/lit/ - Literature

the Iliad of HOmer

Atlas Shrugged

Lord of the Flies
1984

I couldn't finish either. Holy shit.

The Bible.

The Collapsium

in after people intentionally mention classics

The first Dresden Files. So very boring.

Lord of the Flies for sure. Just hated it. I hate kids though, especially spoilt English ones.

>>677110
I was inbtween people intentionally mentioning classics. Atlas Shrugged: not a classic; really does suck shit.

>>677120
fair enough, although I haven't read it and can't say for myself (and won't decide based on 4chan)

Everybody poops

Jem. Fredrick Pohl. Got it free, doggedly read it all the way through and was mightily pissed.

This thread would be great if people posted what really was the worst book they'd ever read, and not just 'classics that they thought were bad.'

Battle Royale. Jesus christ. Anyone who thinks this book is good owns lots of manga and Battle Royale was their first novel.

twilight. new moon. eclipse. breaking dawn

speak

Possession, by A. S. Byatt.
maybe not the shittiest but the biggest disappointment for sure... was excepting a gread read and ended up with 500+ pages of pure boredom.

>>677162

Is it really bad? I have it here and sort of started to read it, but got annoyed when there were 42 characters to keep track of right from the start so I moved on to something else.

>>677151
Well usually I buy book based on recommendations from other people (or good reviews), and they are usually the classics, so I've never been too disappointed. But Lord of the Flies was way back in school, and we had to read it for English. But I wouldn't choose to read it to be honest. Hate the idea of it, it made me depressed.

Worst book I've ever read would probably be some 'Goosebumps' crap I read as a kid, but I can't remember any of them

>>677151

I read catch 22, every painstaking page, i realize its a classic but still i just couldnt stand it, was for school, the way he wrote was aweful so much repitition it just ruined it for me

>>677162
Funny because that was one of my first novels and I own a lot of manga ,but I hate that book.....

>>677207
>22
COOL DUBS BRO.

>>677096
this (inb4 shitstorm).
In fact I was only reading it because I was paid to and even so couldn't get pass page 800...

>>677216
dude, you're the worst doubles-seeker I've seen.

The White Bone by Keri Hulme

>>677228
>seeker
>ee
COOL DOUBLES BRO, BUT CHECK OUT MY DUBS.

>>677113
wat

>>677203
Give up, seriously. It was made into a fun movie but goddamn. It's written so badly. And hell, what are you expecting to happen?

"Tokiyama groaned. He had been shot with an arrow. Tokiyama collapsed, and Norsikune screamed." etc. etc.

The Breast

>>677151
My honest response was Atlas Shrugged. Seriously. Worst. Book. Ever.

Billy Budd

Catcher in the Rye. Gotta

>>677387
*Gotta be.
I pressed submit by accident with my thumb.

The Reader

>'Worst book ever' thread
>Everyone lists classics

doingitwrong.jpg

The Red Badge of Courage was absolutely terrible, but I really liked Lord of the Flies, so I might have very different taste in books than a majority of /lit/. The fact that I read it voluntarily outside of school might've contributed to that, I've noticed that people enjoy books much more when they have a choice about reading them. My theory is people are more inclined to find flaws and complain about books when they are forced to read it.

http://www.razerzone.com/getimba-share-n-win/uc7fd4v

>>677387
I don't understand why so many people dislike the Catcher in the Rye. I find it to be a great piece of literature, well written, compelling, interesting, thought provoking.

>>677412

inb4 LOL TROLL/>greentext

anything by foucault, he is a boring motherfucker

>>677402
>implying classics are all good

Do you people not read anything unless you're told to?

Worst book I've ever read was probably Automated Alice by Jeff Noon. Maybe The Room by Hubert Selby, Jr... Flicker by someone-whose-name-I-can't-remember. Penny Dreadful by Baer.

Lots of really shitty books I just picked up but had never heard of at the time. Just as many great books came of those trials. Go outside your safety zone, dipshits.

