Worst Reading

United States
July 3, 2010 12:18am CST
What is the worst book that you've ever read? Did you read it thinking it was going to be a great book and then got disappointed someway through the story or was the experience just dreadful from the start? What worst "great" book have you read where people say it's great but then upon reading it, you question their opinions?
3 people like this
8 responses
@oldchem1 (8132)
3 Jul 10
The worst one I can remember is 'Coming Up Next' by Penny Smith. Penny Smith is a British news presenter/weathergirl/presenter on morning TV and her book was supposed to be fictional about - a morning TV and its presenters!! To me it was just a load of drivel filled with stupid puns, it was like listening to Penny smith and it was amateur, drivel and wasn't worth knocking trees down for!!
2 people like this
@jazzsue58 (2666)
3 Jul 10
Well, I hate anything with a whiff of "chick lit," and can't get on with anything Dan Brown writes. I gave up on the Harry Potter series too. I thought the way she got Sirius to tell Harry everything at the end of book 2 (Prisoner of Azkhaban) was just amateur rubbish. All I can say is, the publisher must have seen $$$ signs after the first one went to movie status. I love Jasper Fforde's books - very readable, especially his Thursday Next series. In one plotline, the very old Thursday can't die until she's read the 10 most boring books in the universe! According to him, the worst book of all time is Edmund Spenser's The Fairie Queene. It's actually an epic poem, 6 books long - originally, it was meant to be 12! It was written in the 1590s though, so probably doesn't qualify.
2 people like this
@Porcospino (31367)
• Denmark
5 Jul 10
I was very disappointed in "The dandelion clock" by Guy Burt. I really liked "After the hole" and "Sophie" and before I started reading "The Dandelion clock" I read some of the reviews. In most reviews "The dandelion clock" was described as Guy Burt's best book, and I was really looking forward to reading it. I liked his other books and I thought that this one would be even better. I was very disappointed, the story was very long and I found it pretty boring. I kept on reading, because I thought that it would get better, but I didn't like the rest of book either.
• United States
3 Jul 10
I absolutely hated "The Sun Also Rises" by Ernest Hemingway. All that happened in that book was a bunch of rich people drank all the time, went to a bull fight, made fun of a jewish guy, and an old lady had an affair with a 19 year old bull fighter. It was disgusting. Most of the books I've hated have been ones I've forced to read for school. I LOVE to read... but English teachers and I just don't see eye to eye on what makes a good book.
1 person likes this
• Philippines
5 Jul 10
my mom thinks the same as you do about this book :) LOL. all the rich people are just drinking all the time, she says.
1 person likes this
@knicnax (2233)
• Philippines
5 Jul 10
mine would be The Scarlet letter. The story was great but the way it was written wasn't. It's very old english and somewhat in an ugly first person view. It was more of a narrative than a novel. The author kept on saying "as the reader would recall" It's a classic, why it was a classic, I have no idea at all. If it was the story, it was just something he picked up from his work, not at all original. If it was because he wrote it brilliantly, then that I don't believe.
• Philippines
5 Jul 10
THE ODYSSEY OF HOMER, (translated by.. I can't remember) and believe it or not, I have tried to finish reading and I used to restart reading it so for many times, but still, I haven't. It is so boring to read a book that you cannot understand the lines. Old english terms, idioms, that you have to ask elderlies what those things mean, and it it was painful, you know, when you were frustrated to understand but you really couldn't. That was why I decided to buy a copy of the movie. Better watch that read. I'm a reader, really. I have read a lot of books by, Sparks, Meyer, Steel, Twain, King, Pattersons, even inspirationals by Fulghum, Buscaglia, Albom and many more! But, wow, I really can't stand reading THE ODYSSEY, and every time I try, I just simply fall asleep! Hahaha! It's like reading a thick book of a never-ending-poem!
• Philippines
5 Jul 10
i have a copy of this one and i kinda liked it and was able to finish it. but i thought that it was only..interesting. based on the authors that you follow, most are modern books so i understand why it's boring for you to read the odyssey at all. it's okay because it doesnt make you less of a reader if you dont like these super old literature. it's just not your genre, right?
@ElicBxn (63194)
• United States
4 Jul 10
I read a book about time travel. Now, I should've liked it, I love time travel, but I hated the guy that was the lead and I hated just about everything, there were a few things I liked, but mostly I hated it. I hated it so much that I went back and read the last page... it didn't make any sense to what I was reading, so I read a few more pages at the end, still didn't make any sense. I ended up reading the book just to see how the writer got to that end. Some how, it did make sense, but when someone saw the cover and read the blurb I told them I couldn't recommend it because it really wasn't a very good book. hated it so much I can remember the story but not the title...
• Philippines
5 Jul 10
some of danielle steele's books are so bad , sometimes i think no one takes the time to edit them. i also do not like 'the Alchemist'. i know that a lot of people like it but frankly i think that paulo coehlo just took excerpts of other people's stories and made them into a "little prince" type book. i really dont get why there is so much hype about it. it's not at all good. it's like a book that tries hard to be good. ugh, i hate it