The worst books (or movies or plays or whatever) that they made you read or watch in grade school
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Movies:
-The other two english classes in my year at the same level got: The Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile. What did we get? Pearl fuckmothering Harbour. Terrible movie, and a terrible film for studying film conventions. And our teacher expected us to unironically enjoy that shitfest.
-Super Size Me. Fuck that thing was preachy, overrated, and rather dishonest.
Plays:
-BlackRock. This is the play that truly made me really hate Australian drama. Everything from lack of likeable characters to forced characterisation made me incredibly bored of this quickly.
-Much Ado about nothing. I did this for drama and even played a minor role in our production of it. Aside from the fact it was very hard to understand anything Shakespeare wrote (our teachers even admitted that), I didn't really care for any of the characters. Benedick I initially liked, but his views where somehow viewed as bad, so he gets characterised into a sappy dick over the course of the play. And aside from him, the characters achieved nothing, learned nothing, and hopefully fucked off into nothing.
Summer of the Aliens. This was just boring. I liked Louis Nowra's other play, Cosi though.
Books:
-Destroying Avalon. Oh, bullying is such a horrific thing. Let's all wallow in how fucking grim it is instead of actually doing something. And at the ending, people are nicer to each-other now after someone commits suicide. Yeah they fail to mention that never, ever lasts.
-Broken lives. If I was proofreading a book that long, I wouldn't have properly grammar checked it either. And even the author said to our class "It's served it's purpose and doesn't need to be that long any-more. I may just refine it a bit down to the core messages" Funny thing is, I got an A on that paper despite having never read more than a few pages.
-The Book Thief. Fuck. That. Book. I couldn't understand what the characters goals were half the time. And all the people who get killed failed to endear themselves to me and their deaths came off as hopelessly begging me to reflect on how nice they really were and how much I'll miss them. If that's the plan, you couldn't have failed harder even if all your characters were Handsome Jack.
I think I can sum up all the reasons I hated these were either darkness induced apathy, or no tragedy that successfully made me interested. And I never did literature because the thought of reading into old, mostly irrelevant books way too deeply than what is considered sane would give me homicidal tendencies.
-The other two english classes in my year at the same level got: The Shawshank Redemption and the Green Mile. What did we get? Pearl fuckmothering Harbour. Terrible movie, and a terrible film for studying film conventions. And our teacher expected us to unironically enjoy that shitfest.
-Super Size Me. Fuck that thing was preachy, overrated, and rather dishonest.
Plays:
-BlackRock. This is the play that truly made me really hate Australian drama. Everything from lack of likeable characters to forced characterisation made me incredibly bored of this quickly.
-Much Ado about nothing. I did this for drama and even played a minor role in our production of it. Aside from the fact it was very hard to understand anything Shakespeare wrote (our teachers even admitted that), I didn't really care for any of the characters. Benedick I initially liked, but his views where somehow viewed as bad, so he gets characterised into a sappy dick over the course of the play. And aside from him, the characters achieved nothing, learned nothing, and hopefully fucked off into nothing.
Summer of the Aliens. This was just boring. I liked Louis Nowra's other play, Cosi though.
Books:
-Destroying Avalon. Oh, bullying is such a horrific thing. Let's all wallow in how fucking grim it is instead of actually doing something. And at the ending, people are nicer to each-other now after someone commits suicide. Yeah they fail to mention that never, ever lasts.
-Broken lives. If I was proofreading a book that long, I wouldn't have properly grammar checked it either. And even the author said to our class "It's served it's purpose and doesn't need to be that long any-more. I may just refine it a bit down to the core messages" Funny thing is, I got an A on that paper despite having never read more than a few pages.
-The Book Thief. Fuck. That. Book. I couldn't understand what the characters goals were half the time. And all the people who get killed failed to endear themselves to me and their deaths came off as hopelessly begging me to reflect on how nice they really were and how much I'll miss them. If that's the plan, you couldn't have failed harder even if all your characters were Handsome Jack.
I think I can sum up all the reasons I hated these were either darkness induced apathy, or no tragedy that successfully made me interested. And I never did literature because the thought of reading into old, mostly irrelevant books way too deeply than what is considered sane would give me homicidal tendencies.
Anything by Toni Morrison; Beloved, Tar Baby, Sula...Seriously, how did this woman get a Nobel Prize, let alone a professorship? All books I've read by her is about extremely poor, illiterate blacks during times when it was horrible being black, who somehow finds the time and energy to be gratuitously horrible to eachother for at best moronic and at worst non-existent reasons. All written in, I understand, authentic but still nigh-impenetrable black vernacular that really makes her books truly horrific reads, both as reading material and as literature.
I enjoyed or at least tolerated the books that my school threw at us (many of which have been mentioned in this thread). But I didn't like the Great Gatsby at all, thematically it makes sense, but the way it's written just irritates me. Worst yet we had to watch the movie (not the recent one) and nothing could have saved that film.
Don't think I've ever been forced to read a bad book.
Now, movies on the other hand.
Had an English-teacher forcing us to sit through the whole Jane Austin movie-series crap, and yeah, most boring crap I'll ever find.
But the epidemy of WTF's I've ever seen?
For a few lessons in school, me and my classmates had to see "The Idiots".
Haven't seen it?
Well, it's just a movie about people pretending to be retarded, and then having an orgy AND YES IT'S ALL OUT FOR FULL DISPLAY. I still have disgusting scenes of ballsacks BURNED into my goddamn retina after watching that shit. It made me hate Denmark even more than a Swede should!
Just google it.
Now, movies on the other hand.
Had an English-teacher forcing us to sit through the whole Jane Austin movie-series crap, and yeah, most boring crap I'll ever find.
But the epidemy of WTF's I've ever seen?
