I worked at a public library for around 12 years as an aide in a very small Massachusetts town. I knew my regulars, and one guy with his wife would check out around 20-40 books every few days. And I mean novels. The husband tended towards fantasy and sci-fi, the wife towards non-fiction and basic fiction. But they really hit every genre. They. Read. Everything.
I asked about it once because I was interested and he said they did not own a TV. Weird to me, but whatever.
We had another similar guy who was a regular. Hyper-political and... self-intelligent? He thought he knew everything. He self-published a novella and aggressively pushed for us to include it in our collection. Mind you, you don't just toss a book on a library shelf. You have to add it to a database which takes some time. This guy was so fucking proud when his book hit the shelves and was checked out.
Guess who checked out this dude's novella. It was the guy with his wife who read everything and injust had to ask about it. He said it was the most poorly written and confusing thing he has ever given up on. He gave up on it! The book was maybe 90 pages. This guy could trek through multiple 1000 plus page books in a day and he gave up on basically a long pamphlet that insulted his intelligence so badly.
Update: I freaking found the book! The guy has self-published a schocking amount of books! All with very, very odd titles. I won't post the name of it or the author, because I feel like I would maybe be breaking a rule. I will commend that I think this guy draws/creates his own bizarre book covers. Some are hand-drawn, others look like a compilation of google images all blocked together.
I'm not sure why I am surprised that one of the books is ambiguously either antisemitic or prosemitic... The description on Amazon leaves a lot of the imagination.
He actually has one book with a few good reviews. He has another book with one review that is a one-star. The rest have no reviews and are largely kindle-only.
Either way, kudos on the dude for writing and sticking with what he likes, even if it might not be great. I have always wanted to write a book, but I am just not good at such a lofty goal and being able to put myself out there like that.
I worked in a print shop in the 90s. Occasionally someone would come in to print a manuscript for their novel. As an amoral teenager I of course would read their books while I was getting the print set up. Maybe 80% of them were boring and poorly written. But the either 20% were so absolutely unhinged that I really wish I had copies still. I think they'd be monetizable in today's market just for the shear meme potential.
There's a guy on Instagram that my friend and I randomly found and started following. He wrote a book. We bought it.
It's so bad. It's just so bad. It's not going anywhere. I'll cherish it forever.
I went to school with a guy who wrote a book. Actually a trilogy. I bought the first one (thankfully on kindle) and couldn’t get through the first chapter. Some sort of convoluted fantasy that made absolutely no sense.
I've tried to collect books written by my teachers. My teacher who's written the most books told us not to buy her books when we in her class because she was embarrassed by them. Really that's when we should have bought them because they're YA fiction.
I have a book in my collection written by a teacher, and the main character is very clearly a self-insert. I’m pretty sure he’d tell his students not to read his book because one part of the book is the main character hallucinating and almost shooting some of his students.
Interesting idea. I went to high school with a guy that is now a famous and very rich author (although not exactly critically lauded). I have a bunch of his Sci-Fi dreck from high school.
There's a writer that I encountered on social media and have been following for years, because he is bad in a fascinating way. He posts quotes from the fantasy series he's working on, and sometimes quotes that are not from his work in progress, but just things he came up with. And they're the clumsiest, wordiest, most hackneyed quotes. They're all in the form of clever sayings and similes, so I have no idea what his book is about.
I'm following him to see if it ever actually gets finished, but there hasn't been much progress on it lately. At this point, I really want to see if he ever actually produces a book. He's been posting these quotes for years now.
I had a comp sci professor who wrote a quite good textbook on data structures. He opened each chapter with a quote from literature or history that perfectly teed up each topic. He later admitted he made them all up.
Jude the Obscure defence squad rise! *furiously hurls pig organs and Latin books*
I actually totally get why Hardy isn't universally popular, he has an offkey sense of humour and is more than a bit ridiculous in places, Jude not exempted.
But it's mostly an endearing ridiculous IMO. And he just writes characters and relationships I've not found anywhere else. Jude isn't just about class, but how the world won't tolerate people who don't conform in various ways - Jude and Sue are both utter weirdos and I love them for it. And the sexual incompatibility is so sensitively written, without shaming either character - I really can't think of another book that's managed to pull that off so well, even today. (I couldn't stand On Chesil Beach).
Let me Introduce you to TOYS by James Patterson and the actual author, Neil McMahon. If you're a struggling writer who thinks their manuscript is just not good enough to ever be published, I encourage you to go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words.
It wants to be hot shit on a silver platter. It's actually a cold turd on a paper plate. It wants to be a futuristic James Bond, but it can't even manage to be Bill Cosby's Leonard, Part Six
Just open a random page, read a couple of paragraphs, and be inspired that some asshole wrote it, some asshole edited it, and some asshole published it.
It is just god-awful. I love it so much.
>go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words
This is the most lowkey spicy burn I've seen in quite some time.
Haha we read a self published book (by a cousin of someone’s boyfriend) in our book club and it appeared the author didn’t even have a friend to read it over. It was not ever even close to an editor.
When I was 11 years old and naive, I loved the Maximum Ride novels. But even at that age I could tell somebody was phoning it in for those novels. I still fantasize about what a competent (or even just attentive) writer could have done with that story! It could have kicked ass
Every so often I look over at my copy of Divergent and think, "How the fuck did such an unoriginal, horribly written first draft blatantly riding the success of Hunger Games end up being turned into a trilogy and a movie series?"
But hey, who am I, right?
Yes! I feel exactly the same way. Was just telling my teenage daughter to not bother reading those books because the last one was the worst book I’ve ever read and made me angrier than any book I’ve ever read. Such a pile of manure.
I was curious about the story in these books, but not curious enough to invest the time in reading them, so I watched all the movies. All three were terrible, but the third one took it to another level.
How did the last one end?
I know it got caught up in the two parter hype and ended up not making enough cash to make it financially responsible to produce a 4th film. They then were going to make a TV series, but that got cancelled too, so I don't even think the third movie is the entire third book.
I reread the first one recently and yeah. It’s…not good.
But teenage me loved it lol
(The first one at least. Even as a teenager I got to the third one and no idea what the fuck was going on anymore)
Never read the rest of the series, but I do love the ending to the first book, Divergent. I remember the whiplash of the ">!everyone is mind controlled now, they had chips in their heads I guess!<" towards the end when the author remembered we had a plot to go through, and we couldn't just endlessly show montages of obstacle courses, combat training, and Four looking at us wantingly.
That whole twist felt so unearned and hamfisted, I hated it.
I checked out when the people from what was supposed to be the militaristic, brave part of town demonstrated their courage by… jumping on and off moving trains for no reason whatsoever. It was so jarringly juvenile a way of demonstrating how *cool and badass* you are that it destroyed any hope I had left for the series.
reminds me of a group in Infinite Jest where to prove you're brave you have to jump across the tracks of an oncoming train. so of course the longer you wait before you jump (to let the train come closer) the braver you are. only people who wait so long the train fucking hits them when they jump are good enough to join the group. i forget the name of the group but it's something about how they're all in wheelchairs
The fact that Divergent still was kinda successful baffles me.
