Ever read a book so bad that you actaully stopped reading?

[daunchy]

Nothing fancy, just Atlas Shrugged.

 

[rangerman351]

I don't know why, but catcher in the rye was just boring to me because it seems like all Holden (the main character) did was complain about dumb stuff

 

[Thaa'ir]

Not that I can think of. I-WAIT!

Fucking Freak the Mighty. Seriously. I was given that for a school project and I have NEVER been more insulted. It. Is. So. Awful.

In what grade were you when they gave it to you? Goddess, they had us read that garbage in 9th grade, and it insulted even the dumb kids in the class. And to make it worse, after that we had to read a medical thriller called "Toxin" by Robin Cook, which was far, far more difficult and horrifically depressing to boot.

OT: Only two. Lord of the Flies. God, I HATE that book. So much. I wanted to burn the bloody thing in the middle of the classroom. Thank God my English class that semester was ridiculously easy or I might have gotten a poor score on the test from refusing to give a damn.

 

[The_Amazing_G]

the series of unfortunate events. In the beginning of the book the author goes on and on about how it's a terrible book and how no one should read it, and I was like "Okay" and put it down. I've never picked it up again.

 

[st0pnsw0p]

None, although the ending of Stephen King't "It" made me wich I hadn't read the entire third act.

 

[drzoidbergmd]

One book was a romance novel that I was reading for shits and giggles called "The Viking Takes A Knight." Stopped a hundred pages from the end and got angry. The one with a better story was a textbook I had to read for a sociology class. It was about the "teen sex crisis," and was written by a pair of Christian Fundamentalist writers in 1988. I finished the first half, then threw the book across the room in rage. Went into class the next day and had a conversation kind of like this:
Me: Mrs. Firestone, I'm sorry, but fuck this book. I have no intention of ever finishing it, because if I do, I will murder someone in this room.
Firestone: Yeah, I sort of figured that would be your reaction to this.
Me: Seriously?
Firestone: Yes.

 

[bob-2000]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand was unbearable. It's scary to think of how much Rand's philosophies have shaped the world.

 

[mattaui]

I made myself choke down the first two books of Varley's 'Titan' series, but I had to give up on the third. I should've stopped early on, but I wanted to give it a try. It was pretty terrible stuff.

I understand finding Lord of the Rings a slow read, but I have a very hard time understanding why someone wouldn't be able to at least finish reading it. I really found a lot of the Two Towers slower than the beginning or the end of the series.

I didn't get past book 3 of the Wheel of Time, I detested Wizard's First Rule and I found Sanderson's first overwrought book of his supposed ten book series to be laughably bad. It was like he threw out all the rules and just went with masturbatory world building instead of an actual story with plot, characters and conflict.

 

[toothofymir]

Battlefield Earth by Ron L. Hubbard

Without a doubt, the worst piece of professionally written (i.e. actually written by an adult author) literature I have ever read.

Oh yeah
AND STAY AWAY FROM THE MOVIE!!!

 

[mattaui]

I will probably catch a lot of shit for this, but Lord of the Rings.

I don't blame you. The first half of the Fellowship of the Ring is torture: slow-paced and boring. It's even worse if you saw the movie before reading the book, since the movie has much better pacing.

I don't know if I would call it "bad", but I put down Kushiel's Dart about 150 pages in. I found it very slow and dull, and Jacquelyn Carey is prone to flowery prose that is very annoying at times.

My god really? Kushiels Dart is without a doubt my favorite book and series ever written. She is my Tolkien. She builds worlds so much better than any person I have ever read. If you ever want to give it a try, go for the second trilogy in the set with Phedre's godson Imriel. I am defending this book to my last dying breath.

But I do agree about Fellowship. I had a guy tell me how the books changed his life blah blah blah and after watching the movie, this was the most disappointing book ever.

Hmm, I made it through the book simply because I was out of town and it's all I had with me (in the days of ye old hardcopy), but I got pretty tired of the repetitive erotica and the predictability of the plot. However, I was very much impressed with the world building and that always stuck with me. I might get around to checking out the rest of the series at some point since I'd never really heard anyone defend the series in such a fashion.

 

[Jegsimmons]

The color purple, when you open up your book about a guys penis slipping up your pu**y, you fucked up right there.

also, Catcher and the Rye, just some little spoiled douche. almost NOTHING HAPPENS in that stupid ass overrated book!

oh and god delusion, and before you ask yes i have a biased against it because im religious, BUT richard dawkins is in fact a douche bag.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Plenty. If several chapters in it has yet to pique my interest, then I'll drop it.