For a few lessons in school, me and my classmates had to see "The Idiots".
Haven't seen it?
Well, it's just a movie about people pretending to be retarded, and then having an orgy AND YES IT'S ALL OUT FOR FULL DISPLAY. I still have disgusting scenes of ballsacks BURNED into my goddamn retina after watching that shit. It made me hate Denmark even more than a Swede should!
Just google it.
Some shitty book I can't remember the name of. It was about a couple of guys doing everyday school shit. Nothing ever happened. It was just their interactions and their daily lives. It was the biggest waste of fucking time I ever had to go through, and we had cursive classes. I stole it from the school library and burned it. I know the taboo about book burning, but it had to be done. No one should have to trudge through that piece of shit.
Another funny story. Dicken's originally wrote the ending to be a much more depressing, where pip doesn't get together with the girl of his dreams. the Newspaper wanted a happy ending so he changed it. The bad ending is much better, but I still dont like the bookRaine_sage said:
The House on Mango Street, pretty sure our class was forced to read it for diversity. It was a dull, meandering piece of crap and then there was the rape scene. Jesus Christ. I tend to avoid anything with rape in it, and making this book required reading was very taxing.
I had to read "One timeless spring" by Ray Bradbury. Even though it was a short story it was still painful. Just an adolescent kid whining about how nobody understands him and everything sucks. Boy was I glad to slam it n my essay.
Also there was another book which I can't remember, but it was written by a female Nobel literature prize winner. It was basically a bunch of communist college students trying to get by, and I hated it. The main character in particular was beyond despicable, always going on about how capitalism is evil and no one should support them and GAH!
Also there was another book which I can't remember, but it was written by a female Nobel literature prize winner. It was basically a bunch of communist college students trying to get by, and I hated it. The main character in particular was beyond despicable, always going on about how capitalism is evil and no one should support them and GAH!
Emma by Jane Austen. I will never hate anything quite like I hated that book. The protagonist is intentionally irritating as hell, she never goes through a real conflict, and then ends up with a "happily ever after" bullshit ending. It literally reads like stupid middle/high school drama about who likes who and misconceptions that complicate everything in the most boring ways possible. The only people I know who liked that book at all were huge Jane Austen fans, but that alone is enough reason to take their opinions with a grain of salt.
Yeah seems to be a lot of love on this site for Homer but actually I thought both The Illiad and The Odyssey were incredibly dull reading experiences. Interesting to study from a historic perspective I'm sure but if I want to read something for plot, character, inventive language, anything really I can find much better elsewhere. Just doesn't hold up to modern story telling standards.shrekfan246 said:
I actually made an entire thread on why I thought Our Town by Thorton Wilder sucked.
I've heard complaints about a tedious narrative in other books, but I'm pretty sure that was the first book I read where their was no narrative whatsoever. Two small town kids grow up, fall in love, and die. The End. No twists, no turns, no narrative propulsion, just a big ham-fisted repetition of "live your life to it's fullest" over and over again with no subtlety.
Supposedly it's better on stage, and with good actors. I have no idea how, the material was about the same quality you'd get from a Six Flags musical, if not lower.
I've heard complaints about a tedious narrative in other books, but I'm pretty sure that was the first book I read where their was no narrative whatsoever. Two small town kids grow up, fall in love, and die. The End. No twists, no turns, no narrative propulsion, just a big ham-fisted repetition of "live your life to it's fullest" over and over again with no subtlety.
Supposedly it's better on stage, and with good actors. I have no idea how, the material was about the same quality you'd get from a Six Flags musical, if not lower.
They're have been quite a few, but Call of the Wild and The Great Gatsby come to mind. The former because its was just incredibly dull. I really couldn't give less of a shit about anyone or anything in it and it spent so much time on imagery it never actually did much of any story. The latter because I fucking hated everyone. They are all assholes/cowards/plain boring. Nothing happens and there is no real character development. Fuck dat.
For me it would be a piece of spanish-realist-19th-century shit known as "Meow". The thing is literally about a poor family and a little boy that talks to God (yes, God) about his grammar. It was dreadfully slow, nothing happened, the characters were bland, and their actions inconsecuent.
Worst Book: The Outsiders. Most of it was pretentious irrelevant crap and characters that made me wish they were real so I could violently and mercilessly beat them.
Worst Play: Gary's House. This is an Australian play. Never. Ever. Read it. It is the worst thing I've ever read, and one of my friends even said that it is WORSE then Twilight. The characters were unlikable and it follows all the stupid ass stereotypes that Australians apparently have.
Worst Play: Gary's House. This is an Australian play. Never. Ever. Read it. It is the worst thing I've ever read, and one of my friends even said that it is WORSE then Twilight. The characters were unlikable and it follows all the stupid ass stereotypes that Australians apparently have.
Ooh. It's not often I meet a word I'm not familiar with. Similar to 'inconsistent' by any chance?myah said:
OT: I've tended to warm to most of the things I've ever had to read or watch or school. I didn't like Pride and Prejudice either on the first read-through, but once you've gotten used to the language and the weird social conventions it's actually fairly funny. Shakespeare's another one that takes some getting used to, but I find him brilliant now. So...
Even though you said no uni stuff, I'm going to go ahead and call the Welsh national crap that I've got to read some of the worst stuff ever. It's so utterly, frustratingly vapid and boring. I think it's supposed to come across as poignant, but none of the characters are interesting enough or even human enough for you to care that their lives are shit. It ends up being one big depressing slog, with the occasional description of a field.
Man, Scarlet Letter has NOTHING on the Grapes of Wrath.The Scythian said:
That book was straight up painful to read. I willingly failed that final assignment because I could not bring myself to finish that book, and this is from someone who considers getting a C or less on anything a problem, exponentially worse the lower I get.