well, THAT was the worst book ever!

[Martienne]

The Here and Now by Greg Easterbrook. It was basically about a guy who was a protesting hippie type in college and then grew up to be a staid corporate type. Then his hippie, past self starts communicating with him (which really comes across more that he's having some kind of hallucinations) and weird stuff happens. I guess I could have handled that, except the hippie self-righteously goes on and on and on about how the older version of himself sold out and started working for the man.

I agree with those who commented on Wicked, mainly because I feel like it was trying way too hard to make everything about sex. Which really surprised me, considering it's a fanfiction of a children's story, essentially.

[Nuku]

Ugh.  Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  The first few chapters were good and then it got pretentious and annoying.  Thank goodness it's from the library and I didn't pay for the thing.

I found the part in the Depression somewhat interesting but quickly lost interest. (Also, the narrator's grandparents creeped me out.) I could almost hear the author thinking, "I am writing a Great Novel." as I read the prose.

Also, I gave up on Pride and Prejudice and Zombies on page 37. I decided I'd be more entertained reading an actual fully formed Jane Austen novel. And if I wanted goofiness, well, I have a collection of her juvenilia, which shows her sense of the absurd and has some pretty hilarious stuff.

The Tenth Circle by Judi Picoult was also pretty awful, and the big plot "surprise" was not one. Also, the characters all seemed like horrible people. And the graphic novel part (put in there due to the popularity of graphic novels, I guess) was not well done.

[Style_and_Grace]

There is a book floating out there called "Doughnuts for Amy"  if you come across it RUN.  99% of the Amazon reviews say it is wonderful and fabulous and full of sparkles and glitter.  These people must be part of the authors circle of friends and family.  The book is horrible. 

[snowflake]

I just read The Magic Circle by Katherine Neville.  It's not a bad story but...

That final scene?  A breathtaking fight that is made all the more suspenseful because they might go over the horrible, deadly, perilous waterfall!

(spoiler) They do. 

And nothing bad happens to either of them. 

Um, that was pretty lame.

I just finally read a shopaholic series and I am horrified that I can't unread it.  Adulthood is soooooo hard!  I hope I get out of it by getting a rich husband (and rich men are sooooo mean when they call you on being pouty and girlsy.)   Goooooo girls!

Oh and I tried the Dark Series by Christine Feehan.  I'm sorry, but her men are just unScrabbleable.  She keeps trying to sell the fact that damaged and issue-lade is hot and she can't.   It's sort of like being hit on by a guy who you know is about to be evicted and just wants a place to sleep.  It's just uncomfortable.

[lollylegs]

I attempted to read Trainspotting but couldn't get through the first few chapters. The problem was that the main character was Scottish and his narrative was written out phonetically. It was so annoying and made the book hard to follow for me. I had to resort to searching online so I could make proper sense of the plot.

I also had problems with Trainspotting but constant re-reading (thanks cheap summer house rental that only had Irvine Welsh paperbacks!) helped me figure it out and once I did, I found that I really, really enjoyed Welsh - in a cringing, car accident sort of way. Ken = know and bairn = baby, if that helps

[Kimblee]

I agree with those who commented on Wicked, mainly because I feel like it was trying way too hard to make everything about sex. Which really surprised me, considering it's a fanfiction of a children's story, essentially.

This surprises you? Fanfiction seems to be 80% naughty fics about children's fandoms. (not all of it is bad either. I've found some that the authors should seriously devote a little time to something publishable, they had the skillz!) Then there is the 18% that seems to be primarily mary sues. 2% is kinda readable and contains no sex. I tend to hope mine falls into the 2%.

[Kendo_Bunny]

Well, I finally found something I hate more than Twilight! Surprise, it's based on Twilight.

Fifty Shades of Grey, you are a terrible, badly-written, sloppy, train wreck of a waste of paper. Alternative lifestyles are not for everyone, but they are not abuse (which your relationship is), and they are not all products of damaged people who just need wuv and cuddles and BABIES for healing.

Also, a guy who likes to beat you because you look like his mom and he gets his jollies that way is a guy to run away from as fast as you can, no matter how rich and how pretty he is.

[Grancalla]

Oh and I tried the Dark Series by Christine Feehan.  I'm sorry, but her men are just unScrabbleable.  She keeps trying to sell the fact that damaged and issue-lade is hot and she can't.   It's sort of like being hit on by a guy who you know is about to be evicted and just wants a place to sleep.  It's just uncomfortable.

I'm glad I wasn't drinking anything when I read that description.

I attempted to read one of these a few months ago and just had to read through this thread to see if any of them were mentioned. I think it was Dark Warrior. but... well, I don't remember. Some scary, menacing, totally-not-a-vampire-really-i-swear guy basically kidnaps an innocent virgin human girl, because he's decided she's his TWUE WUV.

The "destined mate" trope that shows up in a lot of paranormal romance is a tricky thing. When done well, it can be a story of otherwise incompatible people learning about each other and making the best of an awkward situation. When done badly, it ends up being one party (usually the woman) being browbeaten, seduced or tricked into giving up everything for the sake of a partner that cares more about the fact that they're destined to be together than about who his supposed true love actually is.
This book was definitely one of the second group. The hero blathers on about how in love he is with her- no, not love! It's too meager a word for what he feels for her!- but doesn't  care (or even bother to find out) who she actually is or what she actually wants. Nor is there any believable indication that the heroine's feelings are genuine and not the result of mind-control and Stockholm Syndrome.

