Worst Book Ever?

[DustyDrB]

Spoiler: This, easily

Spoiler: actual spoilers

The book is about a warrior named Okonkwo in a Nigerian village. Basically white people come and colonize the hell out of Nigeria. Okonkwo is the best warrior in his village, and hates the white man threatening his way of life. Tension builds for many chapters. It was fun to read about the tension, and about Okonkwo's thoughts. However, Okonkwo kills himself in the final chapter making it the most anticlimactic thing ever.

NO, NO! THAT BOOK IS SO GOOD.

The ending is anticlimactic for a reason. It's supposed to emphasize the futility of the African peoples' struggle to keep their culture. At very end the white preacher makes the part where Okonkwo kills the other white guy part of his book on the savage tribes of Africa, while we realize the tragedy and true story of the whole thing (that's dramatic irony for ya).

Hopefully you got the gist of that. I'm terrible at explaining things.

Yeah, I love that book as well. I read it during a World Literature overview in college a couple years ago. I loved it so much I went out and bought it. I didn't want to use the book for the class because it was a behemoth with a bunch of stories and was falling apart. Things do fall apart..

OT: I don't know what the worst book ever is. It's probably something that has gone largely unnoticed. I just hope it isn't the book I'm writing.

 

[zHellas]

This shows a pretty crappy novel.

And I'm showing this, 'cause I honestly haven't read other books or novels that I have found to be bad or that other people say is bad(bit ironic here, but he does read through some of it. That's closer than I've gotten to reading a shitty book/novel).

 

[Krunkcity3000]

Anything from Dan Brown. Pick Your Poison.

 

[SleepyOtter]

Catcher in the Rye.

A classic.

Had me thinking, next page it's going to get good on every single fucking page.

For fuck sake.

It's more of a story you have to "look" for, not just turn the page and *surprise*

Sometimes a book doesn't have to have a unique story or a gripping writing style, writing can be used as an method to get a message across, to enact an understandable idea towards the reader. You have to read between the lines to truly understand what Salinger was trying to say.

But some people don't like that style of storytelling which is understandable given it can be boring, tedious, Cliche and simply dumb in its presentation. Sometimes though, this was the writers intention, to make you question his motives for writing in such a way like the use of the word "Phony" so many times, its a message and Salinger was just bashing into your head a few hundred times to get that message across.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

Anyway whats with all the hate for catcher in the rye, I thought it was pretty good.

Hey, wait a second.
*looks at book on drawer*
I'm reading that book now! What a coincidence...sort of.

anyway I always hear bad things about it in old reviews and such, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Do not let doubters deter you from finishing it. It is quite good and aside from the dreaded incredibly long speech does not deserve half the harsh criticism.

OT: The worst book I have read is This I believe by various influential figures.

 

[glitch388]

Great Gatsby or

The Scarlet Letter.

both equally suicide inducing.

 

[octafish]

Yes, there's some Twilight on here. But I think the biggest offense are the idiots regarding classics as literary junk. To Kill A Mockingbird? The Scarlet Letter? The Grapes of Wrath? Are you people insane? Those books are amazing!

OT: I'd probably have to agree with the Twilight saga, I haven't read it, but if the books are half as bad as the movies, than it is more than deserving.

I know right? I am astounded that anyone could think To Kill a Mockingbird is junk, or any Steinbeck. I'm not fond of Hawthorne, but I don't think The Scarlet Letter is a bad book, certainly not when there are hacks like Brown and Rowling out there.

 

[SlasherX]

Twilight, Bieber bio and em many other sthat I'm to lazy to post

 

[Canid117]

Either Catcher in the Rye or Catherine Called Birdy

If you are not familiar with the second one think Catcher in the Rye (the main character bitches nonstop) only from the perspective of a medieval teenage girl

 

[Boneasse]

Twilight. It appeals only to 13 year-old girls who are usually at the intelligence level of your below average retard anyways, so it barely counts as a book. It destroys vampires, and werewolves, and books... and movies! Stephanie Meyers once said Stephen King was her favorite author and inspiration for writing. He replied by saying he was sorry she said that and that her books were crap. No one likes her, or her work and she needs to go stand in traffic.

