What's the most boring book you've ever read?

[FPLOON]

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing or any book that involved that character Fudge... It made me realize certain types of characters that I absolutely can't stand...

It's weird that THAT was the book I didn't like, yet some of the books that were mentioned in this thread already (excluding Twilight, Eragon, and Catcher in the Rye) I thoroughly enjoyed more when I choose to read them instead of having to read them for school...

In fact, this thread reminds me when I thought the Guardians of Ga'hoole series by Kathryn Lasky (even though at the time only the first two books came out) was going to be a very boring read... The first book I pretended to not have any interest in it... The second was pretty good now that I started paying attention to the story and characters... Then, the third book came out and everyone in the reading group I was in immediately ordered a copy for ourselves this time and after we finished it, we had a hard time waiting for the fourth book... Even when the school year was over, we all still kept in contact, discussing each of the books that came out later... We even met up years later to see the semi-interesting movie... (We all thought it was "okay", at best...)


Overall, during my younger years, if the book wasn't Captain Underpants-related, Harry Potter-related, or written by Beverly Cleary, then they bored me... with certain exceptions as mentioned above... Now, the book better be trying to bore me otherwise I'll still find some enjoyment in reading it... *glares at every fantasy book I have read that have been mentioned in this thread*

 

[RoonMian]

The further it got to the end the more unbearable I found the Dune books... I think half way through book five I just gave up.

 

[JasonBurnout16]

Have you ever read a book that you just had to force yourself through, whether it be for school or to see what the big deal behind the book is? If so, what was it?

Mine would have to be The Great Gatsby. I hate, hate, hate that book. It's boring and uninteresting. I didn't care for the characters at all. Thank goodness it was a short book because after a while I couldn't take it anymore.

Great Gatsby was brutal, I couldn't even finish it. The Awakening was even worse, I couldn't even sit through the in-class talks really. I managed to finish Catcher in The Rye(the first of that 3 book tricathalon of hell) to my deep regret.

Can I ask why you didn't like the Great Gatsby? I really enjoyed that book and though it lacks in action I still thought it was a good read. Not the best but worth reading at least once.

On topic though I'd say Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner. It's meant to be a popular book among children for its tales of adventure but when it was decided we would read it in school, I hated that book from cover to cover.

Atlas Shrugged.

It started out ok, and I was intrigued to find out who John Gault was. Then when he finally showed up he wouldn't stop talking and I just wished he'd go away. That was a rough one to get through. It was boring and became increasing immoral (at least in my mind).

Yer the Fountainhead was a much better book by the same author. I honestly don't know what she was thinking with Atlas Shrugged, there were so many speeches it became unbearable.

 

[Silvanus]

Measure for Measure. I severely dislike Measure for Measure.

 

[Cliff_m85]

The Bible, which is utterly repetitious (Try reading through the commands of how the Tabernacle shall be built).

Other than that, "A Painted House". Total yawn-fest.

 

[Wrath 228]

The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy. It's nothing but politics and jargon for about 900 or so pages, then about 50 of 'action,' and then another 50 of something else. I don't remember. It's been a while, but not so long as for me to forget that it sucked. I don't even know how I managed to finish it, but I probably wouldn't be too far off if I said I sleep-read half the book.

You made it about 700 pages farther than I did. I normally love Clancy's stuff too, but 900-some-odd pages of that was asking too much.

For me, I recently tried to read the first of the Halo: Forerunner trilogy (it's so unremarkable I can't even remember the name), and I just couldn't bring myself to care. Halo's universe just isn't as interesting when you try to explain the ancient history of it (the forerunners, etc.). I'd much rather hear about the aftermath of Halo 3, but its too bad Eric Nylund (or Joseph Staten for that matter, Contact Harvest was great) isn't writing any of the post-Halo 3 novels. Instead we've got Karen Traviss. -____-

 

[Ham Blitz]

For me, there are three contenders for my least favorite book: The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Scarlet Letter, and the Aeneid.
The more I think about it, I think the Picture of Dorian Gray takes home the most boring award, while Scarlet Letter was probably just the worst in general.
The Aeneid felt like reading a spin-off series.

 

[Cliff_m85]

"I had to read it in High School/College and I....."

Makes me stop reading immediately. If you were forced to read a book for a grade, chances are you didn't dig it.

