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

[Esotera]

Neuromancer by William Gibson...it's hugely influential, coined the term cyberspace, but I literally could not get past the first 20 pages. It's as if it was written by a 5 year old.

I also read some conspiracy book called The Mayan Prophecies to help sharpen my critical thinking...the argument was looking quite good until in the last five pages the author revealed that it was all actually aliens...that was complete rubbish, but I should have expected it.

 

[SckizoBoy]

You mentioned the black Irish Leper. This pleases him.

By the way, where did you want me to install the multilaser shower head? Should I put it next to the Backflipping Terminator doll?

I've only actually read two books by him, one was the novelisation of the Dawn of War trilogy of games, and by the Emperor do I want to sic a Librarian on his ass for that.

The other was a gods-awful Eldar book... again I'm proud of not remembering the title (though I'm fairly sure it was so banal anyone would forget it), which was so unbelievably boring and ill-paced it took me almost half a dozen chapters to realise that a few characters didn't like each other... eesh.

 

[DoPo]

READ!!! Nothing your school made you read. The School board knows as much about literature we'd like as much as I want to sacrifice Justin Bieber's soul to whichever supernatural embodyment of evil I can find.

Sorry, I am obliged to quote Terry Pratchett here:

Susan hated Literature. She'd much prefer to read a good book.

With this out of the way, lots of time ago, I read a sci-fi book called ...something like Moon Ranbow or Lunar Rainbow (can't remeber exactly). Well it had two books and I stopped reading halfway through the second one. Because I realised I remembered nothing from what I read so far. This includes the first book. Which I finished the same week. I was just going through these books and absolutely nothing worth remembering was happening. I just left it off. I couldn't be arsed to finish it. I literally had to read everything again and jot down notes to follow the plot. And the plot wasn't even twisted or mysterious.

 

[Rude as HECK]

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.

Fuck, beat me to it.Ignoring the philosophy, I found it incredible dull as a novel.

 

[Amethyst Wind]

The Grapes of Wrath. The thing is terrible. It made it's point 10 pages in and then continued to make the same point for near 500 more pages.

The pacing was terrible, the characters flat and what little plot there was was erratic.

Not that they were the worse books I've read but I think that the Dance with Dragons duology are far below the other Song of Ice and Fire books in terms of quality.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Maximum Ride: The Final Warning. It's the fourth in the Maximum Ride series which were for the most part pretty good, although the science was a bit strange at times.

I won't go into detail, but the book is about the main characters having nothing to do, so they go to Antarctica, play with penguins, defeat a brain in a jar(yes, really.) by accident via hurricane, then they talk to Congress about global warming.

Oh, and a talking dog grew wings for absolutely no reason.

AHHHHH GOD! Just... Never mention that book ever again. I had managed to successfully forget it even existed until you came along.

It's like the writer just decided to throw all sembalance of the characters actually behaving in character and just generally making sense to make a really terribly presented statement about global warming and how teh warld is gonna b ruined 4evar by it.

Hmmmm, apart from that there's... Maybe the last few Darren Shan books in the Vampire and Demonata series'? He really seems to have a problem ending a long running series without throwing a "world resets from zero" plot device into it.

That oneshot he did about that executioner? Did anyone read that? Was actually really good I think. He just has to up the stakes to ridiculously high levels in his long running stuff so he can't really end things well without it coming off as Deus Ex Machina levels of contrivance


Anything else? Well I think that the last book in The Night Angel trilogy came close to having a shit ending but somehow managed to end things rather well, all things considered. I could go back and read those again just so I can read 'bout Vi again. I always liked her

 

[The Wykydtron]

Neuromancer by William Gibson...it's hugely influential, coined the term cyberspace, but I literally could not get past the first 20 pages. It's as if it was written by a 5 year old.

I also read some conspiracy book called The Mayan Prophecies to help sharpen my critical thinking...the argument was looking quite good until in the last five pages the author revealed that it was all actually aliens...that was complete rubbish, but I should have expected it.

Oh should I? Well, you kinda asked for it really...

Remember, it's all fun and games until an intriging plot point ends up being...

Spoiler

 

[Dags90]

The Man Who Ate the 747.

It was one of the few summer reading books I actually read, and it was terrible. It's literally about a guy who eats a plane by shredding the pieces into a powder. Dumbest premise ever.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I read all the Twilight books, because I thought I would read all of them before I start to bad mouth it so I could back it up with examples from the book.

DEAR GOD THEY WERE SHIT. Book number 4? WTF?! Nothing happens!

You are a stronger man than I... I could only through exactly 110 pages of the first Twilight before lobbing it at a wall and immediately rereading The Name of the Wind for the umpteenth time to remind myself that good literature, does in fact exist.

Now if only I would man up and get through the sequel. I don't like it when bad things happen to the main character

 

[Nigh Invulnerable]

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.

By reading or by clubbing them over the head with it?

My wife is a fan of David Eddings, so I plowed through the Belgariad books and was simply left with a "Meh" sort of feeling. They were just sort of formulaic and simple for my tastes, but I can see young teens reading them for their first fantasy series and falling in love with them, which is pretty much the case with my wife's familiarity with them.

 

[trifectagirl]

Me Talk Pretty One day by David Sedaris (I think that's his name?) Absolutely horrible. I was extremely confused the entire time.

 

[Dags90]

Me Talk Pretty One day by David Sedaris (I think that's his name?) Absolutely horrible. I was extremely confused the entire time.

I loved it...How was it confusing? It's just a collection of funny short stories.

 

[littlewisp]

Any number of recent urban fantasy "novels." Why do I keep trying new ones when most of them are utterly stupid? WHY?!

Oh right, work reduces my brain to mush so I can only comprehend mush on most days. Audio mush. At least I have Joe Abercrombie to keep me company when it gets too bad.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

I read all the Twilight books, because I thought I would read all of them before I start to bad mouth it so I could back it up with examples from the book.

DEAR GOD THEY WERE SHIT. Book number 4? WTF?! Nothing happens!

I decided to do that, got 11 chapters into the first one and had to stop. I just couldn't force myself to go on. Later I got hold of the 4th book and had a read, and I have to say that her writing style had improved, it was a much better read, but I had to set it down after the first few pages, because while it was better worded it was still soulless dribble. I can't even putmy finger on what was wrong, it's like Meyer has an anti-talent for writing.

On topic there was one book I read to the end, set down and on reflection realised was a pile of crap: Mostly Harmless, by Douglas Adams. His 'trilogy of four' was a comedic literary masterpiece, ending brilliantly as Arthur finally found a bit of purpose in the galaxy. Mostly Harmless ruins all this, as an excuse to get him travelling around the universe again. Trillian is shoehorned back into it, there's some boring forced drama when Arthur gets magically given a daughter, an uncharacteristically dark storyline about a new guide, giving it a huge downer ending. It just lacked that comedic charm of the previous installments, and the overaching plot was cumbersome and confusing even in-universe, and just so dark compared to the happy-go-lucky style of previous books.

 

[The_Lost_King]

Mockingjay, seriously fuck mockingjay.

 

[ImSkeletor]

The House On Mango Street is one of the biggest pieces of garbage I have ever read.

 

[Fijiman]

If I made it to the end of the book with out saying "fuck this" halfway though, I did not think it was shit. I don't think I've ever read a book that I though was really bad.

 

[Danial]

Angels and Demons, Awful, Awful book. Really annoyed me all the way though, bar that cant say i finish bad books, Got made to read Hunger games recently, which while not "shit" was very over hyped.

Admittedly its Dickens compared to twilight but still. Got to page 200 of that and burnt the book.