Books You Hated

I see topics on different forums asking people what books they love the most. I'm looking for people to tell me what books they absolutely hated, could not get through, got through and were pissed that they bothered... etc That kind of thing.

What books did you hate? Why? 

Original Post by svallette:

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT....

oh my goodness... i was supposed to read this book in high school. it's like 300 pages... about 80 are the crime... the rest is punishment (mental/self/guilt) and it's Russian... i stopped after about 100 pages.

Lol. That's the book that inspired me to become a Russian major.  (Yep, I've read in in English and in Russian).  It still totally rocks my world. 

I think my least favorite books are Perfume by Patrick Suskind.  Gimmicky, post-modernist crap is the best descriptor for that one.  Among older works, I would have to pick Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding.  ugh.

I loved The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Great Gatsby, Wuthering Heights, On the Road, The Lord of the Flies, Great Expectations, The Catcher in the Rye, and probably many other books that lots of people seem to hate.  Oh, well.

I do have to agree with pg that Tuesdays with Morrie felt more like an extraordinarily long segment in Reader's Digest than a novel of any worth.

I liked The Picture of Dorian Grey... The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, On the Road, and Crime and Punishment, while not my favorites, had their merits (C&P much more than the others). I did dislike Wuthering Heights, but the only books I've really hated were The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The glorification of selfishness was bad enough, but the unrelenting preaching was unforgiveable. If you want to write a philisophical treatise, write one. If you want to display your philosophy in action through a novel, go for it. For the love of God, don't start doing the latter, then slap a 60-page rant lecture in the middle and pretend it's still a decent novel.

Edit: Forgot to chime in on liking Moby Dick and having zero interest in Tuesdays with Morrie. Also no interest in Twighlight; seems like way too much teen angst, and imho vampires shouldn't sparkle in the effing sun. You're an unholy creature of the night, not a damn disco ball.

I hated The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kid. It was utterly boring.

I loved it, but I hated the Mermaid Chair.

Also I hated the kite runner, Atlantis, and acacia.

Original Post by seldonlives:

and imho vampires shouldn't sparkle in the effing sun. You're an unholy creature of the night, not a damn disco ball.

Lol

I freaking hated the last LOTR book. I tried reading that thing like at least FOUR times.  I swore to myself that I wasn't going to see the last film til I'd read that book... but it never happened.  Every time I got to a certain point I just could not read any more of those boring 7-chapter-long battle scenes.  This is most unlike me as well, as usually i can devour a book at a most voracious pace. 

To the F Scott Fitzgerald hater: You should try some of his short stories! They are fantastic. 

Original Post by azirra:

Going to agree with the Bible. Certain parts are poetic and beautiful (esp. psalms) but its mostly boring historical accounts of long-dead civilizations mixed with magical happenings and what-not-to-dos. Plus, lots of death, genocide and rape. Kind of a downer.

If you have the right reference material available, a critical Bible Bingo card, beer, and a shot glass, it's a lot better. 

Love this thread. I also thought the Great Gatsy was pants. I found it really shallow.

My most hated book EVER has to be Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. OK Salman you know a lot of adjectives. Now GO AWAY

Not a fan of The Life of Pi either.

I also didn't like Stephanie Meyer's book The Host even though I enjoyed the Twilight books. Very disappointing.

I couldn't stand anything by Melville, including Moby Dick and Billy Budd.  Melville was so full of himself and without good reason.

Original Post by jvs15:

Not a fan of The Life of Pi either.

I also didn't like Stephanie Meyer's book The Host even though I enjoyed the Twilight books. Very disappointing.

 

 

 You didnt like The Host??? Really??? Did you read past the first couple chapters? I know it was pretty boring in the beginning but I was crying my eyes out by the end.

I will have to agree about the Picture of Dorian Grey. Awful and boring. I also hated The Red Pony.

Loved the Great Gastby even though I hated it in high school. I've grown to love the scandles in the book.

Fahrenheit 451

I don't like Sci-Fi, and had to read it as part of an assignment. 

I love many of the books you guys hate (sorry...), but my absolute most detested is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.  I had to read it in school, and I would have rather spent the time putting M&Ms in alphabetical order.  I honestly think it was one of the ONLY reading assignments that made me resort to Cliff's Notes.

Cold Mountain and Harry Potter.

My most recent "hate it" book is The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.  It had had lots of rave reviews and is being made into a movie, so I bought it to read on the plane.   I didn't like it while reading it, and I liked it even less as I thought about it later.  The basic concept is unique and interesting, and the plot is decent, but I didn't like any of the main characters and there was NO character development over the course of the book--even though it's supposed to follow this woman from young girlhood through her old age.   I might see the movie, though, because it should easily be better than the book.  And that's about the most damning thing you can say of a book, IMO.

Also, I had to read: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro and it was terrible. I actually ended up renting the movie just to get a generalized gist of what was supposed to be going on. The movie was as bad as the book and I don't think I got through that either.

I don't believe I did well on that exam when the time came. =)

As a side note, my younger sister read Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) a few years ago. She made it through the entire 800+ pages under duress, but she made it. The best part of this was the phone call we got when she finished, "All of that time. ALL OF THAT TIME AND PAIN reading that book. And she got hit by a TRAIN." I never laughed so hard in my whole life.

Also disliked Time Travellers Wife.

Hated Catcher in the Rye.

Dislike Romeo and Juliet, and Pride and Prejudice.

I don't like the modern highbrow Canadian lit/incest books - Fall On Your Knees, The Shipping News, etc.

The Alchemist by Coelho. It is forever being mentioned by some celebrity as a top five life changing book and it is poorly written drivel. Also The Bad Girl by Llosa. I think I actually threw that one across the room.

wow.  people hate a lot of good books.

Original Post by pgeorgian:

wow.  people hate a lot of good books.

And some people love a lot of bad books.

Go figure.