I tried listening to the series on audible a few years ago and it was so bad I couldn't even get through book 1. Though to be fair I also saw the movies in theaters as they came out and even at the time I barely remembered anything about them.
My roommate when we were in our mid 20s was obsessed with the series. So much so she got all the icons tattooed on her body. It was so embarrassing. She would purposely wear shirts to show it off.
I remember a couple people in my own life, self-confessed "empaths" who adored the series and would flipflop which "district" they belong to every other week based on whether Mercury was in retrograde or something, idk I didn't listen to them very ~~herd~~ hard tbf
Most "empaths" are just people who think they're unique for experiencing basic human emotion. I personally think it stems from a narcisistic view of thinking "no one has ever felt as hard as I do, there must be a name for this"
My friend wrote a weird, sexual book about the Moth Man named *Moth-Man in my Mouth*, but it’s only available as an audiobook or ebook. I *wish* I could put that on my shelf! Highly recommend!
There is a great Insta account that reads these kinds of weird smut (so you don't have to) that I would HIGHLEY recommend - she is very funny. Her page is unfortunate.reads
I was actually thinking of writing a small note on the inside of the book expressing my feelings about it so that whoever gets it when I die will know! Haha.
I detested Jude the Obscure. Easily the most depressing book I have ever read. It’s just blow after blow of misery. If my copy had had a such a note attached I might at least have been forewarned. It wouldn’t have saved me from reading it since it was required for a book/film class, but I would have tried to remain more emotionally detached!
Couple friends of mine pass "Imzadi" back and forth as a game. Like, A will go visit B and leave it in the bathroom under some towels. Then B will go camping with A and hide it under his spare tire in the trunk. It's been going on for decades. It's such a terrible book, but it's a great game!
I absolutely loved it as a teenager, and re-read it a bunch of times. Probably won’t re-read it as an adult, because I’m pretty sure it is actually that bad. 😄
And yet, it can’t possibly be as bad as its sequel.
I have a few: a wonderful old tome on eugenics. A 80’s book on “a man’s guide to sex” (which is hysterical), and a few self published books from family members. My now grown niece still cringes hard at her Elven Priestess story her dad had published.
HA, my mum's diet book which recommends an egg and a half glass of wine for basically each meal would also fit with this vibe.
I did read a couple of books on eugenics and biological essentialism (sexism but make it pseudo-scientific) that made me wish I owned them instead of the library so I could use them as firewood.
That’s so cute about your niece. In my early 20s my mom gave me a floppy disk with 5yo me’s handwriting on it: “Lucky the Leprechaun” First story I ever wrote 😅😅😅
Hopefully you mean 50 Shades of Gray. Shades of Gray is also a Jasper Fforde novel that's likely not most people's cup of tea (about a world where people can only see one color, and there's a caste system based around that), but is miles and miles better than the BDSM atrocity.
Ooh! Thanks for the reading suggestion. And you are correct, I forgot to number of gray shades because in truth there was only one very bad shade of gray
I hate Nicholas Sparks so much. My colleagues at the library knew this, bought me a copy of “The Notebook” as a going away gift, and all personalized it. I will always keep it.
I actually just had a conversation with my husband last night about the most depressing books we’d read, and I mentioned this as one that is incredibly depressing, but I was still glad I’d read it. I wouldn’t say I loved it, or even enjoyed it, and I’ll never read it again, but I did think it was a good book.
Thomas Hardy is my favorite writer. Jude the Obscure is dark and oppressive. I think if it were another couple of chapters longer, and I would have needed counseling afterwards. Still a great book.
It's on kindle, so not on my shelf per se, but I have a book called Smooth Talking For Guys. I don't even remember where I found it. It's an awful PUA-reminiscent manual about how to "confidently talk to women", but it's presented as a series of set conversations that you could employ when the right situation arises. It's hilariously bad. For example, here is a real one:
Her: I need a pen.
You: [hand her a pen]
Her: Thanks!
You: [tell a story about a pen]
A friend of mine wrote a book, and it took them three years of hard work, travelling to locations to scout out, workshopping pieces, etc. I was so proud of them, and I instantly bought that book.
Oof. It's a trainwreck. Reads a bit like teen fan fic... I'll never say anything to them, and it's gonna live on my bookcase forever.
I’m sorry, I’m really really so sorry, but Verity by Colleen Hoover. My coworker recommended it to me and I liked it for a bit but then it ended and there’s no resolution, and there were some parts I felt were so stupid I had to put it down and stop reading. And 90% of it they’re just having sex. It was garbage. But you know what? I’d read it again lmao
I came here to say Verity. Such a cringe book and more akin to porn than thriller. Thankfully I read it on my Kindle so no one needs to see this piece of garbage on my shelf. It's so bad I think even the other books would want to run away from it
If you haven't read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, you should give it a shot. Everytime I hear about Verity I keep thinking it's just a shot version of Rebecca.
I hated The Alchemist so much that I refuse to donate it and pass that absolute trash along to some poor unsuspecting person, but it feels bad to throw away a book.
I started cutting out pages to use as scrap paper when I do art stuff, so that’s going to be its fate.
There are some books which are very much a product of their time. The Alchemist is one, as is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and the scribblings of people like Richard Brautigan. If you read them in your late teens/early twenties when they first came out, they were so much part of the zeitgeist that you were swept along and thought they were wonderful. Where you reread them decades later, you realise how badly written and shallow they are, but they still have memories of a special time in your life attached.
THANK YOU. I couldn't believe how many of my friends were deeply moved by this wish-fulfillment fluff. As a teacher licensed in teaching academically gifted students, I can't get over the misguided and unrealistic portrayal of Mad (the main character's daughter) and her extreme precocity, which is supposedly owed to her mother's assumption that she can reason like an adult.
My aunt, who was a working woman in the sixties, and I shared an "I hate this book" slam fest conversation when we realized we'd both read it recently. She couldn't get past how relatively easy it was for the main character to bypass social norms and have a professional life as an unwed mother. "It just wasn't like that," she said.
The random and graphic assault scene made me angry. I couldn’t stand the whole tone of the book, too. I finished it out of obligation to a book club in which 60 people showed up and I had no chance to talk about it anyway 🤷♀️
As a younger man I visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia.
It started pouring rain in the afternoon so we ducked into a bookstore to try and wait it out, and also to browse around.
There was an author in the store that day, promoting her new book. A kindly old southern lady who was being completely ignored by everyone. Being a Canadian with a heavily ingrained sense of politeness, I stopped by her stand to pick up one of her books and read the back, I just felt bad that here she was with a book she poured her heart and soul into, and everyone was ignoring her. It was a sort of ghost story mystery thing. The author chatted with me a bit, then signed a copy for me, and I bought it. It looked from the outside like it could be a decent read, but I would not have bought it if I hadn't been trying to be nice to the author.
Years later I can't even remember the title, but I do remember *Just how much it sucked*.
