Hey I’m just procrastinating on work right now but I just want to ask: what is the worst book you ever read?
It could come from any genre and be because of anything (i.e. horrible pacing, grammar, disjointed plot, etc). Anyways I’m looking forward to your opinions!
Also please tell me if I’m breaking any guidelines, if so please notify me and I’ll correct asap- thanks!
by Savings_Wedding_1283
38 Comments
I have a few: Sailor Song by Ken Kesey, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, and Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
I don’t want to be too mean, because it is kind of a small indie book, and I hear the author is a nice guy, but its called “PRICE OF VENGEANCE”
It was gifted to me by a friend because he knew the author personally and it had a relationship to lucid dreaming and an “interesting magic system”
It was the most painful book I’ve ever read. All the women are described by hair color and height. There is a race of ‘space irish’, there is a completely out of nowhere rape and execution scene, nothing is described its ‘white room syndrome’ there is an entity called a ‘bear lizard.’ Thats it, thats the whole description of the entity, its species is ‘bear lizard’.
It was just too poorly written to be campy, it had no humor it was a totally self serious effort with a stodgy writing style, really weird choice in what he gave details, and like a barely coherent story. I have never finished a book I enjoyed less, anything I disliked more didn’t get read. I just finished it to humor my friend.
It was a bit, annoying really, because I think the setting is imaginative and promising. He just doesn’t have the skill to express it. His imagination kind of overran his ability.
Mary Shelley – The Last Man.
One I finished: Passenger to Frankfurt by Agatha Christie (I’ve read almost all her books and really love her but this one is well known among her fans for being bad).
DNF: The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose. Terrible writing, stupid premise, lack of research. I googled the ending and it copies a bunch of more well written books.
Ulysses
*Mr. Darcy Takes a Wife*. The *worst* 20 pages of anything I’ve ever read. Hilariously, incredibly, astonishingly, horrendously terrible writing. Like read out loud, can’t even get through the sentences bad writing. Jaw-droppingly bad. Somehow, SOMEHOW, has a 4.3 rating, 11k+ reviews on Goodreads, and 4.1 rating on Amazon. Would be great as a book club read for people who don’t actually want to read a book. Apparently it’s the first of a 4-book series?!? 😆😂😆😂😆
Boy in the Stripped Pajamas.
It’s basically Holocaust fan fiction about the world’s dumbest 9 year old who talks like a Rugrats baby, doesn’t know who Hitler is even though he has met him and is to stupid to figure out what Auschwitz is even though his father is the commandant. The whole thing is written with a tone that just feels blatantly disrespectful to the real history.
If you’ve ever read a customer review before buying something on Amazon then congratulations because you’ve done more research on that purchase than the author did before writing the book. The author regularly gets into Twitter beefs with Holocaust museums because he didn’t like that they called out his book for being grossly inaccurate.
I actually know people who read this book as a class in school. I cannot fathom why any teacher would teach this book over the numerous other pieces of Holocaust literature, many of them written by actual Holocaust survivors.
A Patricia Cornwell murder mystery, I can’t even remember which one. Rather than inflict it on anyone else, I threw it in the recycling when I finished it. I will never read another one of her novels again.
Unpopular opinion: I also hated Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, and literally threw it across the room when I finished it, but I was only 19 at the time. I might like it now.
I recently tried to read Paul Rutherfurd’s New York. It was such a great idea for a novel that I really wanted to enjoy it, but it was so loathsomely sexist, I got a few paragraphs in and gave up.
I’m sure I could think of more, but that’s off the top of my head.
Ready Player One. A few hours of my life I will never get back.
I could name a lot of books by hacks, that would be easy. But Martin Amis’s *Inside Story* was the worst book I’ve read by an author I respect.
From Blood And Ash by Jennifer L. Armentrout. Poorly written, unedited, bland/forgettable characters, and nonsensical plot.
Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff by Sean Pean
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Eat, Pray, Love- self-centered drivel that I tossed in the trash so no one else would be subjected to such garbage at the thrift store.
Do we have to have finished it? Because I got three chapters into Wizard’s First Rule and threw the book into the trash.
