Books you finished and just thought: "Well...that was shit"

[pearcinator]

Well I don't really read crappy books. There are a few books that I thought were meh though.

'Not A Penny More, Not a Penny Less' was a pretty good book except for the ending which seemed really rushed. I was expecting the lazy guy to have an awesome plan...just, he didn't and they improvised the last part. His part was all done in a few pages.

Clive Cussler's 'Trojan Odyssey' took AGES to get into it (200 pages of some Hurricane scene where nothing interesting happened). Although I am reading 'Inca Gold' by the same author and I am enjoying it very much.

I was disappointed with the final Harry Potter book. I was expecting a bunch of Indiana-Jones-like magically booby-trapped areas to get the horcruxes...except it was a bunch of running around in a bunch of different forests for half the book.

 

[Little2Raph]

I picked up a Stephen Coonts omnibus at my local second-hand bookshop that contained Fortunes of War, Cuba and Hong Kong. Most of it was crap but sort-of-okay crap, but it was Hong Kong that finally got to me - the novel was set in Hong Kong (surprise, surprise) but it quickly became obvious that the author didn't really know squat about the city or culture he was writing about. Either that or the main character was supposed to be your stereotypical ignorant westerner who looks down his nose at any culture that isn't American. And then it pulled some pseudo-terminator bullshit (autonomous battle robots smuggled into Hong Kong by a rogue CIA agent) out of it's arse in the final couple of chapters. I don't know how it all ended because that was the final straw which made me repurpose the book as a convenient doorstop.

 

[Unia]

I was disappointed with the final Harry Potter book. I was expecting a bunch of Indiana-Jones-like magically booby-trapped areas to get the horcruxes...except it was a bunch of running around in a bunch of different forests for half the book.

Not to mention Rowling thought the biggest priority of the very end was to show who hooked up with who and what they named their kids rather than, I dunno, what they did with their lives overall. I'd say the last two books were really lackluster.

I remembered another one by Philip K. Dick: Lies Inc. or something like that. Everybody was after a book that depicted current and future events when you read it. The plot was all over the place, the characters flat and/or unlikeable and the female lead existed for some pretty odd pandering.
I remember a scene where she's having a fight with a future-nazi when she's attacked by a table. Those are apparently a thing in the book's world. She's saved only because a tourist group happens by and the tour guide forbids her to die, for it's bad for business. "But don't bother fixing up your torn shirt, sex sells." IIRC this all goes down in a bathroom.
Meanwhile, the male lead gets caught by the bad guys and shot. No, not with a bullet, shot full of LSD, which is apparently the ultimate punishment. I'm starting to see where mister Dick gets his inspiration.
My problem is all of this is written with a tone that might still take itself seriously.

 

[Gnoekeos]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of fire and only because of the very ending. I guess Spoilers are coming if you're so behind the harry potter times you haven't read it yet I'm not sure how long something is supposed to be publicly available before you can talk about it freely. I was looking forward to things building up and Voldemort continuing to lurk in the shadows and Good Ol JK goes and mucks every thing up by giving him his entire being back and now he can touch Harry with impunity. AND CEDRIC DIGGORY DIED! The important thing is that even though I bought the previous books and absolutely hated that ending I didn't call up JK and demand she change the way her story goes because I didn't like it, I instead lost all interest in anything she has since wrote and stopped giving her money. I did still watch the Goblet of fire though because I really liked the majority of the book.

 

[superbatranger]

Atlas Shrugged. It took me months to finish that tedious load of crap. I thought it would be interesting, but damn, you could use it to put an insomniac to bed.

I'm surprised anyone would read that book for more than a hundred pages or so if they didn't like it, let alone finish it. It is one of the longest novels ever published, after all, why punish yourself? Personally, I... got something out of it, at least. It was as nothing compared to her earlier book, The Fountainhead.

For me, hmm... The Beach. I knew it had been made into a film by Danny Boyle and I thought he'd have good taste in source material. I was wrong.

Well, it was a case of "it can't be this bad the entire book". I was sadly mistaken.

 

[|Sith|Eldarion]

Mockingjay:The entire cast that I cared about the first two books have a personality change. Katniss moves between insanity, whining, and grim determination at random, Peeta lost his mind, and I'm supposed to be rooting for a rebel faction with a clearly evil leader. I liked the ending though. It's a great deal better than the cop out ending where Snow is dead and everybody's fine forever.
Catcher in the Rye:This book does not deserve to be famous. It's about a certifiably crazy brooding teenager going on about why he hated the world because people were jerks, all while purposefully losing expensive equipment that wasn't his, not giving a shit about his grades, trying to kill someone, getting drunk and calling up his girlfriend, shouting all the time...you get the idea. This isn't making an intellectual point, nor does it have good characters, an interesting plot, or even particularly good writing because it's being told from the point of view of, again, a broody teenager. Cleanse it with fire.
Of Mice and Men:Hated this thing. I read the thing in the time that the assignment to read it was being handed out, and all I could think was"are you shitting me?". The movie rendition was better though. I actually felt sad about that ending.
The start of Inheritance:I actually liked inheritance, apart from the beginning, which I felt was rather slapdash. It gains momentum later on.
Every Terry Goodkind book after #6:The fuck was going on? I particularly hate the habit that characters have of pulling random facts out of their ass that are supposedly self evident.
The third kingkiller chronicle book:I am not being pessimistic here. I don't so much think that it won't live up to its pedigree as it's going to take another five years to write and I'll vibrate with anticipation by year 3. It'll be rather difficult to eat, I suppose.

