The books you hated!

[CuriousJInLA]

Barbarian Days - William Finnegan

As someone who loves and appreciates those who live truly adventurous lives, Finnegan’s book about his life very well lived while surfing the world was a great autobiography gone tediously long and overdetailed. Word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, chapter after chapter he drones on about air temperature, water temperature, wind, water color, each wave in a set, how he paddled to catch every wave and what he was thinking, minutiae that he would remember and embrace, but I went from enjoying to hating the amount of detail I was forced to read.

It would make a great gift for a soul-searching surfer though

 

[Bramblethorn]

Anansi Boys is well worth reading if you haven't already.

I did, but it was long ago.

My second-worst book? Eragon. I think two pages in it starts reading like bad Wheel-of-Time fanfiction, and Wheel of Time is already bad.

I haven't read WoT, but I thought Eragon read like bad Star Wars fanfiction. I guess it can be both.

 

[StillStunned]

My second-worst book? Eragon. I think two pages in it starts reading like bad Wheel-of-Time fanfiction, and Wheel of Time is already bad. ( @AwkwardlySet )

Worst though? I've read some truly awful 80's era AD&D books, but even those swamps of malevolent mediocrity cannot compare to "The World Rose" by Richard Brittain. About the most charitable thing I could say about it is that it was published.

There has been some really awful fantasy fiction down the years. Even some of the highly acclaimed books can be awful. But D&D fiction has to be among the worst, particularly when it tries to describe the adventures of the author's actual gaming group.

Outside of fantasy, one book I disliked intensely was "The Last Englishman" by Keith Foskett, about hiking the PCT. The author was just unpleasant, boasting about how amazing he is when actually he comes across as a bully with a very high opinion of himself. Even the title doesn't make any sense: there are only three Englishmen on the trail to begin with, and by the end they're all hiking together.

 

[SimonDoom]

This is a hard one for me, because I don't really hate any books. I tend to see the good and bad in every book I read.

AwkwardlySet mentioned American Gods. That's the only book I've read by Neil Gaiman, and I didn't care for it. It struck me as confused and awkward. The author never sold me on the concept, so the resolution of the conflict never grabbed me. I was bored.

I somehow read all three of the 50 Shades novels. I found some things to enjoy about the first one, mostly the premise and the intro of the ingenue to BDSM, but the last novel, 50 Shades Freed, was amazingly bad. I rolled my eyes the whole way through and I think it took me longer to finish it as a result. That's one of the worst novels I've ever read. But as Bramblethorn puts it, it's like shooting fish in a barrel to say it.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any so-called "classic" books that I actually hated. Some I thought were boring, or overrated. But in nearly every case I found something to appreciate.

I thought CS Lewis's Narnia novels were spectacularly overrated. The whole time reading them I thought, "Lewis doesn't understand the basics of character or plot." I always felt like I was reading a dusty childless Oxford don's interpretation of what children are like. Tedious and contrived stuff.

I thought Donna Tartt's book The Goldfinch was hugely overrated as well. It won the Pulitzer Prize. They should take it back. As I read it I felt like it was a self-conscious attempt to write something Important and Worthy Of A Prize. To me, it wasn't all that, although I can't say I hated it. Tartt seems to have a thing about writing books from the perspective of emotionally stunted, ethically deprived young men.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Whereas American Gods I love dearly. I read it when it came out, after previously enjoying Neverwhere (a much shorter novel) and Sandman, despite my generally never liking graphic novels and needing the Sandman Companion to understand lots of it.

I know Neil Gaiman is currently the target of Two Minutes of Hate, but if you enjoyed Neverwhere the book, I'd recomend listening to the BBC full cast audio production and the mini-series they did for TV.
Gaiman wrote both adaptations and it's interesting to see what he changed for the various mediums.

I enjoyed the Sandman TV series, although I haven't read the source material yet.

 

[onehitwanda]

I thought CS Lewis's Narnia novels were spectacularly overrated. The whole time reading them I thought, "Lewis doesn't understand the basics of character or plot." I always felt like I was reading a dusty childless Oxford don's interpretation of what children are like. Tedious and contrived stuff.

I lost interest in Narnia when I worked out that Aslan was Jesus and it was all an Alligator.

 

[AllenWoody]

Ethan Frome, my English teacher owes me several hours of my life back.

Same with The Great Gatsby. It wasn't well regarded at all when it was first published. Only like 30 years later did the English Professor Mafia decide it was a great book and start forcing it on everyone else.

They did make a movie about Atlas Shrugged a few years ago.

Billy Bud was nearly unbearable, a gift from one of my English teachers. But on balance I was introduced to more pleasantly memorable books than bad ones.

 

[Kelliezgirl]

Billy Bud was nearly unbearable, a gift from one of my English teachers. But on balance I was introduced to more pleasantly memorable books than bad ones.

True, but the bad ones really stand out.

 

[AllenWoody]

This is a hard one for me, because I don't really hate any books. I tend to see the good and bad in every book I read.

AwkwardlySet mentioned American Gods. That's the only book I've read by Neil Gaiman, and I didn't care for it. It struck me as confused and awkward. The author never sold me on the concept, so the resolution of the conflict never grabbed me. I was bored.

...

I didn't care for American Gods that much, either. It felt like Gaiman had put a great deal of time into researching/documenting scraps of folklore then didn't want to waste them so he dumped them all into the book.

"Oh, look, here's a character from Appalachian folklore, and oh!!! one from the Sioux. Here's a roadside attraction which is really a place of magic! Isn't Gaiman so clever!!!"

As opposed to telling an engaging story and using only some of the scraps to add depth. But I know it's a popular book so maybe I just wasn't in a good mood that week?