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. A girl who runs a flower shop named Lily Blossom Bloom? Gtfo of here. And don’t even get me started on the letters to Ellen. First and last reading rec from Tik Tok.
Shantaram. The pseudo philosophical nonesense and flawless-perfect-loved by all protagonist was painful
Norwegian Wood
‘Damsel’ by Elana K. Arnold. It was overly descriptive in many ways and horribly graphic. You could figure out the ‘twist’ from reading the summary on the inside flap. It was the first book I ever got so mad I threw it. I *hated* it; I brought it back to the library the same day. How in the world is that a YA book?! I’m still mad I wasted that time trying to read it.
Every Girl Does It by Rachel VanDyken. I hate-read my way through it. I hated pretty much every thing about it: the characters, the description of the scenery (how do you make Hawaii sound boring?!) the editing… oh goodness it was awful. There were like, five characters who were all named Brad. Oh, and a small side of racism thrown in for fun. Zero stars.
The novelization of Disorderlies.
The 120 Days Of Sodom. I’ve no problem with any sort of pornography, transgressive writing, whatever. There’s absolutely a place for genuinely evil art. But this was just just banal and disgusting in the most uninteresting way, and I’m very glad he didn’t finish it.
Sword of Truth Series.
Comfort me with apples. Hated the book and do not recommend it. Flat, boring, and stupid. A few hours of my life, I will never get back. Only good thing: it was short. But it sucked!
Outlander
I only finished it because I had mono and couldn’t get off the couch for 2 months. Then it was gifted to me a total of 4 more times.
I know it’s very popular but it’s my most hated book. I’m sure I have read worse but that one sticks out
Oh, how I hated “Atlas Shrugged” by Ayn Rand. Had a buddy in college who loved it so I gave it a try. It was real bad, y’all.
For my old book review blog, I did a close read of *For Such a Time* – the infamous “Nazi romance” that made headlines a few years ago. It’s supposedly a retelling of the Book of Esther, and it was truly *awful*. Just painfully cringeworthy in every way possible.
We Were Liars, the only interesting part was at the end
Girl Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis. The book that made me hate self help books not than anything written.
Recently decided to try a fantasy classic – The Sword of Shannara. I’m a huge fantasy sci fi fan and this was utter garbage. Maybe it had some relevance when it came out in ‘77 but it has not aged well.
The Time Travelers Wife
November 9 by Colleen Hoover, I cringe even writing the title and knowing this gives it more exposure. upon meeting Ben I was yelling profanities as he clearly had psychological issues that he had yet to deal with and was swallowing Fallon whole by “building her up”. this was far from a magical, star crossed lovers romance book that it so desperately wanted to be
Haunting Adeline. I couldn’t even finish it
A book written by the husband of a friend of my wife. His first language wasn’t English, but he wrote the book in it. Let’s just say I made it to the end of the first chapter, and had to stop because I was laughing so hard.
Hey, I gave it a shot.
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea is surprisingly bad.
There is some good stuff in there for sure – the story of the captain, the descriptions of the ship – but there are just so. fucking. many. fish.
I have no idea why but Jules Verne thought it would be a great idea to describe loads and loads of fish, not in a vivid, entertaining way but according to the Linnaean classification of the fish. So it mentions a fish by species, it may or may not give it an interesting description, then mentions other similar fish it’s related to in the Linnaean system. It does this a lot. It’s dull as dishwater to wade through pages of this at a time and baffling how such an imaginative writer thought it could possibly be interesting to read. It doesn’t sound that bad and you could even find an excerpt of it that might seem quite interesting, but there’s just too much of it throughout the whole book and makes reading it a chore.
A Little Life. THE WORST BOOK EVER!!!!
Throne of Glass. The book, not the series, although the series is also terrible. My best friend and I curl up on the couch together and hate read it every once in awhile lol
*Darkfever* by Karen Moning. My MIL loves the whole series, so I tried it out, and… it’s truly just sooo bad. Nonexistent world building until the last ~10 pages (it’s a fantasy, too, so that sucks), abhorrently unlikable characters, weird sex stuff (but not in a fun way). It’s the only book I’ve ever thought I wouldn’t even give one star to lol.