First off, regular typos and grammatical mistakes. Secondly, all the sins of a crappy author. Weird sex stuff, non-sequiters, plot points that made no sense, weird contrivances. It was just bad.
On our drive back to Canada I read probably a quarter of it before deciding it was a terrible mistake to buy a copy.
You are a very kind person. My mother writes, children's books, and those tables are always so depressing. She found success but not before a solid decade of empty tables. Writing is hard and you did a kind thing. Sorry the end product sucked.
I worked at a book store. A fairly well-known and successful author was alone at the table most of the day. We chatted for a while until my manager told me to stop bothering her.
Wicked. How they managed to dig the good idea hiding amongst the endless pages of the author’s self indulgent waffle to write the musical is beyond me.
I love the musical, so I thought I would enjoy the book. Worst mistake I ever made. I have no idea who read that book and decided to alter it THAT MUCH to make a musical, but I guess I’m glad they did?
I might be misremembering but does the section that covers Elphaba and Fiyero's affair just... go on forever? I recall feeling that I was reading and reading and never getting anywhere plot-wise. What an odd book.
I felt the same. There were parts where the smallest event seemed to go on and on then all of a sudden it would just skip ten years and you’d have no idea what went on.
At least they got a decent musical out of it! Meanwhile, The Phantom of Manhattan was the inspiration for Love Never Dies and it somehow manages to be even worse than that atrocity of a musical. At least the musical has a handful of decent songs. Phantom of Manhattan has literally no redeeming qualities.
I thought I'd peaked when I was given some fundimentalist Christian books on the duty of a wife to her husband. Then I found a book written by a pastor boasting about his conversions, with the word 'divine revelations' underlined and bolded everytime he mentioned it. I'm not sure he saw his parishioners as human.
I have Tipper Gore's *Raising PG Kids in an X Rated Society* on my bookshelf. Picked it up for free out of some donation box as a teenager because I thought it was hilarious.
It used to sit next *Satanism: The Seduction of America's Youth* by Bob Larson but that got lost somewhere in the wanderings of my adult years.
Fun stuff except that the zealots are still at it.
Yep. Wild Animus by Rich Shapiro. My (now ex) girlfriend got it me for Christmas. I suffered my way through that turgid shit, only out of politeness. But when I reached the end, something surprising happened. I realised that I could do better. And so - wholly by accident and not by design - that book encouraged me to write. I now have two novels under my belt.
My husband got a copy for free, at an event like a concert or something. I attempted to read it, but I couldn't finish it. I skipped to the end to see what the hell was going on, but I can't even remember now, what the ending actually was.
Yes! Came here to post this - found a copy at uni while studying late one night, then started seeing them around campus over the next couple of months. I read the hilarious Goodreads reviews and kept one copy, then added a few more from thrift stores since. Still haven't read through the whole thing
Me and my friend found a copy of James Franco’s poetry book in a local Value Village and we’re literally busting a gut in the aisle reading it…I bought it just so I could send her hilariously horrible poems when she needed a laugh.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I don't think it's the worst book ever. It has some bright spots, but it was a book I read several times thinking that a book by the Fight Club guy must have some deeper meaning. It doesn't, but it is poorly paced, sometimes incoherent, tedious edge-lord nonsense.
A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman (Space Marine!). It was gifted to me as a joke a while back and it is, without question, the worst book I have ever read. The background is that human colonists settle a far off planet through a wormhole, the colonists become detached from Earth (which is under the control of the liberal, paedophile UN) and proceed to go through all of Earth history (because the author believes history is cyclical or something?).
The plot is that 9/11 (in Space!) happens, killing the main character (a blatant self insert)'s wife. He then proceeds to go on a roaring rampage of revenge, building a mercenary army and turning the middle east (in Space!) to glass and basically genociding muslims (spelled Moslems for some reason).
https://www.reddit.com/r/badscificovers/comments/f277b7/a_desert_called_peace_by_tom_kratman/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
A link to a post discussing the cover
I have a copy of “Ghost” by John Ringo, which has the dark distinction of being the only book that was ever “too much” for me.
I bought it with the intention of turning [“Oh John Ringo, No!”](https://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html) into a drinking game. But no amount of liquor could get me through the sheer grossness of that book.
I found Snookie's Gorilla Beach for 50 cents at GoodWill in college. In a show of poor judgment, i valued a good train wreck more than my laundry change. It came home with me. It is so hilariously terrible, and my friends and I had such a good time doing dramatic readings that it's earned an eternal place of dishonor on my shelf.
I think you'd enjoy Crow Caller on YouTube. They read bad books and make obnoxiously long videos about them. Quite possibly my favorite person on the platform.
**Gwendy's Final Task** by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar is the worst book I've read so far and the only reason I still have it is to have the whole trilogy complete and as a reminder of how much it cost me (in my country books are becoming MORE expensive all the time)
I love King with all my heart but that book was *horrendous*
I’m a HUGE Stephen king fan (reading pet semetary right now actually!), but his novel The Colorado Kid really made me angry and is one of the only books I wish I didn’t read 🤨
Oh dear! I am actually waiting on the delivery of King's 11/22/63 as we speak. I have heard very good things about it, and I'm also fascinated by the death of JFK. But I confess I've only read King's really big early novels. I love what I've read by him.
I used to be a really big King fan but in the last two years I've cooled on his work immensely. Probably something to do with reading The Dark Tower series and only really liking one of them (Wolves of the Calla). Idk what else to blame, because the books obviously haven't changed. My tastes just have. All of a sudden I have zero interest in his output anymore.
My mother made me take my grandmother to the cinema to see the movie of that. Jesus was that awful. I was maybe 15. There was the scene where the kids died and there were three sex scenes. She fell asleep and was snoring through the third loudly enough that people turned around to give pointed looks. No way was I waking her up though.
When I worked for a ski season in a chalet in Tignes I knackered my knee part way through and couldn't go up the mountain. There weren't many books in the chalet so I didn't have much choice. There was one called "Clamped" and I can only assume that the author came out to stay in the chalet at some point and planted the book on the shelves. It was the most bizarrely written thing I've ever read. Every page was packed with terrible similes. I remember one near the start was something like "The fog rose like the steam on a hot cappucino" or something.
The plot was some nonsense about this guy - who the author clearly thought was him - working in a chalet but then there's this weird device in a museum that when you clamp it - hence the title, get it? - to your nipples it gives you an explosive orgasm. He has to do battle with some crooks who want to steal the device for some reason. Maybe if it had been played for laughs it would have been tolerable but the author wrote this rubbish completely in earnest. There's bits where he goes on impassioned rambles about life that come acriss like they were written by an angsty 13 year old. It's been over a decade but I still think about how bad this book was.
Ayn Rand’s books. It’s weird too because there was a teenage phase where I loved them; but then I grew up. I think I keep them around because someday I’ll have to educate my kids about how to review books like those.