 

[Jackie.Hikaru]

My second-worst book? Eragon. I think two pages in it starts reading like bad Wheel-of-Time fanfiction

Ooh this definitely!

I also never quite got Murakami or... Dostoevsky.

 

[OffNSFW]

Guys.

This book is all about how the old gods live among us as regular people who yearn for the power they've lost, and there's a dude in it called Low-Key Lyesmith.

LOW. KEY.

*crams every book award into a t-shirt cannon and aims it at Neil Gaiman's face*

I'm not one to say that an author's work retroactively becomes worse just because said author has been outed as a terrible person. But my god, it's hard to think of anything he did that was worth a shit after Sandman.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

My second-worst book? Eragon. I think two pages in it starts reading like bad Wheel-of-Time fanfiction, and Wheel of Time is already bad. ( @AwkwardlySet )

 

[AwkwardlySet]

This is a hard one for me, because I don't really hate any books. I tend to see the good and bad in every book I read.

AwkwardlySet mentioned American Gods. That's the only book I've read by Neil Gaiman, and I didn't care for it. It struck me as confused and awkward. The author never sold me on the concept, so the resolution of the conflict never grabbed me. I was bored.

I share some of that sentiment. I found his writing to be excellent when he is describing some backwater towns or places, some shitty diners or motels. The way he can put you in the scene and then make it alive while some small-town character is telling their story is so good. The dialogue can also be top-notch. I really enjoyed these moments.
But there are so many such scenes and unimportant characters with their unimportant stories all throughout the book. Way, way too many. The pacing is way too slow and further aggravated by some interludes from the past, which exist only to present yet another piece of folklore, as someone mentioned already. The plot is almost non-existent and it comes down to moving from A to B to C to D, usually by car, while describing the places where the MC stops to eat, buy groceries, take a piss and whatnot. It's all tedious as fuck and it kills the already slow pace of the book.
The world-building is barely there as well - there is just some mention of random gods and nothing else. There is nothing about the limitations of their power, or even any reason why is this war between gods happening. Maybe it will get better as I progress beyond the half-point but I am not holding my breath.

 

[SimonDoom]

The world-building is barely there as well - there is just some mention of random gods and nothing else. There is nothing about the limitations of their power, or even any reason why is this war between gods happening. Maybe it will get better as I progress beyond the half-point but I am not holding my breath.

This is my biggest objection. The world he builds just doesn't make any sense to me. It doesn't hang together. For me, anyway.

 

[onehitwanda]

View attachment 2394702

 

[onehitwanda]

Maybe it will get better as I progress beyond the half-point but I am not holding my breath.

It's all revealed at the end.

 

[THBGato]

My understanding of Neverwhere was that the TV show came first, then he wrote the book. I could be wrong though...

I haven't read WoT, but I thought Eragon read like bad Star Wars fanfiction.

I started enjoying Eragon once I realised it was a Star Wars rip off. It was kind of fun spotting the parallels.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Hah, Skooma... Skyrim nerd detected

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Pullman’s The Golden Compass trilogy. The first was amusing, but the latter two were increasingly shallow and even preachy.

 

[onehitwanda]

Hah, Skooma... Skyrim nerd detected

Skyrim for the Nords!

 

[Bramblethorn]

There has been some really awful fantasy fiction down the years. Even some of the highly acclaimed books can be awful. But D&D fiction has to be among the worst, particularly when it tries to describe the adventures of the author's actual gaming group.

I remember seeing one of those described as "the reader can hear the sound of dice rolling". It gets pretty grim.

OTOH, some good stuff has been written by taking D&D stuff and filing off the names and serial numbers. "Legends and Lattes" was enjoyable, and Ursula Vernon's "Temple of the White Rat" books are enjoyable. [edit: and I'm up past my bedtime and running out of adjectives, it would appear]

 

[VallesMarineris]

Three Body Problem. It felt disjointed and I didn't feel like there were any redeeming qualities about any of the characters. It made me care so little I didn't read the rest of the series and don't regret it.

Agreed. It actually won a Hugo so I tried it. Couldn't get past the first chapters, it was so poorly written. At first I blamed the translator for doing a poor job, but I have a friend who is Chinese and read the original. He said the translation was faithful to the original. Ugh.

However, the story does have some interesting sci-fi concepts. The 2024 Netflix version, which moves a lot of the action to the UK, is worth watching. They fix a lot of the character and plot problems. Special effects are also quite good.

 

[PeytonMirabelle]

As much as I love Stephen King's early work and as thoroughly as acknowledge him as an influence on my own work, I think he hit a real rough patch in the 2000s. Duma Key and Under the Dome were ponderous and recycled way too many ideas he'd leaned on in previous works.

Among "classics," I had to read The Scarlet Letter in high school and I dont remember ever being more bored in my life.

 

[MrPixel]

I had to read The Scarlet Letter in high school and I dont remember ever being more bored in my life.

Well, on that mention I have to correct myself. Some of my high school reading was classics or sort-of-classics. Scarlet Letter didn't make much of an impression either way. It didn't help that my high school's name began with 'A' and our colors were red & black, so all the jocks were running around with big red 'A's on their letter jackets and sweaters. It was amusing.

We did read Black Like Me. I don't recall much of it other than it got a little preachy. A shoulder-shrug at best. Then there was Flowers for Algernon, the novel version, which was a memorable read I believe drew out my empathetic tendencies, now reflected in my current writings. Hmmmm...

 

[OffNSFW]

At first I blamed the translator for doing a poor job, but I have a friend who is Chinese and read the original. He said the translation was faithful to the original. Ugh.

Sometimes, faithfulness can be a liability in translated fiction.