 

[Hollyday]

Thank you for posting this. I needed a good laugh and that video supplied.

Happy to help! If watching someone mercilessly ripping Twilight to shreds can't brighten your day, what can?

 

[Boom129]

I once read a collection of short stories from the Bolo universe a while back (titled Honor of the Regiment)
several of them were complete shit

 

[sagitel]

Eragon. I felt unclean after reading it. Completely fucking atrocious.

i think its actually a really good book. i loved eragon and i loved brisinger. but i haven't read the empire yet.

the only book i remember that i read and was shit (and its not Iranian) is Les Misérables. well its not shit. its boring. he described the priest for 100 pages! when the priest's whole role was giving silver candle sticks to the hero. 100 pages! i couldn't get past the 250 page. it was just boring.

 

[Leftnt Sharpe]

Star Wars The Old Republic: Revan, had no intention of buying TOR, I just wanted to find out what happened to Revan. Karpyshyn barely answered that questioned and turned Bastilla into an actually quite creepy waifu character.

Of course that is frankly nothing compared to, well, pretty much every book ever written by C.S. Goto, as explained on the Leftnt Sharpe scale of tie-in fiction:


-Author needs to be punched in the face (C.S Goto goes here).
-Tie-in bad (Dietz is about here).
-Tie in average (Karpyshan here).
-Tie-in good (Karen Traviss goes here? Also Sandy Mitchell).
-Dan Abnett (Pretty self-explanatory)

It should be noted that when comparing tie-in books to actual works of literature they should be moved down one category. For example a book that is 'tie-in good' is merely average by normal standards and Dan Abnett would be reduced from 'God Emperor of tie-in fiction mancrush level' to merely good.

 

[Recyth]

Brisingr.

First two books showed promise, then went incredibly cliche and poorly written about here. It made me wonder if Paolini was really responsible for the script of that abomination of a movie adaptation for Eragon.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

The Hunger Games.

Honesty, I didn't hate it. It held my interest 'till the end but having finished it and closed the book I couldn't help but feel that some of it was a bit rushed.
The book just has a weird pacing that I didn't really like. Concepts were introduced and then ignored or rushed over to get to the next part.
I'll admit that some of the sour taste might have been from the finale of the games itself

Spoiler

what with the random Werewolf attack and all (yes I know not technically werewolves but hey...looks like a duck as sounds like a duck.)

which is just a tad bit silly.

 

[RabbidKuriboh]

girl with a pearl earring

it manages to have no plot,no likeable or even interesting characters, a dull setting, the whiniest most uptight little c**t for a main character/narrator and still be one of the most depressing stories i've ever read/seen/heard

seriously f***k prerequisite reading, why can't they ever give us good books?

 

[Kuroneko97]

Bitches please.

This isn't a book, but have any of you tried to read "My Immortal"?

 

[beeman1991]

Couldn't stand Lord of the Flies
I was actually pretty okay with it when I read it the first time (in grade 7) but when I read it again in grade 11 for English... well...
After having read a plethora of both good and bad books, I was shocked by how poorly the author transitioned between scenes and settings, and the overall theme of the book was the sort of highschool philosophy that made me hate going to English class

Also, as stated previously, for those of you who got tricked into reading Atlas Shrugged
The Fountainhead is shorter and, quite frankly, better written

As for the Eragon business
I liked the book until I read The Belgariad and realized that Paolini had managed somehow to copy certain parts of it almost word for word
And he didn't even have the good bits either

 

[repeating integers]

Couldn't stand Lord of the Flies
I was actually pretty okay with it when I read it the first time (in grade 7) but when I read it again in grade 11 for English... well...
After having read a plethora of both good and bad books, I was shocked by how poorly the author transitioned between scenes and settings, and the overall theme of the book was the sort of highschool philosophy that made me hate going to English class

In fairness, I think it was pretty good for a first novel. I quite liked it, though I don't agree that it's the masterpiece people claim it to be - for me, it was just a good book with the odd bit of clever symbolism.

 

[DugMachine]

I read Catcher in the Rye finally about a year ago, thought it was shit. The guy is such a whiny ****.

I also hated The Fountainhead. Howard Roark can just go ahead and eat my ass.

 

[beeman1991]

In fairness, I think it was pretty good for a first novel. I quite liked it, though I don't agree that it's the masterpiece people claim it to be - for me, it was just a good book with the odd bit of clever symbolism.

I was mostly bothered by the lack of writing "smoothness" and the fact that some of the events felt really fake (even in the context of the story)
It's certainly not the worst book I've read, but it definitely didnt meet expectations for what I was told was a "classic"

I also hated The Fountainhead. Howard Roark can just go ahead and eat my ass.

You should probably avoid everything written by Ayn Rand, as most of her characters are like Roark

 

[DugMachine]

You should probably avoid everything written by Ayn Rand, as most of her characters are like Roark

I've heard this too and for that very reason i've avoided any other stories written by her. I wish I could explain why but I seriously raged everytime the dude spoke.

 

[beeman1991]

I've heard this too and for that very reason i've avoided any other stories written by her. I wish I could explain why but I seriously raged everytime the dude spoke.

I think it's because Rand manages to combine her own brand of Ubermensch characters with the whole Lovecraft-inspired Our-Reasons-Are-Beyond-Your-Understanding attitude (minus obvious elements that make that element of a character or otherworldly horror work) that they all seem to subscribe to
It's like the uncanny valley of character development posing as the perfect being

It's definitely a lot worse in stuff like We the Living