Normally, I would have ignored the plot and just skimmed for the naughty bits, but with this book, the naughty bits were written, well... blurry, if that makes sense. It was as if the "camera" would go out of focus whenever a scrabble scene started and the viewer would be left to infer what was going on from the fuzzy blobs. I found myself rereading passages wondering what was going on. Did one of them grow an extra limb? Were even in the same room any more? Did Ms. Feehan forget why people actually read these?

[violinp]

Well, I finally found something I hate more than Twilight! Surprise, it's based on Twilight.

Fifty Shades of Grey, you are a terrible, badly-written, sloppy, train wreck of a waste of paper. Alternative lifestyles are not for everyone, but they are not abuse (which your relationship is), and they are not all products of damaged people who just need wuv and cuddles and BABIES for healing.

Also, a guy who likes to beat you because you look like his mom and he gets his jollies that way is a guy to run away from as fast as you can, no matter how rich and how pretty he is.

Ewwwwwww. So glad I skipped that.

[Pippen]

'The Celestine Prophecy'. What a hideous waste of paper. Loads of people were reading it in the early 90's and said it changed their lives. Yeah. It didn't. The most pointless book ever. McDonalds for the mind.

'The Tibetan Book of the Dead'. Don't even consider reading this. Truly awful. Worse then Ulysses.

'Twilight'. For obvious reasons others have already covered but my friend who doesn't like reading gave it to me and said she loved it so wanting to support her in her new found enthusiasm but knowing I would hate it I got 5 pages in and was enraged that someone so stupid could write such tosh and be paid so much money.

'Bridget Jones Diary' made me ashamed to be a woman. Made me ashamed to know people reading it.

[pierrotlunaire0]

I just finally read a shopaholic series and I am horrified that I can't unread it.  Adulthood is soooooo hard!  I hope I get out of it by getting a rich husband (and rich men are sooooo mean when they call you on being pouty and girlsy.)   Goooooo girls!

I didn't read any of the books, but my sister has.  She was watching the movie one day, and I could hear it from where I was on the computer.  I wanted to scream.  There was a scene where she makes a big speech to her shopaholic group, about how shopping didn't hurt anyone.  The whole group was cheering her, and the way the scene was played, I guess we are supposed to agree. 

Please.  Wanton spending never hurt anyone.  Right.

[greencat]

I also disliked the Power of One when I had to read it for my senior year AP English course.

Other books I disliked:
A Prayer for Owen Meany made me cringe, a lot.  It has the great dishonor of being one of the only books that I ever just...stopped reading.  I eventually forced myself to finish it (I had to, it was assigned reading, although the way the class was structured I could go through the books whenever I felt like it) and I didn't like it any better for doing so.  The themes in that book were very hard to handle for a high school freshman, and I just didn't enjoy the story.

Marrion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon.  I despised that book - it's a female-centric retelling of the Arthurian legend cycle.  I was going to say feminist, but it's really not.  The women aren't empowered, just enamored of their menstrual cycle and having babies.

Any of Andre Norton's older work.  Her more recent novels are good, but her early stuff is written in the most ponderous, formal fashion.

Dennis L. McKiernan's Iron Tower series.  Admittedly, it was intended to be a sequel to the LOTR series, but when that permission was denied, he just kind of changed the names of things, and it's still obviously extremely derivative, and quite frankly, I can't blame Tolkein's estate for denying him the rights to release it as part of the LOTR series, as his writing is awful.

[Winterlight]

The Blonde Geisha by Jina Baccar. The prose is so purple your eyes bleed, the sex scenes are utterly unsexy, she clearly knows nothing about geisha and the lead character is a whiny twit who spends the whole lead-up to having s*ex salivating for it, then suddenly, bang! She will only consider her twu wuv, where ten pages before she was demanding that someone- anyone! be  her first.

Blech. 

[TheVapors]

Well, I finally found something I hate more than Twilight! Surprise, it's based on Twilight.

Fifty Shades of Grey, you are a terrible, badly-written, sloppy, train wreck of a waste of paper. Alternative lifestyles are not for everyone, but they are not abuse (which your relationship is), and they are not all products of damaged people who just need wuv and cuddles and BABIES for healing.

Also, a guy who likes to beat you because you look like his mom and he gets his jollies that way is a guy to run away from as fast as you can, no matter how rich and how pretty he is.

Similar to Twilight, I read one page, realized the poor writing made me physically ill (not even the content... just the writing style), and didn't read the rest of it!

[Kimblee]

Well, I finally found something I hate more than Twilight! Surprise, it's based on Twilight.

Fifty Shades of Grey, you are a terrible, badly-written, sloppy, train wreck of a waste of paper. Alternative lifestyles are not for everyone, but they are not abuse (which your relationship is), and they are not all products of damaged people who just need wuv and cuddles and BABIES for healing.

Also, a guy who likes to beat you because you look like his mom and he gets his jollies that way is a guy to run away from as fast as you can, no matter how rich and how pretty he is.

Ewwwwwww. So glad I skipped that.

Ditto.

Based on the "hot" books of the past couple years, I've decided to write a romance novel. Its gonna be baaaad. I won't stop until it is. I think it might get me published.