>>677417

>implying classics can reach levels of shittyness as something like Dale M. Courtney's Moon People

lol wut

Ethan Frome. I know it's a classic but it is by far the most boring book I've ever read. I got so angry reading it that I actually ending up finding the ending funny, BECAUSE THAT WAS EXACTLY WHAT I WANTED TO HAPPEN.

Superfluous description of a pickle jar does not a good book make.

>>677427
>ending up

ENDED up. Whoops.

>>677427
What are you, 15?

I can't really think of the worst, but I was thoroughly disappointed by The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

>>677431

I was when I read it, I'll admit that.

had to read House on Mango Street for AP Lit years ago. thought it was the worst disjointed stream -of-thought bullshit i'd ever read. ...of course, the AP Lit class was composed of myself (male), one of my male best friends, and about 8 girls and the pseudo-feminist religiousfag teacher. ...and the day we discussed that book, my friend was sick.

nothing quite like sitting in a circle listening to a bunch of gushing high school girls faun over a piece of literature that you thought was utter crap. at that moment i knew exactly what the boy felt like in the Emperor's New Clothes fable.

tl;dr: House On Mango Street sucks fat balls.

Whenever I see a thread like this, the first thing I do is press ctrl+f and see if anyone has already mentioned Wild Animus. I recently got a good laugh from reading the Amazon reviews of this book, check them out. This must be the shittiest book ever written.

>>677433
you know what I take that back. Atonement by Ian McEwan is the worst book I've ever read

Lisey's Story. Tried to read it 3 times, never again.

faust

don't get me wrong, anon. i fuckin loved the book before the homunculus born, but after that part i couldn't handle all the meaningless shit going on until the war.

it may be because of the translation but i didn't even understand that 100 pages long part. and i don't even remember a thing besides the ugly whore is revealed to be the mephisto. i fuckin said "wtf am i reading" when faust's child -or sth like that- was born.

are there anyone who agree with me?

>>677207

Fucking A. I didn't even finish it. I stopped around 210 or 215. I tried to do it, but fuck it. I didn't care enough to deal with it.

The Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King. Fantasy novel that sounded like it was written by a fourteen year old.

>>677456

Yeah, translations really fuck up all the poetry and rhyme.

The same happened to me with the The Divine Comedy, these are books meant to be read in the original language it was written.

Woman Warrior. Fuck you, Hong Kingston.

Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Some Oprah-bookclub (probably) piece of shitty writing. I'm a Britfag, who was forced to read it for my Literature course. It's clumsily written, every sentence is long and it's like reading throuugh sludge. Horrible read. Feels like it's trying to be a classic.

John Dies At The End, followed by Rant.

Fuck those books.

Gamer Girl

Twilight.
derp.

>>677497
---->bookrags.com

>>677095

FUCK YOU!

Great Gatsby

Talking in Whispers

Popular book of choice for the UK's GCSE's because it's a simple politically themed book.

Directionless crap with 2 dimentional characters and the subtlety of a sledgehammer

>>677505
Pretty much this. You can all talk about how boring you found some classics, but you must confess they're not SHIT like Gamer Girl is.

>>677207
I hope you fucking rot.

Across Five Aprils. I don't know why but this book really sucked and the teacher made us watch the movie.

the few chapters of hitler's bullshit

followed by randoid gibberish, but not in book form

Woman in Black. Did it for GCSE and my god was it terrible. Susan Hill cannot write suspenseful prose for the life of her.

>>677521

Euch name dropping to connect with your target audience is horrible

>>677250
>Norsikune

Okay I lold

Atlas Shrugged

>>677532
>>677519

Wonder how many people's worst books are ones that they were made to read for exams.

Having to read a shitty novel is always made worse by them having to write essays on it that explore it in minute detail and bullshit about some hidden depth that isn't really in the book.

I've never read a book I considered particularly horrible.

kite runner

Definitely "Torch" by Lin Anderson. My God that was awful.

>>677517
Gatsby gets too much credit from being in the mandatory reading so long for no other reason than "it's a classic." It's a fucking soap opera set in the '20s with some great writing--overrated.