^This. I love you.

 

[Zetona]

Either Catcher in the Rye

Oh god I agree with this, I kept hearing references to it everywhere so I figured it must have something going for it and bought a copy. I totally regret it, it's absolute tripe. No story, no bite, no humour, no nothing. The entire book is a complete non-event.

For those who don't know it's about your regular young guy like many of us who's reasonably bright but too lazy to achieve much of anything and looks down on anyone who isn't all bleak and dark like him, professing that anyone who does do anything nice is just doing it for appearances and is a "phony" (this word is used four times on every page).

His brother died sometime ago and he misses him so he skips out of his boarding school and takes a trip sort of no-where for a few days while discussing with himself if life is worth living or he should kill himself. It's basically your average fifteen year-old's diary.

From what I can remember he does not kill himself but neither does he come to any positive conclusion either.

We studied that in school, and it's pretty obvious that Holden is in fact deeply concerned for children; he wants to preserve their innocence, in part to prevent them from entering the adult world he so despises. Catcher, like so many other widely-regarded classics, has very little definite story; the author's message is mainly expressed in the writing.

Ah well, I thought that book was pretty decent, and I thought I'd defend it.

OT: Worst thing I've read recently was a book called Final Theory. It's in the vein of The Da Vinci Code: Einstein discovered a terrible secret and a mild-mannered physicist goes in to save the universe. The writing is pretty shoddy though, also like The Da Vinci Code.

 

[Holyeskimo]

The Great Gatsby, that book bored the living heal out of me so bad i would have rather reread bloodly romio & juilet then it.

 

[supersixfour]

It's nice to see new books like Twilight and Justin Bieber getting hated on before the old classics - like the Bible.

haha i vote for the new testament

 

[ObliviousGenius]

Allow me to contribute "Ferdydurke" by Wiltold Gombrowicz. Google it if you dare. It was a book written in 1932 in Poland and subsequently banned by every political group to pass through, ranging from the Nazis to the Socialists. The particular version I read was translated into English. It won the Best Translation award in 2001 from somewhere, so it's not that the language was "lost in translation." It's supposed to be a superb example of European modernism. I don't get what modernism has to do with torturing readers.

Another perfectly terrible series of books written by a Mrs. Amanda M. Ros. One of her works - the one I am lucky enough to own - is "Irene Iddesleigh." Take a look and feel the pain.

 

[Gidiel167]

The Ruins by Scott Smith. Its one of the few books i threw out after reading it.

 

[Callate]

Of the ones I've actually read (or tried to)- because it's way too easy to point to something by an infamous celebrity- Lisey's Story, by Stephen King. Reminds me of the saw about "This is not a book to be put aside lightly. It should be hurled, and with great force."

After about fifty pages of vagueness, unwillingness to move the story forward into meaningful revelations, and unceasing cutesy references to the title character's marital in-jokes (such as a fondness for using "smucking" in the place of a certain obscenity), I was ready to see the protaganist dragged into the sewer and messily devoured by a monster clown if I had to write one in myself.

 

[GrimTuesday]

Anything by Robert Stanek. He is a self published "fantasy writer" who has all the talent of a brain damaged chimp with a learning disorder. He has hundreds of dummy accounts on Amazon that he uses to write positive reviews for his books and to dump on real, talented authors books.

 

[Thyunda]

The Great Gatsby, that book bored the living heal out of me so bad i would have rather reread bloodly romio & juilet then it.

And I liked reading The Great Gatsby. Can't remember what I liked about it though...been a year or two since I read it

 

[Jfswift]

That's easy. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I hated it, I wanted to burn that damn book but I was forced to read (part of it, I later cheated with cliffnotes) it for class years ago.

 

[Dys]

Why the fuck would anyone go on reading twilight after they'd read into it and established it wasn't for them? Seems rather stupid to me....

The worst book I've ever read was a novel called "walking naked". I had to read it for school, and it was so god awful that the teach apologized and altered the curriculum so we didn't have to write about it.