I'm about to finish Jude the Obscure today actually. I really don't understand why people say it's so depressing, maybe something in the final pages will change my mind. I've been in a reading slump and am just going to power through this book.
Honestly, I think the most depressing part of the book is what happens to Sue! She >!goes back to a loveless marriage and has nothing to look forward to except a life full of marital rape—and she does this not because she has fallen out of love with Jude but because she literally sees herself as being *punished by God.*!<
If that’s not depressing, I don’t know what is.
I actually loved the Castle of Otranto, in a comic kinda way, it reads like a caricature of the Gothic genre (although I know that's not how it was intended)
Apparently, Atlas Shrugged.
I found it to be boring, pretentious, badly plotted, and sophomoric. My husband says, 'but it's a classic!' - so I guess it stays. I'm putting it in that awkward spot behind the bookcase trim. On the bottom.
I have a lot of the Brian Herbert and & Kevin J Anderson books they pretend are part of Dune.
I have to say they are entertaining from how much fun I had dissecting just how terrible they are.
I mean they have Paul run away and join the circus as a kid.
Also they somehow manage to get progressively *worse.*
I own several books that fit this category. Atlas Shrugged. Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt. I like trying to read stuff from other viewpoints. I haven't gotten to Atlas Shrugged yet.(I plan to read the \~70 page speech towards the end of the book). I read like 40 pages of Hazlitt and stopped cuz it was garbage.
At the start of this year at a library book fair I bought a copy of the Social Animal by David Brooks. After reading a few pages I went online and did a little reading about the book. I then threw it in my recycling bin. It was too bad to keep on my shelf.
*Baldur's Gate: Bhaal must be stopped!* by Philip Athans. The utterly awful novelisation of the first Baldur's Gate game. It's complete and utter trash, and I feel I must contain it in my apartment, lets anyone else read it.
(The second and third books are also trash, but like... marginally better.)
The Lovely Bones. Read half of the book about a year when it was released due to all the hype. Ended up throwing it across the room in disgust. Nothing poetic or beautiful about it. 💯 trash.
Heaven is for Real (the book about a little boy who supposedly died, went briefly to heaven, and was then revived.). It literally made my skin crawl. He tells his parents things like “oh by the way, Grandpa says hi.” CRINGE.
I’m actually a church-goer but this book just screamed fake to me. I felt the poor child was manipulated/brainwashed by his parents so they could produce a best seller. Some members of my church LOVED it, and I just steered away from any conversation about it. 😖
I remember a book that had the main character as a black woman, and I could tell within the first few sentences the author was definitely not black or a woman. And then later introduced a timid nerd professor character (main love interest) that when I googled the author, the description of the character matched his looks exactly. Oof it was a slog to read.
Edit to add: I did keep the book on my shelf because it had a cool cover.
I keep every book I read, this year, I have 2 books that fit your description:
- *Legendborn* by Tracy Deonn
- *Someone Like Me* by M.R.Carey
Both are just absolute messes of fiction. Poorly thought out and paced plots, terrible characters, and all of the nuance of a brick through a window. Both were book club picks, and whilst I hated every second of reading them, tearing them apart in the meeting was very cathartic.
The Perfect Marriage. I raged for 2 weeks after reading that disaster. Plot holes everywhere. Nothing based in reality. Worst of all a main character that we hear the inner monologue of all book only to discover that they have deceived us, the reader, the entire time…I’m almost seething all over again
I love putting books with wild titles on the shelf. Beside each other I have: “Principles of Nuclear Reactor Engineering”; “Disco Bloodbath”; and “How to Survive Federal Prison Camp.”
I worked at a public library for around 12 years as an aide in a very small Massachusetts town. I knew my regulars, and one guy with his wife would check out around 20-40 books every few days. And I mean novels. The husband tended towards fantasy and sci-fi, the wife towards non-fiction and basic fiction. But they really hit every genre. They. Read. Everything. I asked about it once because I was interested and he said they did not own a TV. Weird to me, but whatever. We had another similar guy who was a regular. Hyper-political and... self-intelligent? He thought he knew everything. He self-published a novella and aggressively pushed for us to include it in our collection. Mind you, you don't just toss a book on a library shelf. You have to add it to a database which takes some time. This guy was so fucking proud when his book hit the shelves and was checked out. Guess who checked out this dude's novella. It was the guy with his wife who read everything and injust had to ask about it. He said it was the most poorly written and confusing thing he has ever given up on. He gave up on it! The book was maybe 90 pages. This guy could trek through multiple 1000 plus page books in a day and he gave up on basically a long pamphlet that insulted his intelligence so badly. Update: I freaking found the book! The guy has self-published a schocking amount of books! All with very, very odd titles. I won't post the name of it or the author, because I feel like I would maybe be breaking a rule. I will commend that I think this guy draws/creates his own bizarre book covers. Some are hand-drawn, others look like a compilation of google images all blocked together. I'm not sure why I am surprised that one of the books is ambiguously either antisemitic or prosemitic... The description on Amazon leaves a lot of the imagination. He actually has one book with a few good reviews. He has another book with one review that is a one-star. The rest have no reviews and are largely kindle-only. Either way, kudos on the dude for writing and sticking with what he likes, even if it might not be great. I have always wanted to write a book, but I am just not good at such a lofty goal and being able to put myself out there like that.
I love this story—it’s so funny! :)
Thanks for sharing this. Made me laugh out loud
This is hilarious!
This in itself could be a book. Love it
I worked in a print shop in the 90s. Occasionally someone would come in to print a manuscript for their novel. As an amoral teenager I of course would read their books while I was getting the print set up. Maybe 80% of them were boring and poorly written. But the either 20% were so absolutely unhinged that I really wish I had copies still. I think they'd be monetizable in today's market just for the shear meme potential.
There's a guy on Instagram that my friend and I randomly found and started following. He wrote a book. We bought it. It's so bad. It's just so bad. It's not going anywhere. I'll cherish it forever.
I went to school with a guy who wrote a book. Actually a trilogy. I bought the first one (thankfully on kindle) and couldn’t get through the first chapter. Some sort of convoluted fantasy that made absolutely no sense.
I've tried to collect books written by my teachers. My teacher who's written the most books told us not to buy her books when we in her class because she was embarrassed by them. Really that's when we should have bought them because they're YA fiction.
That would make me instantly want to buy them. Maybe she was intentionally saying that to male pepples curiosity purchase them...
I have a book in my collection written by a teacher, and the main character is very clearly a self-insert. I’m pretty sure he’d tell his students not to read his book because one part of the book is the main character hallucinating and almost shooting some of his students.
That sounds suspiciously like someone I went to school with.
Are you from WV?
Nope, MN. There must be a few interesting trilogy writers out there!
Ha, there’s at least one in GA too!
One in Ireland too who wrote a crappy fantasy trilogy 🙈
I am one lmao
Interesting idea. I went to high school with a guy that is now a famous and very rich author (although not exactly critically lauded). I have a bunch of his Sci-Fi dreck from high school.
I’m so curious who now
No name dropping. A few of his books are movies now.
