for seven hours while listening to the same album over and over again while ignoring (read: being a *****) to those who try to help me"
heroine's friend - "I'm a cripple with attitude, yo. also I did meth as a kid...a LOT of meth."

The premise was garbage "the students have an unofficial club that holds a lottery every year, and the winner of this lottery does borderline illegal stuff for this club, or else the winner will have illegal stuff done to them. But the adults don't mind, because they're all too busy doing hard drugs and being useless".

I really hate how one idiot writes a book about high school, and then book reviewing idiots raise their hands and go "ZOMG, IT'S ABOUT HIGH SCHOOL, THEREFORE ALL TEENAGERS CAN RELATE TO THIS BOOK AND THE SITUATIONS IT OFFERS. THIS AUTHOR IS BRILLIANT AND THIS WORK IS A MASTERPIECE" and then idiotic teachers read these reviews, order 50 copies of said book and make their students read these books or else fail the course.

before you ask, yes. I was forced to read this for a mark, and I bullshitted my way through the essay based on what I believed would happen throughout the story. The teacher never caught on...
 

Korolev

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Jul 4, 2008
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Gravity's Rainbow. Don't get me wrong, Pynchon isn't a bad author. I've read many of his other works, and enjoyed them. But GR is TERRIBLE. It literally makes no sense at all - it's an absurdist novel about people disappearing down toilets and V-2 rockets that strike on whoever has sex. PARTS of GR are good, but the whole thing, when strung together, is a complete mess. It's almost literary trolling - "hey, I'm going to write an insane book and see how many self-important critics decide it's brilliant because they can't understand it!"

I'm used to "weird" books. Hell, I've read Haruki Murakami and enjoyed some of his books, and let me tell you, Murakami books are WEIRD. But GR is just.... awful. I despise that book.

Now, to be fair, the actual writing in many places isn't bad. Pynchon is NOT a bad writer - Gravity's Rainbow is an example of atrocious storytelling and pretentious symbolism, but it isn't actually written poorly.

For the "worst-writing" in a book I've read, I'd have to go with Brian Herbert and Kevin J Anderson's "Dune" "novels". Those books are so bad, so absolutely atrocious, that I had to buy the rest just to see how they absolutely BUTCHERED dune with no shame at all. It was like watching a Car Wreck, you just can't turn away. To this day, I have never seen such a despicable abuse of a series - Brian Herbert and Anderson are like Vultures, picking apart the corpse of Dune for food. I.... I..... look, if you're a fan of dune, I advise you to read the "prequel" novels "written" by B.Herbert and K.Anderson, just to see an almost perfect example of crap writing. It's so bad. So very, very bad. Almost mindbogglingly bad.
 

ydkwidrmw

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Aug 6, 2009
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Probably not the worst book ever, but one of the classics I loathe is "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand.
 

LadyRhian

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KingGolem said:
pretty much every book in the "Romance" section
Okay, as a romance reader, I am going to object to "pretty much every book in the "Romance" section". I won't deny that there are bad romances (some of Catherine Coulter's Early works make me want to puke, like her first novel in which the heroine's skeevy uncle kidnaps her, rapes her (multiple times, using cream as a lubricant while the heroine screams in pain and cries), impregnates her and holds her hostage ends up with her as her "true love"! ::pukes in the corner.::

But there are lots of better ones than that. Nora Roberts writes really good mysteries in her romance novels as J.D. Robb, and Amanda Quick writes good stuff under all three of her names: Amanda Quick, Jayne Ann Krentz (her real name) and Jayne Castle. She writes everything from Regency to Science Fiction and modern day paranormal stuff that would fit right in under fantasy. I would guess you missed all this because you dismissed it without reading it. And I work in a library, I know how many men take out 20 romance novels at a time... and it's not for their wives.
 

Fuselage

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Nov 18, 2009
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HankMan said:
Geekosaurus said:
It's nice to see new books like Twilight and Justin Bieber getting hated on before the old classics - like the Bible.
Although I think the world would be better off without religion in general, I don't really blame the Bible. It's just a bunch of brutal stories about various virtues that aren't bad in and of themselves. The Problem is that people insist on using the logic of "Because the it's in the Bible" to justify persecution, no matter what the actual CONTEXT is! 'Good Samaratin' was actually an oxymoron when Jesus told that story. How many Westburough Baptists do you think are aware of that?
Listen to this song....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HkXPyY9Wo_A&feature=player_embedded
Its a very good representation in general of religion.
How does I embed Videos?
OT: New Moon, HA!!
 

Laze

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HankMan said:
Either Catcher in the Rye OR the Protocols of Zion
One inspired the murder of Jews, the other inspired the murder of John Lennon.
Don't ask me to chose which is worse
QFT. Also Catcher in the Rye just for the sheer idiocy of it. The writing isn't that terrible but the morals are whiny, the characters are all basically unlikable to me, and the whole thing is a prolonged fap-fest about the loss of innocence that most reasonable human beings have gotten over by age 18. It's the worst book that I've ever heard someone else describe as great (sort of on-topic).

For worst book ever - Great Big Beautiful Doll - the Anna Nicole Smith story.

I read the first few pages once in a bookstore out of incredulity and burst out laughing.
 

mattttherman3

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Dec 16, 2008
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Every book in the Bible. Also a book I was forced to read in highschool, Macbeth, what the fuck is that shit, it pissed me off so bad, and no I don't care that it's a play, it still sucks.
 

Wintermoot

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Aug 20, 2009
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Twilight due to creating the worst fanbase since Sonic and Weeabo,s/Wapanese/Narutards COMBINED!
 

Lem0nade Inlay

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Hyrulian Hero said:
Twilight. It appeals only to 13 year-old girls who are usually at the intelligence level of your below average retard anyways, so it barely counts as a book. It destroys vampires, and werewolves, and books... and movies! Stephanie Meyers once said Stephen King was her favorite author and inspiration for writing. He replied by saying he was sorry she said that and that her books were crap. No one likes her, or her work and she needs to go stand in traffic.
Can I get a source when Stephen King said that?


Probably that new JB book. I can't think of anything else since I pick books which I know I will like.
 

likalaruku

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Nov 29, 2008
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Terminate421 said:
"Justin Bieber: My Story"



ALSO Twilight and anything involving spies (Aside from Chekists)
I'll suggest it to the guy who writes for "Studies in Crap." He writes hilarious reviews on shitty books.
 

mattttherman3

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PissOffRoth said:
Birth Control is Sinful in the Christian Marriages and also Robbing God of Priesthood Children!!

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1425992609?ie=UTF8&tag=pwonderful-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=1425992609
lmao, know whats funnier than the book title, what other people who looked at it were viewing lol. Also the price wtf