Several decades ago my friends boyfriend walked into the shop where I worked and tossed a book into the trash on his way to his girfriend’s table. As a bookworm, I was horrified! In my mind, it was the equivalent of burning a book, so I pulled it out of the trash. He said, “This is the worst thing I’ve ever tried to read! You are welcome to it.” I thought nothing could possibly be that bad, and the very idea of wasting a book seemed almost sacrilegious.
Anyway, I brought the book home and started to read it that night. I had just barely forced myself to finish the first chapter before I threw it away as well. I forget the title, but I do remember it was a horror novel by Dean Koontz. My first and only attempt to read one of his books.
by Direct_Tale4499
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Couldn’t finish it but I tried to read a
atlas shrugged and it annoyed me so much I had to stop.
Ah, Dean Koontz, I’ve read three of his, including the smart dog one that’s supposedly his best, all awful.
My nomination is *Dreams Before the Start of Time* by Anne Charnock, inexplicably winner of the 2018 Arthur C Clarke award. It’s just terrible, dull, unimaginative, a ridiculous vision of the future where in a couple of centuries time people will have wrist watches capable of calculating tip percentages, toilet cleaners will aspire to run hot dog carts and having a single drink while pregnant will land you in jail. Why did they serve her the drink?
I read a Dan Brown book once, it was all the rage back then. I found it weakly written, artificial cliff hangers at the end of each chapter, and the content was nothing new nor it delivered interesting insights. A bad book. I thought that they couldn’t all be bad, so I read another one (I’m terrible at not finishing books), and that was even worse. Not sure if those were the worst books I ever read, but they are down there.
Brothers by Yu Hua. Made a whole post about it. Basically Yu Hua wrote a whole 800 page book, about characters throughout the second half of 20th century China, and in the final quarter of the book goes “hey you know what ? nothing pure can survive”, and gives the book the most awful, heart-breaking ending in every way possible, almost to disgust you with how far human selfishness can go.
It’s a metaphor about unbridled capitalism but god damn, no story I read has ended in such atrocious failure for the virtuous characters and unlimited victory for the evil.
Edit : just saying, it’s not objectively bad given that Yu Hua clearly accomplishes the goal he set out with his book. He achieved his goal perfectly in every way.
Tell Me I’m Worthless by Alison Rumfitt. So much hate and everything was over the top and ham fisted. I was so excited for it to come out and I was left disappointed. Trigger warning for pretty much everything. I don’t have any triggers but the amount transphobia, homophobia, rape, antisemitism, etc. was too much for me. I made it about halfway through.
I’ve read a lot Koontz books and at worst I’d say mediocre but I haven’t read a lot of his newer stuff. He has also wrote a few favorites like Watchers.
Anyway worst that I finished is Bad Bunny by Hansen. I have Kindle Unlimited and read a lot of trash from there. What makes it worse is this in the 2nd book in the series and I didn’t like the first either but thought the premise was interesting and hoped it would get better.
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Oh I also read Taken by the T-Rex a dinosaur erotica that is actually worse. Popped up on reddit years ago because the author was making bank churning out these dino porn books. It was free, short, and well curiosity.
A Long Way To A Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. This book had no plot, tension, or internal logic. Unfortunately “cozy” fiction is having a moment. I would have just been annoyed and moved on but this suff is getting awards. It boggles my mind.