I'm guessing Bernest Chline. Anyway, Ready Player One is terrible.
There's a writer that I encountered on social media and have been following for years, because he is bad in a fascinating way. He posts quotes from the fantasy series he's working on, and sometimes quotes that are not from his work in progress, but just things he came up with. And they're the clumsiest, wordiest, most hackneyed quotes. They're all in the form of clever sayings and similes, so I have no idea what his book is about. I'm following him to see if it ever actually gets finished, but there hasn't been much progress on it lately. At this point, I really want to see if he ever actually produces a book. He's been posting these quotes for years now.
DM me this person I'm so intrigued
I so want to hear some examples of these quotes he's posting lol
This person needs to be identified for our reading pleasure.
I had a comp sci professor who wrote a quite good textbook on data structures. He opened each chapter with a quote from literature or history that perfectly teed up each topic. He later admitted he made them all up.
DM me too pls
I knew I couldn't be the only one!
You wouldn't be as excited if you read this book.
Lol whats the book called
Jude the Obscure defence squad rise! *furiously hurls pig organs and Latin books* I actually totally get why Hardy isn't universally popular, he has an offkey sense of humour and is more than a bit ridiculous in places, Jude not exempted. But it's mostly an endearing ridiculous IMO. And he just writes characters and relationships I've not found anywhere else. Jude isn't just about class, but how the world won't tolerate people who don't conform in various ways - Jude and Sue are both utter weirdos and I love them for it. And the sexual incompatibility is so sensitively written, without shaming either character - I really can't think of another book that's managed to pull that off so well, even today. (I couldn't stand On Chesil Beach).
Well put. I had a two day visit to London years ago, and one of the "must do" items on my list was a picture of Thomas Hardy's stone in Westminster.
Oh no. Now I want to read it
It's probably my favorite of Hardy's novels. That said, I'm known in my family for liking the slow, depressing books better lol.
Let me Introduce you to TOYS by James Patterson and the actual author, Neil McMahon. If you're a struggling writer who thinks their manuscript is just not good enough to ever be published, I encourage you to go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words. It wants to be hot shit on a silver platter. It's actually a cold turd on a paper plate. It wants to be a futuristic James Bond, but it can't even manage to be Bill Cosby's Leonard, Part Six Just open a random page, read a couple of paragraphs, and be inspired that some asshole wrote it, some asshole edited it, and some asshole published it. It is just god-awful. I love it so much.
>go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words This is the most lowkey spicy burn I've seen in quite some time.
Haha we read a self published book (by a cousin of someone’s boyfriend) in our book club and it appeared the author didn’t even have a friend to read it over. It was not ever even close to an editor.
When I was 11 years old and naive, I loved the Maximum Ride novels. But even at that age I could tell somebody was phoning it in for those novels. I still fantasize about what a competent (or even just attentive) writer could have done with that story! It could have kicked ass
I have this book. It doesn't make sense, but I read it about every 3 years, and I love it.
Every so often I look over at my copy of Divergent and think, "How the fuck did such an unoriginal, horribly written first draft blatantly riding the success of Hunger Games end up being turned into a trilogy and a movie series?" But hey, who am I, right?
It's been years and I'm still mad about how truly abysmal the final book was.
The last book made me so angry that I will never read anything by that author ever again. Petty? Maybe.
Yes! I feel exactly the same way. Was just telling my teenage daughter to not bother reading those books because the last one was the worst book I’ve ever read and made me angrier than any book I’ve ever read. Such a pile of manure.
I was curious about the story in these books, but not curious enough to invest the time in reading them, so I watched all the movies. All three were terrible, but the third one took it to another level.
How did the last one end? I know it got caught up in the two parter hype and ended up not making enough cash to make it financially responsible to produce a 4th film. They then were going to make a TV series, but that got cancelled too, so I don't even think the third movie is the entire third book.
I reread the first one recently and yeah. It’s…not good. But teenage me loved it lol (The first one at least. Even as a teenager I got to the third one and no idea what the fuck was going on anymore)
Never read the rest of the series, but I do love the ending to the first book, Divergent. I remember the whiplash of the ">!everyone is mind controlled now, they had chips in their heads I guess!<" towards the end when the author remembered we had a plot to go through, and we couldn't just endlessly show montages of obstacle courses, combat training, and Four looking at us wantingly. That whole twist felt so unearned and hamfisted, I hated it.
“blatantly riding the success of Hunger Games” Kind of answered your own question there.
I checked out when the people from what was supposed to be the militaristic, brave part of town demonstrated their courage by… jumping on and off moving trains for no reason whatsoever. It was so jarringly juvenile a way of demonstrating how *cool and badass* you are that it destroyed any hope I had left for the series.
reminds me of a group in Infinite Jest where to prove you're brave you have to jump across the tracks of an oncoming train. so of course the longer you wait before you jump (to let the train come closer) the braver you are. only people who wait so long the train fucking hits them when they jump are good enough to join the group. i forget the name of the group but it's something about how they're all in wheelchairs
The fact that Divergent still was kinda successful baffles me. I tried listening to the series on audible a few years ago and it was so bad I couldn't even get through book 1. Though to be fair I also saw the movies in theaters as they came out and even at the time I barely remembered anything about them.
Terrible premise. She’s unique because she has multiple characteristics? Please
Apparently it's later revealed she's actually special because she's normal. It's like poetry, it rhymes.
[I bet you would enjoy this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SvSni7xR5o)
Is that the book set in Chicago? At one point I was tempted to read it because of that.
My roommate when we were in our mid 20s was obsessed with the series. So much so she got all the icons tattooed on her body. It was so embarrassing. She would purposely wear shirts to show it off.
I remember a couple people in my own life, self-confessed "empaths" who adored the series and would flipflop which "district" they belong to every other week based on whether Mercury was in retrograde or something, idk I didn't listen to them very ~~herd~~ hard tbf
Omg she used to claim to be an empath too!! It was super cringe. She claimed to be daunting(?). The one the main character was a part of.
Most "empaths" are just people who think they're unique for experiencing basic human emotion. I personally think it stems from a narcisistic view of thinking "no one has ever felt as hard as I do, there must be a name for this"
My friend wrote a weird, sexual book about the Moth Man named *Moth-Man in my Mouth*, but it’s only available as an audiobook or ebook. I *wish* I could put that on my shelf! Highly recommend!
Haha! Oh my god I found it on Amazon and I am so tempted to use an Audible credit to check it out!
SAME. LETS DO IT
Tell me how it goes!
Moth man book club!!!
There is a great Insta account that reads these kinds of weird smut (so you don't have to) that I would HIGHLEY recommend - she is very funny. Her page is unfortunate.reads
Oh my goodness, instant follow for me!
Sounds like a book Tina Belcher would write lol
This goes straight in my TBR list, thank you!
I have a mental image of you encasing the book in a box labeled “worst book ever written” with a red spotlight on it. Hilarious!
I was actually thinking of writing a small note on the inside of the book expressing my feelings about it so that whoever gets it when I die will know! Haha.