>>677415
Agreed.

>>677496
I kinda like this book.

>>677497
I agree with most of this but I've since reconciled my mostly negative viewpoint of Toni Morrison with the fact that her inelegant (I would argue) writing lends itself to the really harsh and ugly subject matter.

The Sound and The Fury

Toni Morrison - The Bluest Eye

fucking piece of shit, had to read it for AP Lit. Most awful book I've read in 4 years of high school english.

Faulkner is pretty overrated IMO

niggertits

BOLO!
A scifi anthology, about giant self aware tanks fight for humanity.

Sword of Truth series.

invisible nigger

Return of the Native by Thomas fuckin' Hardy.

The Divine Comedy

>>677836

I will FUCK YOU UP for talking that trash!

>>677521
This some girl said it was good i now never take advice from girls like her again

Can I be let in on the inside joke for Gamer Girl? I mean I had never even heard of until 4chan, and it doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry. Doesn't even have one!

>>679288
Oh, on the first few days one guy showed /lit/ the book and a few excerpts and we laughed/raged alternately about the book and Mancusi. Then some guy started to email her questions and it turned out she was a really chill woman who wasn't pretentious or anything. So everyone felt bad.
But the book still sucks.

>>677394
>>677433
I like these posts.

>>677521

This looks really excellent.

Gamer Girl? I'm going to go buy this pronto.

gastby can suck my dick

>>679295

Scrotum McBoogerballs

>>679330

ScroTIE McBoogerballs, you illiterate plebe.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Fucking hated that book. I mean.....it's kinda sad that we sort of have to pat black people on the head and say "Umm...sure, yeah, you guys can write good too, here i'll put a nice shiny star on your book and call it a classic! Dont you feel better now?"

Book sucks though. It's about an ungrateful bitch who is treated like a goddess in a time of total poverty, but yet finds something to bitch about it, and finds getting in touch with her inner goddess or some shit way more important than just surviving while even white people were starving to death at that time.

>>679333
tomato tomatoe scrotum scrotie, fucking faggot

This is the worst book I've ever read.
I didn't read it for school.
It was -almost- alright, for a paranormal romance until
*spoiler* The vampires are descended from the Atlantians, who were highly technologically advanced before their home sunk into the sea. Vampires actually have nanobots swimming around in their blood stream, keeping them at optimal physical condition. The problem is the nanobots use blood to power themselves, and they use more blood than a human body can produce repairing the body from aging and sunlight exposure, and that's why these vampires drink blood.
I raged, hard.

>>677497

Just finished reading Tar Baby. She is *trying* so hard, and I just wanted to hit my head on the wall. Worst problem was my prof was freaking obsessed with her.

I don't have a particular 'worst book', though I can recall the most disappointing book I read recently. False Gods, by Dan Abnett.

Mein Kampf

>>679351

Hit send on accident. Anyways, it held the pivotal moment for the Warhammer 40K universe, Horus's downfall. I expected LEGENDARY heroic tragedy, especially after Dan Abnett's work with the first book. Was SEVERELY disappointed. Felt way too rushed.

>>679344

Paranormal Romance should have been your first clue not to expect much.

catcher in the rye

The Shining. Fuck you if you like that book

Catcher in the Rye,

I'm with a couple of people in this thread, especially the ones saying that they couldn't finish Catch-22, but the worst book? I'm sure I can't recall, as I've started a lot of trash that I knew better than to finish.

Cold Mountain.

The writing was bland and stilted. Couldn't feel a hint of sympathy for the characters, and was glad when it finally ended.

Sword of Truth - Terry Goodkind


Jesus fucking christ. The mere thought of that trainwreck fills me with the fucking rage of a thousand white-hot searing suns of hateful fury.

As I Lay Dying. I'm from the south and I can't understand a fucking thing Faulkner writes.

Pern series

I ragequit halfway through the first book.

Twilight, obviously.

Veronika Decides to Die.

Boring characters, boring premise, pro-Christian undertones.