well, THAT was the worst book ever!

[weeblewobble]

Water for Elephants.  EVERYONE I know loved it; i thought it was terrible.

The train, the train, 50 pages on a frickin train!

[Petticoats]

Why do I laugh every time I see wingadingy Moby?

Anyhoo...my two worst books were The Pilot's Wife (one of the most nonsensical and unreal plot lines I've ever encountered) and We Were The Mulvaney's by Joyce Carol Oates.  I'd heard she was a good writer, and let's just say I almost didn't live through that book.  This was also an Oprah suggestion. 

I avoid Joyce Carol Oates like the plague. I read a couple of stories by her when I was a teen, and they just...well, I'll just say I realized that JCO and I had some fundamental differences of opinion about plot, style, and oh, pretty much every other part of a story.

[Melxb]

OK, I'm going to date myself, but I read "Flowers in the Attic" when the original V.C. Andrews was still alive.  We all read the series in middle school and thought we were very sophisticated.

Years later, I still see a lot of her books.  Are they still all the same?

She passed away in the middle of one of her series.  I think the Dollanganger series, with The Flowers in the Attic, was completed by her, as was The Casteel series.  Everything else afterwards was ghostwritten after she passed away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vc_andrews

[siamesecat2965]

Why do I laugh every time I see wingadingy Moby?

Anyhoo...my two worst books were The Pilot's Wife (one of the most nonsensical and unreal plot lines I've ever encountered) and We Were The Mulvaney's by Joyce Carol Oates.  I'd heard she was a good writer, and let's just say I almost didn't live through that book.  This was also an Oprah suggestion. 

Another Oprah pick - Vinegar Hill.  The most absolutely depressing dreck I've read in my life.

I remember one year for Christmas, the attorney I worked for gave all her staff a book, and a fleece throw for Christmas.  That was my book.  It was dreck.

Pretty much anything I had to read in jr. high or HS English.  They were all so bad I don't remember most, but a few were Great Expectations, The Great Gatsby, A Separate Peace, and that's about all I remember.

The only book I DID enjoy was 100 Years of Solitude, in Spanish, for my Spanish class. To this day, still a favorite of mine, but this time in English.

Attonement.  It was awful.

[Miss Misery]

I can't believe I forgot this one:

Big Girl by Danielle Steel. Ggaaahhhh!!! The heroine of the story, Victoria, who is maybe 20 pounds overweight, spends the entire book whining about how she's ssssoooooo fat and nobody will ever love her because she's sssoooooo fat and her sister is so pretty and perfect and she isn't so she plows through a half-gallon of ice cream because she's sssssoooooo fat. Victoria, you're a size 12. Stop acting like the local circus sideshow is going to put you on display and grow up already.

Then there's the writing style. I'd really like to know how Danielle Steel has managed to maintain a career as a writer for the last 30 years since the whole thing reads like a 7th grader's attempt at writing a grown-up novel. The sentences are either short and choppy or just run on and on and on (and on and on). There are at least 3 sentences on every.single.page that start with "And". The entire novel is like this:

Victoria is overweight. She wants to be thin and beautiful like her sister. But she isn't. And Victoria wants to be a teacher. But her father doesn't want her to be a teacher. Her father doesn't like her because she isn't pretty and skinny like her sister. Victoria eats some pizza. She wants to move to New York and be a teacher. And she wants to lose some weight.

You've been warned.

[sisbam]

A number of books I like (in some cases, love) have been mentioned as "I hates" by other posters.

To each his/her own.

I don't think anyone disagrees with the to each their own idea...and there are some books I liked fairly well mentioned on here as hates, too. ("The Great Gatsby" for one - I didn't love it, but I didn't mind it. Also "Wuthering Heights" and "Pride and Prejudice.")

But I don't mind if other people hated them; just different taste and experiences, is all. I think it's kind of interesting, actually.

I actually really like these threads.  It's interesting to see what other people like and don't like.

I think I'm the lone person to love Wuthering Heights  

I think it's fascinating too.  There are several that I really like that other people hate.  I'm sure the reverse is true too!

And nope!  Love Wuthering Heights.  I even liked the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, but I read them right after studying Rand in an ethics class.   I actually want to reread Fountainhead now that I've read a major model for the character was Frank Lloyd Wright.

Yeah, and I really liked Wicked and other Gregory MaGuire books and various Chuck P. books.

But I definitely agree with other submissions here.

[lady_disdain]

Water for Elephants.  EVERYONE I know loved it; i thought it was terrible.

The train, the train, 50 pages on a frickin train!

Agatha Christie managed an entire book on a train that wasn't even moving and it is brilliant!

[Elfmama]

Last of the Mohicans.  EVER.  

Mark Twain agrees with you:

Cooper’s art has some defects. In one place in ‘Deerslayer,’ and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction–some say twenty-two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of them. ...

My favorite rule is this one:

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.

Rest of the essay here.

[kareng57]

I can't believe I forgot this one:

Big Girl by Danielle Steel. Ggaaahhhh!!! The heroine of the story, Victoria, who is maybe 20 pounds overweight, spends the entire book whining about how she's ssssoooooo fat and nobody will ever love her because she's sssoooooo fat and her sister is so pretty and perfect and she isn't so she plows through a half-gallon of ice cream because she's sssssoooooo fat. Victoria, you're a size 12. Stop acting like the local circus sideshow is going to put you on display and grow up already.