 

[the doom cannon]

"Heart of Darkness" is by far the most boring book I've read. It's a whopping 70 pages, and it took me two whole weeks to finish that rubbish

 

[imperialwar]

I love all the LoTR references. Obviously kids led to the books by the movies.
Try the Silmarian then if you couldnt get your hear around the LoTR stuff, it makes them look like a picnic in the park.

I never got past the first chapter of the first book of the "Wheel of Time"

 

[Myoukochou]

I must admit the Lord of the Rings is a HARD read to love. Tolkien is a wonderful worldbuilder, but a terrible author. He's breathlessly awed at communicating the intricate, beautiful details of the world he envisions so clearly... but he tells, instead of shows, so he's simply awful at actually telling the story. You can't see the wood for five pages about descriptions of the trees, three pages describing what the elves look like but not who they are. The interesting narrative is utterly lost among the in-depth description.

You've got to give him kudos for bringing together and pretty much single-handedly codifying the Default Fantasy setting that countless thousands of other stories have adapted in one way or another. But don't read the books. It's like building a sandcastle with a teaspoon.

 

[spartan231490]

Have you ever read a book that you just had to force yourself through, whether it be for school or to see what the big deal behind the book is? If so, what was it?

Mine would have to be The Great Gatsby. I hate, hate, hate that book. It's boring and uninteresting. I didn't care for the characters at all. Thank goodness it was a short book because after a while I couldn't take it anymore.

Great Gatsby was brutal, I couldn't even finish it. The Awakening was even worse, I couldn't even sit through the in-class talks really. I managed to finish Catcher in The Rye(the first of that 3 book tricathalon of hell) to my deep regret.

Can I ask why you didn't like the Great Gatsby? I really enjoyed that book and though it lacks in action I still thought it was a good read. Not the best but worth reading at least once.

On topic though I'd say Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner. It's meant to be a popular book among children for its tales of adventure but when it was decided we would read it in school, I hated that book from cover to cover.

Honestly? I found the writing lot be atrocious. The vocabulary was shallow, the setting was boring, the pacing moved slower than a rotting corpse, and the plot was almost as uninteresting as the characters. Frankly, I don't remember much detail, but I do remember that I hated the main character. I vaguely remember that the sections with other characters were slightly less tedious to read since the other characters were stereotypical and boring, which was a nice break from wanting to strangle the MC.

I didn't get terribly far, I read to chapter 6 in one very painful sitting(it was required reading and I thought that it might get better further in, and if not it was a short enough book I was hoping to just finish it in a weekend and be done with it, but I couldn't keep going. I picked at it and maybe got as far as chapter nine before I just gave up.

So you know, it isn't just because it was a assigned reading. I read and loved Lord of The Flies, Scarlet Letter, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Giver, and half a dozen other assigned books that have been mentioned above. The only four I didn't like were the ones I originally mentioned, Catcher in The Rye, Great Gatsby, and The Awakening(and also Last Night at The Lobster from college). Every other assigned book I could get through, even if I didn't like it, because I appreciated it for the quality of writing, but I found no redeeming quality in those three books. For what it's worth, I think the Great Gatsby was the best of the four. The other three were awful whereas, in my opinion, Gatsby was more banal than actually bad. The only thing I disliked about it was the MC, everything else I literally had no feeling for one way or the other.

 

[Fox12]

Have you ever read a book that you just had to force yourself through, whether it be for school or to see what the big deal behind the book is? If so, what was it?

Mine would have to be The Great Gatsby. I hate, hate, hate that book. It's boring and uninteresting. I didn't care for the characters at all. Thank goodness it was a short book because after a while I couldn't take it anymore.

Oh, God, The Great Gastsby. I HATED that book in school, it's one of the most utterly overrated things in literature.

Unfortunately I've read worse. I remember Faulkner as being the only writer to cause me physical pain. I couldn't even finish The Sound and the Fury (awesome title though). I hated the characters, I hated the "story", and most of all I HATED his entire philosophy on life. It is, quite literally, a book about nothing. I understood it perfectly, in case any Lit. lovers insist he's greatest writer of all time, I just think his opinions are all wrong. He was also a conceited ho bag in real life, so I can't even say he had a sparkling personality

 

[hermes]

The Odyssey.

