Books you hate

[Cactus Wren]

Worst ever? Firefly, by Piers Anthony. The central female character's Great Tragedy That Has Blighted Her Life is the death of her lover ...

when
she
was
FIVE.

I do not kid. See, she was molested by either her father or older brother (I would honestly rather eat hot gravel than get the book out and check), so -- we're told -- the only was of expressing love she knew was the sexual. So when she met a man that she loved, she seduced (!) him. The tragedy was that she mentioned their love affair to her mother, who (stupid woman) failed to realize that her five-year-old daughter was in a CONSENSUAL sexual relationship, freaked out and called the cops. The lover was promptly imprisoned as a child molestor, and just as promptly beaten to death by his fellow prisoners.

This is the heroine's Great Tragedy. Not just because of her lover's death, not just because she feels responsible, but because If Only Things Had Gone Differently, the two (it's at least strongly implied) would have remained lovers and happily spent their lives together. Because that's how sexual relationships between adults and small children always turn out. Honestly, Anthony is here serving (although not necessarily advertently) as a mouthpiece for NAMBLA's cover story: "What a horrible society we live in, that hates children so! Why do you hate the idea of children feeling pleasure? Are you really so offended by the thought of a grownup just making a child happy?"

Oh, and let me not forget the Anthony Afterword, in which he states -- does not imply, does not suggest, but states as fact -- that a relationship with a "funny uncle" who wants to play "games" that involve "tickling in funny places", and who insists that the "game" be kept strictly secret, is less hurtful and traumatizing to a child than an injection at the doctor's office.

 

[malbui]

Harry Potter.

OK--I only attempted to read the 4th book. I really tried. I got less than half way before I decided that life was too short and there are too many GOOD books around to waste any more time on it.

I got about 25 pages into the first one before letting out an enormous cathartic scream, hurling the book away and getting on with something more worthwhile. The style was like someone scraping their fingers down a blackboard.

I suffered at school in the UK from an obsession with local colour, if you like to call it that: we were force-fed Dickens because he only lived just up the road and described our part of the world in painful detail, and also had to swallow a lot of William Golding as he'd taught briefly at the school way back when. At the age of sixteen I swore I'd never read another word by either of them... it's only now, more than twenty years on, that I've been able to pick up a bit of Dickens and enjoy it.

Interestingly, or maybe not, I've had no such visceral hatred of any of the French stuff I've had to read, although I did often wish that Victor Hugo would fricking get on with it.

 

[Madalch]

Worst ever? Firefly, by Piers Anthony. .... Honestly, Anthony is here serving (although not necessarily advertently) as a mouthpiece for NAMBLA's cover story: "What a horrible society we live in, that hates children so! Why do you hate the idea of children feeling pleasure? Are you really so offended by the thought of a grownup just making a child happy?"

Oh, and let me not forget the Anthony Afterword, in which he states -- does not imply, does not suggest, but states as fact -- that a relationship with a "funny uncle" who wants to play "games" that involve "tickling in funny places", and who insists that the "game" be kept strictly secret, is less hurtful and traumatizing to a child than an injection at the doctor's office.

Wow. Just wow.

I knew he made his stance on such things clear in "The Shade of the Tree" and his Incarnations of Immortality books (a woman is reading a pedophile's mind and feels sorry for him because society won't let him have want he wants, but is then horrified when she realized he actually wants a little boy instead of a little girl), but I'm surprised he'd be that blatant.

 

[RobRoy]

Wow. Just wow.

I knew he made his stance on such things clear in "The Shade of the Tree" and his Incarnations of Immortality books (a woman is reading a pedophile's mind and feels sorry for him because society won't let him have want he wants, but is then horrified when she realized he actually wants a little boy instead of a little girl), but I'm surprised he'd be that blatant.

I'd never even heard of Firefly before this forum. I read Anthony's Xanth series and some of his Incarnates, but knew nothing of this whatsoever. I did some digging, and it appears no one is exagerating the statements. I have no idea what to think of the author now.

 

[Madalch]

The earlier Xanth books, I'd classify as "mostly harmless"- I gave up reading them when he started obsessing about the colour of someone's underwear.

 

[Gregory]

Oh Anthony...

 

[RobRoy]

:

Very nice Gregory.

 

[dudalb]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

What a god-awful piece of tripe.

Bad enough so Rand earned a whole thread in this section ripping her apart.
And richly deserved also.

 

[alfaniner]

The Lost Boys by Orson Scott Card.

An account of an early 80's computer game programmer (which I think Card actually wrote around that time, and only released after his later success), and his family, and lots of details of Mormon living, set in the very real world.

His poor kid goes through much harassment at school and you felt so sorry for him, and the boy ends up getting (presumably) raped and murdered. And the ending ricochets off into some fantasy elements that had absolutely no setup earlier in the story. I can't remember ever being so angry after finishing a book. There's also a pedo descriptive sequence that comes out of nowhere.

 

[Kochanski]

I tend to not bother with best sellers of any sort, so I have dodged Da Vinci Code and Potter books.

For me most hated include:

Arrowsmith - 464 pages of boring. Forced to read in high school, it is sad that the only thing I remember about this book is how many pages it has.

Heart of Darkness, I am sad to hate this, since it was written by a Pole and I am always pleased to enjoy any work by anyone from the home of my grandparents.

Martha Grimes' books, all. I started reading some and at first I enjoyed them, however the formulaic nature of them just spoiled it for me. If I had stopped after one book, I probably would have been happy, but the endless repetition of the smart kid and animal (varying from book to book) annoyed me to no end, especially since series characters were actually quite enjoyable.

P D James books. Again at first I loved her books, but as the series progressed the stories got more and more depressing and I could not read them. All I could think was that I could not see how the series characters could possibly go on living after all the gloom.