Then there's the writing style. I'd really like to know how Danielle Steel has managed to maintain a career as a writer for the last 30 years since the whole thing reads like a 7th grader's attempt at writing a grown-up novel. The sentences are either short and choppy or just run on and on and on (and on and on). There are at least 3 sentences on every.single.page that start with "And". The entire novel is like this:

Victoria is overweight. She wants to be thin and beautiful like her sister. But she isn't. And Victoria wants to be a teacher. But her father doesn't want her to be a teacher. Her father doesn't like her because she isn't pretty and skinny like her sister. Victoria eats some pizza. She wants to move to New York and be a teacher. And she wants to lose some weight.

You've been warned.

I'll never understand the Steele appeal.  Years ago I read one of her books and vowed "never again".  Then, she wrote a book (I forget the title, it had to do with a new mom who died) that my sister and mother both loved.  I said "I've read her before I don't think I'd like it" but "this one is different!"  It wasn't.  I did keep reading the book figuring that it would get better, but it didn't.

[Petticoats]

I can't believe I forgot this one:

Big Girl by Danielle Steel. Ggaaahhhh!!! The heroine of the story, Victoria, who is maybe 20 pounds overweight, spends the entire book whining about how she's ssssoooooo fat and nobody will ever love her because she's sssoooooo fat and her sister is so pretty and perfect and she isn't so she plows through a half-gallon of ice cream because she's sssssoooooo fat. Victoria, you're a size 12. Stop acting like the local circus sideshow is going to put you on display and grow up already.

Then there's the writing style. I'd really like to know how Danielle Steel has managed to maintain a career as a writer for the last 30 years since the whole thing reads like a 7th grader's attempt at writing a grown-up novel. The sentences are either short and choppy or just run on and on and on (and on and on). There are at least 3 sentences on every.single.page that start with "And". The entire novel is like this:

Victoria is overweight. She wants to be thin and beautiful like her sister. But she isn't. And Victoria wants to be a teacher. But her father doesn't want her to be a teacher. Her father doesn't like her because she isn't pretty and skinny like her sister. Victoria eats some pizza. She wants to move to New York and be a teacher. And she wants to lose some weight.

You've been warned.

Ooh, your remarks on style reminded me of another hate of mine--a whole author, though, not just one book. It started with one book: some thriller by James Patterson. I had an airplane flight and had read all my own books, so borrowed this one... the plane got stuck on the tarmac and the trip extended by I can't remember how long, but after a couple of (two- to three-page) chapters of JP, I flung it aside in favor of the in-flight magazine. Yes, I hated the book that much.

I read an article about him some years later that clarified and solidified my hatred. The man doesn't write books. He writes outlines. Big print, lots of white space, insanely short chapters, and boom, it's a book! Slap a gaudy cover on it, and it's a best seller.

Oh, also? What happened in chapter 1 or 2 to the family's golden retriever is something I will never get out of my head. Thanks, Patterson.

[StarDrifter]

The Scarlet Letter - I was doing fine reading this despite my issues with the tone and dense symbolism...until I idly wondered what would happen if Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg (from a favorite series of fantasy novels) showed up at this, that or the other point in the story.  Now I can't even see a copy of the book without breaking into giggles.

!!!!!!  What have you just done to me, giving me that image!  And it won't stop here!  It'll spread to other books!  I think it's alreading infiltrating Harry Potter!

Granny vs. Voldemort...oooh!  Vimes vs. Voldemort!

Is that my cow? It goes "Crucio"! It is Lord Voldemort! THAT IS NOT MY COW!!!

what series are you talking about? All i know is i wanna read it now.

The "Discworld" series by Terry Pratchett.

Be aware that they are heavy, heavy satire and not to be taken seriously in the slightest.

They are also hilarious- make sure you read all the footnotes!

[lady_disdain]

I thought golden retrievers were Dean Koontz's exclusivity? No? He certainly acts that way.

And he still can't write a good ending

[TeamBhakta]

I can't believe I forgot this one:

Big Girl by Danielle Steel. Ggaaahhhh!!! The heroine of the story, Victoria, who is maybe 20 pounds overweight, spends the entire book whining about how she's ssssoooooo fat and nobody will ever love her because she's sssoooooo fat and her sister is so pretty and perfect and she isn't so she plows through a half-gallon of ice cream because she's sssssoooooo fat. Victoria, you're a size 12. Stop acting like the local circus sideshow is going to put you on display and grow up already.

Then there's the writing style. I'd really like to know how Danielle Steel has managed to maintain a career as a writer for the last 30 years since the whole thing reads like a 7th grader's attempt at writing a grown-up novel. The sentences are either short and choppy or just run on and on and on (and on and on). There are at least 3 sentences on every.single.page that start with "And". The entire novel is like this:

Victoria is overweight. She wants to be thin and beautiful like her sister. But she isn't. And Victoria wants to be a teacher. But her father doesn't want her to be a teacher. Her father doesn't like her because she isn't pretty and skinny like her sister. Victoria eats some pizza. She wants to move to New York and be a teacher. And she wants to lose some weight.

You've been warned.

I call that April Patterson speech, after the youngest daughter from For Better or For Worse (" An' we went horse riding and then we ate dinner an' I got a cowboy hat. And I wanna be a vet an' live on a ranch..") 

[Miss Misery]

If we go way back... A Separate Peace... [/i]

My 12th grade English class was supposed to read that book. I never made it past page 5. In fact, the entire class hated it so much the teacher had to find us another book to read!

[Elfmama]

The Scarlet Letter - I was doing fine reading this despite my issues with the tone and dense symbolism...until I idly wondered what would happen if Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg (from a favorite series of fantasy novels) showed up at this, that or the other point in the story.  Now I can't even see a copy of the book without breaking into giggles.

  Now THERE'S an image to stick with you.  Rather like the "classic" novels reimagined with zombies/werewolves/demons as major characters.