Worst Book Ever?

[k-ossuburb]

James Herbert "Haunted"

I picked it up for 99p from a charity store because I needed something to read on the train, I wish I picked up something else. I'm never going to forgive that ending.

 

[Funkysandwich]

Catcher In The Rye,after I read that book I wanted to kill someone.

You wouldn't be the first person to have thought that...

 

[CoachZ]

The one book that I'll always have a hate on for is Stephen King's "The Stand". I actually thoroughly enjoyed it although the interweaving personalities and storylines got a little annoying, but then the end. Oh, the end. Worst ending in the history of novels ever. It honestly felt like he got bored and just ended it because he felt he had too. This is a general complaint of mine about the man, but this book was the worst perpetrator for shite endings. To be honest, I think he wrote better when he adopted his pseudonym in an attempt to see if he could recreate his own success under a new identity. Those books actually had a fire under them, whereas his normal novels tend to have a forced feel to them. But I digress...

 

[karloss01]

Spoiler

i've never read this book but i've heard that it is terrible. ;D

 

[Hawk of Battle]

I once had to read Jekyll and Hyde for english class. It was the most boring book I have ever read.

 

[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.

With a world population of over seven billion people, you cannot tell me that there is no one on this earth that would find Living Dinosaurs a good read. Especially if we're counting the author himself, but I assume we aren't. (I mean, c'mon. You know those lame-o newspapers with stories like "Batboy Spotted on Moon Surface"? There are people who read that shit like it's their job.)

Alright, I change my definition. Anybody who can read Living Dinosaurs and take it as it was intended - outright fact, with serious crypto-religious messages, and not read it because it's hilariously bad.
And I'm fairly sure not all of those people speak English, the one language it was printed in.

Spoiler: Oh, oh, you're a clever one. Changing to rules to prove your point, I see what you did there.

I'm sure Mr. O'Donnell has a friend or something who's like "Yeah, man! You're totally right!", without being an obligatory fan because of his relationship with the writer.

That doesn't count. Also, I'm quite sure he either doesn't have any friends, or the ones he has would be saying it to shut him up. Or his pterodactyl-hunter/artillery officer random guy that he brings along to dinosaur hunts.

 

[Woodsey]

Twilight. I thinks it's pretty self explanatory.
Horrible plot, horrible characters and it systematically destroyed vampires as an awesome mythological creature.

There are 1000s of variations on vampires anyway, Twilight is just one more, ignore it.

 

[GrinningManiac]

A couple of underwhelming Sci-Fi books, the most "meh" being one about living on an asteroid and coping with the loss of connection to the humans on earth (who were all connected and communicating like Wall-E but moreso with a thing called The Ear)

Also, the 7th Harry Potter. Contrived, dull, killed off certain characters just to get an emotional jump out of the reader and not for any real reason, the ever-repeated criticism of "collect the 10 magic doowhatsits to destroy the shield around the evil wizard" Video Game plot

 

[Frenger]

I bet most of the posters haven't read the books mentioned. Especially Twilight. People hate that book by principle.

Anyway. I hate Old man and the sea. Bored me to death and ruined reading for me for years to come. Now, however, I enjoy Hemingways other stories, but I will never pick that one up again!

 

[C117]

Dracula by Bram Stoker.

While the story is pretty good, the writing is outright horrendous. Page after page with walls of text, all of which consists of characters talking about some bullshit that doesn't make any sense and have no relevance whatsoever. Just find the damn vampire already!

 

[ShadowsofHope]

..I honestly don't want to seem bandwagoning, but Twilight definitely deserves it's spot in this thread.

Also, Catcher in the Rye.

 

[Volothos]

I. Hated. The. Crucible. With. Every. Fiber. Of. My. Being

 

[bificommander]

I'd like to nominate the enitre Left Behind series. Horryfying theology meets fantasticly bad writing. Check out the slacktivist commentary (if you have the time, if you read all of it it's almost as much as the books themselves) http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/

 

[Wade-DeadPool]

Tw-[beeping]-ilight. They have taken ALL the great things about vampires and made them into...
Sissy little punks. Stoker would vomit blood if he ever did read/see this.
Max Schreck would rip his own eyes out.
A damn Vampire look's like this:

Spoiler: Look at this!

[http://img10.imageshack.us/i/nosferatu11.jpg/]

[http://img707.imageshack.us/i/christopherleedraculas.jpg/]

And don't get me wrong, i do like the hole good looking vampire, like Francis Ford Coppola Dracula, since vamiper are a really erotic sort of mythology.

But whene you just turn them in to somekind of silly shiny pussy... thing.. Damn that make me mad.

 

[Spawny0908]

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen.

OH MY GOD YES!!!! I had to read this in 7th grade and hated every page of it!

 

[ReservoirAngel]

Tony Blair - A Journey
George Bush - Decision Points

 

[WingedIncubus]

Easily the Marquis de Sade's "Salo or the 120 Days of Sodom". Horrible reading, and it's not even completed by the said author.

Close second is Mein Kampf by you-know-who.

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

Pffft. You haven't seen horrible until you've seen Maradonia and the Seven Bridges [http://impishidea.com/Humor/528/maradonia-sporkings-part-one]. It's a self-published brick of a fantasy novel written by a teenage girl with no sense of grammar, punctuation, or story.

 

[ezeroast]

I think any autobiography by UK "celebrities" could just be burned and nobody would notice.

oh man I really tried to read the bible, put time aside and sat down for the old testimate but its just sooooooooooo boring. There were like 10 pages of people just begating (no idea how that's spelt) each other. So that tops my list of books I've at least tried to read.

OT: Never finished a book I haven't liked though

 

[Aabglov]

"Naked Lunch" offended me on every level that a book can offend the reader without using racial slurs.