In all I think the books by Grimes and James bug me most, because I love a good mystery book and they both are good writers who I would truly love to enjoy but they both managed to spoil it for me.

 

[quixotecoyote]

"Clan of the cave bear" by Jean Auel (or something). This was given to
me and described as "a great reference for Neanderthal customs and society"
(alarm bells ringing already there). Utter, utter garbage. I finally literally
threw it across the room when, after an earthquake that collapsed their
cave, one of the Neanderthals hand-signalled (they cannot speak but use
an ultra-sophisticated sign language instead) "Watch out, there may be
after-shocks!"

I'm going to disagree. This was not intended as "a great reference for Neanderthal customs and society". It is fiction and bills itself as fiction. IIRC the Neanderthals use both speech and hand-signals but only have rudimentary vocal capabilities. As they are cave-dwellers I didn't think it odd at all that they'd know to watch out for the effects of earthquakes on their caves.

All in all I thought it did a good job of self-consistent world-building and a believable job of depicting how an outsider could integrate into it. My only complaint was that the ending was a bit railroaded and broke several of the conventions established up to that point (the clan's commitment to tradition being broken by the villain and the previously intelligent hero's ability to manipulate those traditions being ignored).

 

[Tiktaalik]

The Monkey Wrench Gang. A lot of people I hang out with think it is blasphemy to hate this book. I never cared about any of the characters, the female was especially bad.

Anything by Jane Auel.

Anything by Hemingway.

I was just "encouraged" (by parents) to read a John Grisham book about some folks who decide not to do Christmas and then change their minds and loved their neighbors, I forget the title but there's a movie about it now. Halfway through, I shut the book and announced that I was going to tell them what was going to happen in the rest of the book. Which I did (I read the rest of it to make sure). I hate predictable stuff.

A friend gave me "Refuge" by Terry Tempest Williams. Hated it.

Someone earlier mentioned "Wicked". I read "Mirror, Mirror", the first 2/3rds of which were pretty good, but then it fell off at the end. So I picked up "Wicked" to read on a plane, skipped most of it. Great idea, bad execution.

 

[LukeB]

The Wolves Of Calla by Stephen King. Because what we really need is a third rate rip off of Seven Samurai by a man who hasen't written a good book for over a decade now. It was the most rambling incoherant tedious slog imaginable, I was horrified to find after finally (finally) reaching the big confrontation (ahem) and the revealing of a twist that woulden't have surprised a dim-witted child to find there was a fairly large chunk of book left to go and just gave up on it. Hell I'd been reduced to skimming and skipping large chunks in a bid not to lose patience with the wretched thing already. I hate the damn thing with the burning of a thousand suns.
I'd been sticking with The Dark Tower books on the assumption that they were popular so they had to become good eventually. Boy do I feel stupid for wasting my time now, I haven't bothered reading anything the mans written since. I hoped I'd never read something as dreadful again.
Alas my hopes where in vain, I read The Ninja by Eric Van Lustbader. Ugh ugh ugh!

 

[Mick Houlahan]

I cannot stand Tolkien. I have tried, I really have, but I invariably wind up hurling him across the room.

 

[RobRoy]

I cannot stand Tolkien. I have tried, I really have, but I invariably wind up hurling him across the room.

Out of curiosity, how far have you gotten?

I'd been sticking with The Dark Tower books on the assumption that they were popular so they had to become good eventually. Boy do I feel stupid for wasting my time now, I haven't bothered reading anything the mans written since.

I had the same problem with Wizard and Glass, it took me years to actually finish the thing. I was a little more forgiving of Wolves of the Calla, but by that point the release date for The Dark Tower was only a month or so off, and so I was pleased that he'd actually finished the thing. I've always held that he should have stopped after the first book.

 

[galnoir]

Okay--another vote of confidence here for Catcher! And I enjoy the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Now for ones I don't like:
DaVinci Code--because really, if I could figure out the clues, how much of a secret could it be? Can't the characters be smarter than me?
Anything by William Gibson--I have read one--Pattern Recognition--all the way through, and have started another, can't remember which. It seems to always be nighttime and raining and the characters always wear black. Too cool for me.

I haven't read any Piers Anthony and now I don't have to! Thanks for the heads-up on that creepiness.

 

[Skiltch]

My problems with the Dark Tower series:

1. Stephen King is a character. In his own book. And is apparently responsible for saving the world by writing his books. It actually works pretty well, but this could have easily been removed without harming the books.
2. Near the very end Stephen King (the author now, not the character) interjects a note saying, "Stop reading. You won't like the ending. Seriously, stop. Don't say I didn't warn you." Really. And... as it turns out he's absolutely right.
(One might wonder why he wrote that ending if he knew everyone would hate it, but... okay then).
It was bad because I really loved the series. There was some masterful prose and really elegant scenes through the whole thing. I loved the depictions of Lud, of Blaine, of the whole Mejis township, and Wolves was one of the best books I've ever read, in my view. But then books six and seven.. .they had great parts too (loved the description of the Breaker prison), but it didn't work near the end.

 

[figarot]

anything by Dean Koontz, though I've yet to convince any of my friends he's not worth the bother

 

[Retrograde]

The earlier Xanth books, I'd classify as "mostly harmless"- I gave up reading them when he started obsessing about the colour of someone's underwear.

You're more tolerant than me: I -and the book- literally hit the wall with the 3rd Xanth book, back when he was just a misogynist. His really early books - Sos the Rope, Macroscope - weren't bad, but he went way off the deep end in the late 70s, IMHO.

 

[Ian Osborne]

I haven't read any Piers Anthony and now I don't have to! Thanks for the heads-up on that creepiness.

I read the Tarot trilogy, and it was pretty good, albeit a little gratuitously surreal at times. After this thread, I feel no need to read anything else by him.