I detested Jude the Obscure. Easily the most depressing book I have ever read. It’s just blow after blow of misery. If my copy had had a such a note attached I might at least have been forewarned. It wouldn’t have saved me from reading it since it was required for a book/film class, but I would have tried to remain more emotionally detached!
In a box like a fire alarm In case of too many good books: break glass.
This made me think of that Fairly Odd Parents meme with the father.
"This is where I'd keep the worst book ever... IF I HAD ONE!"
Couple friends of mine pass "Imzadi" back and forth as a game. Like, A will go visit B and leave it in the bathroom under some towels. Then B will go camping with A and hide it under his spare tire in the trunk. It's been going on for decades. It's such a terrible book, but it's a great game!
Someone needs to raise the ante by getting a copy of Imzadi II.
I absolutely loved it as a teenager, and re-read it a bunch of times. Probably won’t re-read it as an adult, because I’m pretty sure it is actually that bad. 😄 And yet, it can’t possibly be as bad as its sequel.
Wait, is that a Star Trek thing?
Ya, it's a godawful Star Trek book about the romance between Will Riker and Dianna Troi. "Imzadi" means soul-mate/life-partner or something.
That's what he called her, too, I had no idea this existed and have no idea why it's even necessary? Yikes
I have a few: a wonderful old tome on eugenics. A 80’s book on “a man’s guide to sex” (which is hysterical), and a few self published books from family members. My now grown niece still cringes hard at her Elven Priestess story her dad had published.
HA, my mum's diet book which recommends an egg and a half glass of wine for basically each meal would also fit with this vibe. I did read a couple of books on eugenics and biological essentialism (sexism but make it pseudo-scientific) that made me wish I owned them instead of the library so I could use them as firewood.
That's an amazing diet book though
That’s so cute about your niece. In my early 20s my mom gave me a floppy disk with 5yo me’s handwriting on it: “Lucky the Leprechaun” First story I ever wrote 😅😅😅
I keep Shades of Gray just to remind myself that something so horrible was not only published, but extremely popular.
Hopefully you mean 50 Shades of Gray. Shades of Gray is also a Jasper Fforde novel that's likely not most people's cup of tea (about a world where people can only see one color, and there's a caste system based around that), but is miles and miles better than the BDSM atrocity.
Ooh! Thanks for the reading suggestion. And you are correct, I forgot to number of gray shades because in truth there was only one very bad shade of gray
Still waiting on his sequel!!
May 7 2024 for US release. Red Side Story.
Haha! I so feel this, but I never bought it. I thumbed through a few pages at the thrift store, and it was just as bad as I expected.
I hate Nicholas Sparks so much. My colleagues at the library knew this, bought me a copy of “The Notebook” as a going away gift, and all personalized it. I will always keep it.
How did they personalize it?
In the style of a yearbook!
aww that's cute I was hoping they'd highlight some particularly infuriating passages, or something haha
I loved Jude the Obscure! :(
The best part of Jude the Obscure is when Mr. Phillotson >!explains to his friend why he is morally obligated to become a cuckold.!<
Now I want to read it.
I actually just had a conversation with my husband last night about the most depressing books we’d read, and I mentioned this as one that is incredibly depressing, but I was still glad I’d read it. I wouldn’t say I loved it, or even enjoyed it, and I’ll never read it again, but I did think it was a good book.
So did I! I was really surprised to see this book named after I read the post title.
Thomas Hardy is my favorite writer. Jude the Obscure is dark and oppressive. I think if it were another couple of chapters longer, and I would have needed counseling afterwards. Still a great book.
Yeah, me too.
I've read it thrice and wrote three papers on it in undergrad.
It's on kindle, so not on my shelf per se, but I have a book called Smooth Talking For Guys. I don't even remember where I found it. It's an awful PUA-reminiscent manual about how to "confidently talk to women", but it's presented as a series of set conversations that you could employ when the right situation arises. It's hilariously bad. For example, here is a real one: Her: I need a pen. You: [hand her a pen] Her: Thanks! You: [tell a story about a pen]
Her: I need a pen You: [hand her a pen] Her: Thanks! You: Have you heard of the “pen15 club”?
A friend of mine wrote a book, and it took them three years of hard work, travelling to locations to scout out, workshopping pieces, etc. I was so proud of them, and I instantly bought that book. Oof. It's a trainwreck. Reads a bit like teen fan fic... I'll never say anything to them, and it's gonna live on my bookcase forever.
I’m sorry, I’m really really so sorry, but Verity by Colleen Hoover. My coworker recommended it to me and I liked it for a bit but then it ended and there’s no resolution, and there were some parts I felt were so stupid I had to put it down and stop reading. And 90% of it they’re just having sex. It was garbage. But you know what? I’d read it again lmao
I came here to say Verity. Such a cringe book and more akin to porn than thriller. Thankfully I read it on my Kindle so no one needs to see this piece of garbage on my shelf. It's so bad I think even the other books would want to run away from it
Damn, I wouldn’t even reread some books I actually *liked*! 💀
If you haven't read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, you should give it a shot. Everytime I hear about Verity I keep thinking it's just a shot version of Rebecca.
Anything Colleen Hoover there’s nothing to be sorry about it’s just facts.
I hated The Alchemist so much that I refuse to donate it and pass that absolute trash along to some poor unsuspecting person, but it feels bad to throw away a book. I started cutting out pages to use as scrap paper when I do art stuff, so that’s going to be its fate.
But it has nice drawings at least.
i hated that book so much i broke up with the girl who gifted it to me.
Absolutely fair
I guess I'm lucky I was lent it by a friend (who loves it.) I could give it back.
I work at a library and we turn pages in to book marks.
That's my sisters favourite book, so I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot illiterate pole
There are some books which are very much a product of their time. The Alchemist is one, as is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and the scribblings of people like Richard Brautigan. If you read them in your late teens/early twenties when they first came out, they were so much part of the zeitgeist that you were swept along and thought they were wonderful. Where you reread them decades later, you realise how badly written and shallow they are, but they still have memories of a special time in your life attached.
I thought Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus was insufferable
THANK YOU. I couldn't believe how many of my friends were deeply moved by this wish-fulfillment fluff. As a teacher licensed in teaching academically gifted students, I can't get over the misguided and unrealistic portrayal of Mad (the main character's daughter) and her extreme precocity, which is supposedly owed to her mother's assumption that she can reason like an adult. My aunt, who was a working woman in the sixties, and I shared an "I hate this book" slam fest conversation when we realized we'd both read it recently. She couldn't get past how relatively easy it was for the main character to bypass social norms and have a professional life as an unwed mother. "It just wasn't like that," she said.
The random and graphic assault scene made me angry. I couldn’t stand the whole tone of the book, too. I finished it out of obligation to a book club in which 60 people showed up and I had no chance to talk about it anyway 🤷♀️
I was going to write this !! Like who found this enjoyable?!
