Worst Books You Have Ever Read

The Maze Runner was godawful.
Poor Mormons, their best authors are thrown under the rug while their worst are thrown into the spotlight
 
Arthur Staaz said:
Has anyone mentioned Left Behind?
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I could only endure about fifty pages of it. It was atrocious.

One of the worst reading experiences I've ever had was with Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. I loved Do Androids of Electric Sheep and was expecting to really enjoy A Scanner Darkly, but I absolutely hated it. The main characters were just too Beavis-and-Buttheadedly stupid for my tastes. The sci-fi elements -- the scrambler suit, for example -- were the only interesting part of the novel but they felt arbitrary, as though they'd been tacked on to a boring real-world memoir of life as a wastoid as an afterthought. The experience has made me hesitant to read more of Dick's novels, though I'm sure that sooner or later I'll recover from the trauma and check out some of his other work.
 
Pharpetron said:
One of the worst reading experiences I've ever had was with Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly. I loved Do Androids of Electric Sheep and was expecting to really enjoy A Scanner Darkly, but I absolutely hated it. The main characters were just too Beavis-and-Buttheadedly stupid for my tastes. The sci-fi elements -- the scrambler suit, for example -- were the only interesting part of the novel but they felt arbitrary, as though they'd been tacked on to a boring real-world memoir of life as a wastoid as an afterthought. The experience has made me hesitant to read more of Dick's novels, though I'm sure that sooner or later I'll recover from the trauma and check out some of his other work.
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I loved A Scanner Darkly! As a former wastoid myself, I thought the parts you hated were very funny in a sick way. And the sfnal conceit is sheer genius, a perfect vehicle to take you into Dick's traumatic, distorted psycho-thematic world.

Of the five Dick novels I've read, it's a toss-up whether A Scanner Darkly or Martian Time-Slip is my favorite. I liked Do Androids Dream..., but didn't think it was as good as the above two. The first half of The Man in the High Castle is great, but after that I lost interest. Ubik is supposed to be one of his best, but it seemed mediocre to me. But A Scanner Darkly! Anyone who has ever been a druggie or hung around people like that should read it. It's hilarious, brilliant, twisted, and sad.
 
Pharpetron said:
One of the worst reading experiences I've ever had was with Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly.
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Come on, A Scanner Darkly rocks and so does the movie. There was also a comic that used stills from the film written by Harvey Pekar, but I had not read it yet.
 
Last book I actively decided not to finish was Trout Fishing in America. It wasn't really that bad. There was some decent prose and imagery in it, but somehow it just felt, after a few chapters, utterly pointless to go on reading. I felt like Brautigan didn't really have anything to say, he just wanted to write a book, so was putting together enough words to be able to say he had done so.
 
I hadn't the gall to finish American Gods. Sadly I've only been able to enjoy Gaiman's Sandman and Coraline
 
In regard to PKD:
Back in the 80's, after "Blade Runner," Dick's novels were reprinted in pb on a regular basis. It was wonderful.
At a bookstore with my friend, Bill Harris, I said, "I could use a new Dick book." Bill replied enthusiastically, "Man, I love Dick."
At this point I noticed a middle-aged woman looking at us with an appalled look and then quickly moving away.
After that I always referred to Dick as "PKD."
 
I've heard about that name causing all sorts of confusion and embarrassment, like recently a seller at a convention asking a girl "do you like Dick?" then being immediately horrified when he realised how that sounds. I think some fans even jokingly refer to themselves as "Dickheads". There was a fanzine called For Dickheads Only.
 
Yes, I have read this book in its entirety.

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By grand central station i sat down and wept by elizabeth smart. self-indulgent guff at its worst.
cider with rosie by laurie lee. yawn.
i used to proofread laymon novels for hodder. didn't like any of them. one, think it was called 'teeth', was kinda child porn masquerading as horror.
yes, agree that american gods was very poor.
as discernment has grown, don't really pick up too much bad stuff nowadays.

whoever hated incarnate by ramsey campbell, i thought it was kick-ass. brilliant 'weird' novel. got a soft spot for ramsey as he was one of my childhood routes into horror, along with stephen king and peter straub. also loved american psycho and carrion comfort (albeit crap title).
 
While I feel Night Shift represents Stephen King's best short work, "The Mangler" is one of the stupidest things I've ever read.
 
The Yearling by Majorie Kinnan Rawlings was dull and foully-written. Puts the ass in modern classic.

I did admittedly cry when a certain character died, but that doesn't make the novel any better. Being kicked in the genitals would make one cry.
 
The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
by David Bentley Hart

An attempt at Christian apologetics to, yet again, prop up a benevolent God in the face of a natural catastrophe - a tsunami - that claimed the lives of a quarter of a million people in 2004. He says absolutely nothing, eloquently, for about 100 pages. Hart is not only delusional but is a pompous ass. He'll casually dismiss Voltaire for taking a literal meaning of a Bible passage, and then a few pages later do the same thing himself. The one thing I remember most is his saying that he would never tell a man grieving after finding his wife and infant daughter drowned, and still clinging to each other, that it is all part of God's plan. A few pages later, that's pretty much what he says. This is the type of person who could wander through an Ethiopian famine stepping over starving and emaciated infants crawling on the ground being pursued by vultures, and all the while gazing lovingly towards heaven. Despicable.
 
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Romance usually is, sadly (there's probably good stuff out there, but I'm not interested enough in the genre to look too deep into it).

The two worst book I have ever read so far are "The Magicians" by Lev Grossman. Pretentious, angsty and boring. It was marketed as a "Harry Potter" for adults. HP's only redeeming quality is it's whimsy. The Magicians couldn't even get that right.

The other one is "Plein Ciel", by Siecle Vaëlban. It was the first time I felt insulted by a book. I expected a lot from it (I enjoy the Opera imagery and original worldbulding) but the characters made no sense, were rewarded for it (!) and there were also a nauseating take on "reverse racism" that really bothered me. The pacing was terrible and the writing felt extremely dated and unnatural.
I hope it will never be translated, but it gained a price for "Best french fantasy YA novel" and I just... don't understand how that happened.
 
Once upon a time, many many years ago, I was in a place that ANY book was a welcome diversion, and good ones were few and far between. So desperate for reading material was I that even the Bible was read cover to cover! It was fairly bad, overall, but I read worse, and they are mercifully long forgotten.

Although I like quite a few books by William Burroughs, 'The Ticket That Exploded' was terrible... borderline unreadable.
 
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