I like the plot, but epic poetry has never been my thing and in long-form like that it really just became tedious and bland.

Of course, I didn't actually read the whole thing. I don't think I even read more than half of it... still got almost perfect marks on most of the tests about it. English was always my best course.

Damn, I thought I was going to be the owner of a pretty unpopular opinion, but you ninja'd me, on the first answer.

So, yes. The Odyssey was terrible for me to try to get into.
I ended up finishing it, but there were days were I couldn't advance more than a page.

 

[sageoftruth]

Don't know if this is the worst one, but the dullest experience I can remember for now is "Open Veins of Latin America". My boss and I work in immigration, so as a little freebie gift I got a book on how Latin American was exploited for its resources. According to the book, they primarily got screwed economically, and I could only take so much reading about the economy of coffee and tobacco. Didn't help that the whole time, it kept reminding me that my race was responsible for all their problems. I got about halfway through before I couldn't bear to read anymore.

 

[spartan231490]

"I had to read it in High School/College and I....."

Makes me stop reading immediately. If you were forced to read a book for a grade, chances are you didn't dig it.

Was it really just my school where the majority of kids enjoyed the assigned reading? I mean, I take it to extremes, but I can't remember a single kid in my class who disliked even half of the books we read, and most of them are on this thread as "boring".
I have been assigned in the neighborhood of 30 books for my higher education(I'm not counting elementary or middle school because who could not like those books). I disliked four of them, was pretty meh about another 4 or so, and I liked or even loved the vast majority of the others. To Kill a Mockingbird, Scarlet Letter, Giver, Speak, Where the Red Fern Grows, Lord of The Flies, . . .
I actually reread many of them on my own time.

I must admit the Lord of the Rings is a HARD read to love. Tolkien is a wonderful worldbuilder, but a terrible author. He's breathlessly awed at communicating the intricate, beautiful details of the world he envisions so clearly... but he tells, instead of shows, so he's simply awful at actually telling the story. You can't see the wood for five pages about descriptions of the trees, three pages describing what the elves look like but not who they are. The interesting narrative is utterly lost among the in-depth description.

You've got to give him kudos for bringing together and pretty much single-handedly codifying the Default Fantasy setting that countless thousands of other stories have adapted in one way or another. But don't read the books. It's like building a sandcastle with a teaspoon.

This is an absolutely perfect description of why Tolkein was a poor author. Phenomenal world-builder, but his narrative is flat as hell. I'm probably going to save that so I can show people what I mean when I criticize him, thank you.

 

[Fox12]

The Bible, which is utterly repetitious (Try reading through the commands of how the Tabernacle shall be built).

Other than that, "A Painted House". Total yawn-fest.

You have to keep in mind that the Bible isn't really "a" book, but rather a collection of books, so you have to read them all individually. Obviously some were poetic works of art with some of the best writing I've ever seen, whereas other books are little more than massive legal documents. Each book serves a different purpose. As a result I have to read some chapters as a historian and some chapters as a creative writer.

That's also why there's so much repetition, sometimes different books overlapped on the same event.

 

[TyrunnAlberyn]

The -only- book I never finished is a Dutch novel by Louis Couperus called Eline Vere. It's style and language are horribly dated, but where writers like Lovecraft and Poe also wrote in a different style than is used these days, Couperus -also- has bugger all to tell in his book. Seriously, it's 1200 pages of nothing at all happening.

More internationally, I have to second La Divina Commedia. At least in Inferno Dante seems somewhat in his elements with lurid descriptions. Purgatorio and Paradiso... *shudder*.

 

[sageoftruth]

I just remembered another. "100 Years of Solitude". Anyway, I read it way back in early High School, so I can hardly remember anything about it. The thing was, none of the characters were all that admirable or even interesting. I was reading through it in a half-daze when suddenly I fell victim to the Latin American naming system (a real hassle when filing them alphabetically at work). I was already through most of the book when suddenly the focus was on a character who I thought had passed away. It was then that I found out that "Aureliano Buenadia", "Aureliano Buenadia Sanchez", and "Aureliano Buenadia Sanchez Castro" were all different characters (Each descendent keeps the names of his relatives). Up until then, I thought I was reading about the same person (which made things confusing when two of them were in the same scene). I was so frustrated, I wanted to throw the book into a fire. I certainly wasn't going to go back and re-read everything.