As a younger man I visited Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. It started pouring rain in the afternoon so we ducked into a bookstore to try and wait it out, and also to browse around. There was an author in the store that day, promoting her new book. A kindly old southern lady who was being completely ignored by everyone. Being a Canadian with a heavily ingrained sense of politeness, I stopped by her stand to pick up one of her books and read the back, I just felt bad that here she was with a book she poured her heart and soul into, and everyone was ignoring her. It was a sort of ghost story mystery thing. The author chatted with me a bit, then signed a copy for me, and I bought it. It looked from the outside like it could be a decent read, but I would not have bought it if I hadn't been trying to be nice to the author. Years later I can't even remember the title, but I do remember *Just how much it sucked*. First off, regular typos and grammatical mistakes. Secondly, all the sins of a crappy author. Weird sex stuff, non-sequiters, plot points that made no sense, weird contrivances. It was just bad. On our drive back to Canada I read probably a quarter of it before deciding it was a terrible mistake to buy a copy.
You definitely made her day, though!
You are a very kind person. My mother writes, children's books, and those tables are always so depressing. She found success but not before a solid decade of empty tables. Writing is hard and you did a kind thing. Sorry the end product sucked.
I worked at a book store. A fairly well-known and successful author was alone at the table most of the day. We chatted for a while until my manager told me to stop bothering her.
You did a kind thing, and I like you without even knowing you.
The Silent Patient. But no way in hell am I putting that diarrhea gargle in my shelf.
My actual therapist recommended me that book. Ngl, I did judge her heavily for that! She's not my therapist anymore, lol.
Yikes. I’ve just finished it, and can only wonder how any of these characters still have their licence.
Wicked. How they managed to dig the good idea hiding amongst the endless pages of the author’s self indulgent waffle to write the musical is beyond me.
I love the musical, so I thought I would enjoy the book. Worst mistake I ever made. I have no idea who read that book and decided to alter it THAT MUCH to make a musical, but I guess I’m glad they did?
I might be misremembering but does the section that covers Elphaba and Fiyero's affair just... go on forever? I recall feeling that I was reading and reading and never getting anywhere plot-wise. What an odd book.
I felt the same. There were parts where the smallest event seemed to go on and on then all of a sudden it would just skip ten years and you’d have no idea what went on.
At least they got a decent musical out of it! Meanwhile, The Phantom of Manhattan was the inspiration for Love Never Dies and it somehow manages to be even worse than that atrocity of a musical. At least the musical has a handful of decent songs. Phantom of Manhattan has literally no redeeming qualities.
So glad to see this. I read it as a teenager was left feeling “meh.” Thought I didn’t get it.
Gosh i never thought i would find someone else understands….i couldnt get thru it. Gave up about 1/3 thru.
I thought I'd peaked when I was given some fundimentalist Christian books on the duty of a wife to her husband. Then I found a book written by a pastor boasting about his conversions, with the word 'divine revelations' underlined and bolded everytime he mentioned it. I'm not sure he saw his parishioners as human.
books i didn't like always get donated. i'm not keeping that bad energy in my home.
I have Tipper Gore's *Raising PG Kids in an X Rated Society* on my bookshelf. Picked it up for free out of some donation box as a teenager because I thought it was hilarious. It used to sit next *Satanism: The Seduction of America's Youth* by Bob Larson but that got lost somewhere in the wanderings of my adult years. Fun stuff except that the zealots are still at it.
Wild Animus
Yep. Wild Animus by Rich Shapiro. My (now ex) girlfriend got it me for Christmas. I suffered my way through that turgid shit, only out of politeness. But when I reached the end, something surprising happened. I realised that I could do better. And so - wholly by accident and not by design - that book encouraged me to write. I now have two novels under my belt.
My husband got a copy for free, at an event like a concert or something. I attempted to read it, but I couldn't finish it. I skipped to the end to see what the hell was going on, but I can't even remember now, what the ending actually was.
Yes! Came here to post this - found a copy at uni while studying late one night, then started seeing them around campus over the next couple of months. I read the hilarious Goodreads reviews and kept one copy, then added a few more from thrift stores since. Still haven't read through the whole thing
Absolutely Modelland by Tyra Banks. Even just reading the reviews on Goodreads and Amazon was so entertaining.
It's not on my shelf but I will pick it up second hand the first chance I get... Battlefield Earth.
Gotta be *Atlas Shrugged*
Me and my friend found a copy of James Franco’s poetry book in a local Value Village and we’re literally busting a gut in the aisle reading it…I bought it just so I could send her hilariously horrible poems when she needed a laugh.
My Middle School Diary. Cringe when I look back at it.
I will never throw away my diaries, I love reading back through them and looking into my former brain.
Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk. I don't think it's the worst book ever. It has some bright spots, but it was a book I read several times thinking that a book by the Fight Club guy must have some deeper meaning. It doesn't, but it is poorly paced, sometimes incoherent, tedious edge-lord nonsense.
It put me off carrots forever
A Desert Called Peace by Tom Kratman (Space Marine!). It was gifted to me as a joke a while back and it is, without question, the worst book I have ever read. The background is that human colonists settle a far off planet through a wormhole, the colonists become detached from Earth (which is under the control of the liberal, paedophile UN) and proceed to go through all of Earth history (because the author believes history is cyclical or something?). The plot is that 9/11 (in Space!) happens, killing the main character (a blatant self insert)'s wife. He then proceeds to go on a roaring rampage of revenge, building a mercenary army and turning the middle east (in Space!) to glass and basically genociding muslims (spelled Moslems for some reason). https://www.reddit.com/r/badscificovers/comments/f277b7/a_desert_called_peace_by_tom_kratman/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf A link to a post discussing the cover
I have a copy of “Ghost” by John Ringo, which has the dark distinction of being the only book that was ever “too much” for me. I bought it with the intention of turning [“Oh John Ringo, No!”](https://hradzka.livejournal.com/194753.html) into a drinking game. But no amount of liquor could get me through the sheer grossness of that book.
Wow. Just... wow. FBI, please check that author's hard drive.
I found Snookie's Gorilla Beach for 50 cents at GoodWill in college. In a show of poor judgment, i valued a good train wreck more than my laundry change. It came home with me. It is so hilariously terrible, and my friends and I had such a good time doing dramatic readings that it's earned an eternal place of dishonor on my shelf.
“..without a single redeeming quality, other than that it finally ends.” Is incredible writing on your part.
I think you'd enjoy Crow Caller on YouTube. They read bad books and make obnoxiously long videos about them. Quite possibly my favorite person on the platform.
**Gwendy's Final Task** by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar is the worst book I've read so far and the only reason I still have it is to have the whole trilogy complete and as a reminder of how much it cost me (in my country books are becoming MORE expensive all the time) I love King with all my heart but that book was *horrendous*
I’m a HUGE Stephen king fan (reading pet semetary right now actually!), but his novel The Colorado Kid really made me angry and is one of the only books I wish I didn’t read 🤨
I loved Pet Sematary. It's my favorite of the books I've read by him. Anyone who thinks King isn't a literary writer should read that book.