 

[Jegsimmons]

Battlefield Earth by Ron L. Hubbard

Without a doubt, the worst piece of professionally written (i.e. actually written by an adult author) literature I have ever read.

Oh yeah
AND STAY AWAY FROM THE MOVIE!!!

the dude himself is batshit insane and wrote complete bullshit.


also, twilight, i actually tried it (before the movies) and i was like: I GOT TO HURT THIS MYER *****!!!



now my favorite book is To Kill a Mockingbird....best...... book....ever...of all time.

 

[repeating integers]

One book was a romance novel that I was reading for shits and giggles called "The Viking Takes A Knight." Stopped a hundred pages from the end and got angry. The one with a better story was a textbook I had to read for a sociology class. It was about the "teen sex crisis," and was written by a pair of Christian Fundamentalist writers in 1988. I finished the first half, then threw the book across the room in rage. Went into class the next day and had a conversation kind of like this:
Me: Mrs. Firestone, I'm sorry, but fuck this book. I have no intention of ever finishing it, because if I do, I will murder someone in this room.
Firestone: Yeah, I sort of figured that would be your reaction to this.
Me: Seriously?
Firestone: Yes.

Is your teacher genuinely called Mrs Firestone? If so, that's pretty awesome.

 

[Jack Rascal]

They're not.

I quite enjoyed 'Wizards First Rule,' and the SoT series up to about...'Temple of The Winds.' They're not bad in a sort of sub-David Eddings kind of way. However, Goodkind gets massively, massively bogged down with Emperor Jagang, and when you consider how quickly the conflict versus Darken Rahl was resolved, Jagang coems in as the major antagonist and is still there five wearying books later as Richard and Kahlan angst for their country (both literally and figuratively). So, the later books most assuredly do not, get better. They just get longer and spend more time moralizing. Seriously, when you introduce an antagonist in Book Two and you're still dealing with him ten books later, after spending only one book to deal with the original prime villain...eh, you're just spinning things out. 'Faith of the Fallen' is, essentially, an entire novel devoted to Richard building a statue.

The Sword of Truth series is a lot like most Western PC RPGs. There's a main quest out there, but the heroes would far rather fanny about on a whole mess of side-quests.

I read SoT books all one after the other, I bought them when they were all out. I think I did like them, but I was physically and mentally exhausted after reading them. I'm not a patient man, well... I'm not a man but anywho, I cannot start reading any book if I know there will be more than two sequels. I simply cannot wait unnecessarily long to have the ending. I read Harry Potter books once they were all published, same with SoT. Plus, the first book of SoT series came out when I was 12 (my god it took forever to finish the series) and I wasn't so into reading at that age.

I whole heartedly agree that the SoT doesn't get better. I had many occasions when I thought that I will not finish the series, but I ploughed on. I was fairly fed up with "together, never together, together, never again together, together, apart forever" theme of Richard and Kahlan. And taking down Jagang took absolutely too long. But I think 'The Pillars of Creation' was really testing my patience with the series.

The series would have been one of my favourites had it not been that long. I felt it was unnecessarily stretched out as the story in itself was good. And I feel the ending lacks in many ways. 10 books to end Jagang and that's how it ends? Oh...

And I only just heard there's another book relating to the series... God, do I have to get that too...

 

[LobsterFeng]

Pretty much every Star Wars book that isn't written by Stackpole. The problem with the Extended Universe books is that anything past The Jedi Academy just becomes too far-fetched, and anything about The Old Republic is...well...look up the newest trailer for The Old Republic MMO...yeah that's pretty much every one of those books in a nutshell. (From what I've tried to read.)

 

[drzoidbergmd]

One book was a romance novel that I was reading for shits and giggles called "The Viking Takes A Knight." Stopped a hundred pages from the end and got angry. The one with a better story was a textbook I had to read for a sociology class. It was about the "teen sex crisis," and was written by a pair of Christian Fundamentalist writers in 1988. I finished the first half, then threw the book across the room in rage. Went into class the next day and had a conversation kind of like this:
Me: Mrs. Firestone, I'm sorry, but fuck this book. I have no intention of ever finishing it, because if I do, I will murder someone in this room.
Firestone: Yeah, I sort of figured that would be your reaction to this.
Me: Seriously?
Firestone: Yes.

Is your teacher genuinely called Mrs Firestone? If so, that's pretty awesome.

Yup. She's 4'10", speaks fluent German, and is pretty routinely sarcastic with my whole class.