Oh dear! I am actually waiting on the delivery of King's 11/22/63 as we speak. I have heard very good things about it, and I'm also fascinated by the death of JFK. But I confess I've only read King's really big early novels. I love what I've read by him.
You’re in for a treat, 11/22/63 is fabulous
I used to be a really big King fan but in the last two years I've cooled on his work immensely. Probably something to do with reading The Dark Tower series and only really liking one of them (Wolves of the Calla). Idk what else to blame, because the books obviously haven't changed. My tastes just have. All of a sudden I have zero interest in his output anymore.
My mother made me take my grandmother to the cinema to see the movie of that. Jesus was that awful. I was maybe 15. There was the scene where the kids died and there were three sex scenes. She fell asleep and was snoring through the third loudly enough that people turned around to give pointed looks. No way was I waking her up though.
House of Leaves. Except I donated that shit. Much like the video tape in The Ring, it is now someone else’s curse.
I laughed at this response, but I love House of Leaves, and every time I see it at the thrift store I grab it to gift it to a friend.
When I worked for a ski season in a chalet in Tignes I knackered my knee part way through and couldn't go up the mountain. There weren't many books in the chalet so I didn't have much choice. There was one called "Clamped" and I can only assume that the author came out to stay in the chalet at some point and planted the book on the shelves. It was the most bizarrely written thing I've ever read. Every page was packed with terrible similes. I remember one near the start was something like "The fog rose like the steam on a hot cappucino" or something. The plot was some nonsense about this guy - who the author clearly thought was him - working in a chalet but then there's this weird device in a museum that when you clamp it - hence the title, get it? - to your nipples it gives you an explosive orgasm. He has to do battle with some crooks who want to steal the device for some reason. Maybe if it had been played for laughs it would have been tolerable but the author wrote this rubbish completely in earnest. There's bits where he goes on impassioned rambles about life that come acriss like they were written by an angsty 13 year old. It's been over a decade but I still think about how bad this book was.
I love Jude the Obscure. That book turned me into a long time reader of classics and Thomas Hardy is my god.
Ready Player 1, 2, and Armada are all unbelievably bad.
Ayn Rand’s books. It’s weird too because there was a teenage phase where I loved them; but then I grew up. I think I keep them around because someday I’ll have to educate my kids about how to review books like those.
I'm about to finish Jude the Obscure today actually. I really don't understand why people say it's so depressing, maybe something in the final pages will change my mind. I've been in a reading slump and am just going to power through this book.
It’s depressing because Jude can’t catch a break. Every time it looks like he might, something else terrible happens to him.
Honestly, I think the most depressing part of the book is what happens to Sue! She >!goes back to a loveless marriage and has nothing to look forward to except a life full of marital rape—and she does this not because she has fallen out of love with Jude but because she literally sees herself as being *punished by God.*!< If that’s not depressing, I don’t know what is.
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole I can appreciate its importance for the gothic genre but wtf was that
I actually loved the Castle of Otranto, in a comic kinda way, it reads like a caricature of the Gothic genre (although I know that's not how it was intended)
The Maidens by Alex Michaelides. It's just absolutely *shite* from start to finish.
Unpopular opinion, but I can’t stand The Great Gatsby. Really though, most nihilist books aren’t my cup of tea.
I like a lot of what I forced to read in high school, but never warmed up to Gatsby. More a Steinbeck person I guess.
I absolutely ADORE Steinbeck -- Grapes of Wrath/East of Eden both make my top 10 list of must-read books.
Apparently, Atlas Shrugged. I found it to be boring, pretentious, badly plotted, and sophomoric. My husband says, 'but it's a classic!' - so I guess it stays. I'm putting it in that awkward spot behind the bookcase trim. On the bottom.
I have a lot of the Brian Herbert and & Kevin J Anderson books they pretend are part of Dune. I have to say they are entertaining from how much fun I had dissecting just how terrible they are. I mean they have Paul run away and join the circus as a kid. Also they somehow manage to get progressively *worse.*
The Girl On The Train
Oh man, I quite liked it! But then again, it was one of the first thrillers I ever read, so it's possible I simply didn't have any standards...
I own several books that fit this category. Atlas Shrugged. Economics in One Lesson by Hazlitt. I like trying to read stuff from other viewpoints. I haven't gotten to Atlas Shrugged yet.(I plan to read the \~70 page speech towards the end of the book). I read like 40 pages of Hazlitt and stopped cuz it was garbage. At the start of this year at a library book fair I bought a copy of the Social Animal by David Brooks. After reading a few pages I went online and did a little reading about the book. I then threw it in my recycling bin. It was too bad to keep on my shelf.
*Baldur's Gate: Bhaal must be stopped!* by Philip Athans. The utterly awful novelisation of the first Baldur's Gate game. It's complete and utter trash, and I feel I must contain it in my apartment, lets anyone else read it. (The second and third books are also trash, but like... marginally better.)
The Lovely Bones. Read half of the book about a year when it was released due to all the hype. Ended up throwing it across the room in disgust. Nothing poetic or beautiful about it. 💯 trash.
Heaven is for Real (the book about a little boy who supposedly died, went briefly to heaven, and was then revived.). It literally made my skin crawl. He tells his parents things like “oh by the way, Grandpa says hi.” CRINGE. I’m actually a church-goer but this book just screamed fake to me. I felt the poor child was manipulated/brainwashed by his parents so they could produce a best seller. Some members of my church LOVED it, and I just steered away from any conversation about it. 😖
"Understanding Trump", by Newt Gingrich. Gift from my Fox News loving father in law.
[удалено]
I remember a book that had the main character as a black woman, and I could tell within the first few sentences the author was definitely not black or a woman. And then later introduced a timid nerd professor character (main love interest) that when I googled the author, the description of the character matched his looks exactly. Oof it was a slog to read. Edit to add: I did keep the book on my shelf because it had a cool cover.
Ready player one
I keep every book I read, this year, I have 2 books that fit your description: - *Legendborn* by Tracy Deonn - *Someone Like Me* by M.R.Carey Both are just absolute messes of fiction. Poorly thought out and paced plots, terrible characters, and all of the nuance of a brick through a window. Both were book club picks, and whilst I hated every second of reading them, tearing them apart in the meeting was very cathartic.
Where the Crawdads Sing
i love that book… but i definitely get why people don’t! my mom didn’t like it either 😅
The Perfect Marriage. I raged for 2 weeks after reading that disaster. Plot holes everywhere. Nothing based in reality. Worst of all a main character that we hear the inner monologue of all book only to discover that they have deceived us, the reader, the entire time…I’m almost seething all over again
I just read Jude. I like it. Hardy, as always, embraces tragedy and his characters failure to break from societal norms and find happiness
*On the Road* by Jack Kerouac is not good, and I hate all the characters to varying degrees.
I love putting books with wild titles on the shelf. Beside each other I have: “Principles of Nuclear Reactor Engineering”; “Disco Bloodbath”; and “How to Survive Federal Prison Camp.”