The grapes of wrath. I hate read that in about 5 days in HSchool and still cannot stand it. The other books we were assigned I enjoyed…but this motherfucker, nope.
I thought reading The Grapes of Wrath was like watching Requiem for a Dream - I’m glad I did it once, and I will never do it again
The Bible!
It did cause the world a lot of harm.
For me personally: Triton. I remember reading it 25+ years ago. I really had to fight through it, after circa half of it I put it away and never touched it again.
So remarkably not my favorite book that I still feel the exhaustion when thinking about it.
Foundations by Isaac Asimov. It’s a great story but it’s a tough read. Way better as an audiobook.
I like it but i noticed while reading it that Isaac Asimov has such an optimistic 1950s view, it can be challenging to keep reading with such limited conflict.
I really enjoyed the first three: they were pretty obviously just a bunch of short stories set in the same universe. The later books where he tried to write actual novels were not great though. He could do great short stories, but IMO wasn’t much of a novelist.
David Weber, Out of the Dark.
The book has an excellent premise: an alien invasion by technologically superior forces where not even asymmetrical warfare (guerrilla warfare) works. Humanity was getting it’s arrogant arse kicked all over the planet.
I guess David realized he bit off more than he could chew, because the premise was working itself into a multi-book series. So about halfway through that book he employed a Deus ex Machina by pulling the most perfect opponent to the alien invasion out of his arse: vampires.
Yes, vampires. a force that so perfectly neutralized all of the alien’s advantages that the second half of the book amounts to teenage revenge wish fulfilment as the vampires steamroll the aliens back into orbit - and then eliminate them in orbit - by riding on the outside of their escaping shuttles. Because vampires don’t need to breathe.
I got so disgusted at the lame-arse way of avoiding a truly great story that I nearly threw the book across the room. I forced myself to finish the book to see if it got any better. Spoiler alert: it didn’t.
And now, a decade-plus later, he’s released two sequel books.
smh facepalm bridgepinch sigh
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Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaos. I was expecting a nice fantasy story with dragons and shit. But the romance part of it was just so annoying. “Oh look that dude is so hot…” at every. single. occasion. I could’ve known beforehand that this book is more targeted towards female readers, but sometimes I just like to go to the book store and buy a book based on the blurb. Since then I made the new rule to keep my distance to books that mention TikTok or #BookTok on the cover.
I had the same experience! It HAD to have been astroturfing. The reviews were simply glowing but it’s honestly one of the worst books I’ve ever read. It’s not even so bad it’s good, it’s just page upon page of cringe cliche.
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I recently hate-read Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I had started reading it twice and stopped after a few chapters. I am aware that the book is meant to be satire, but the point of satire is to be to the point instead of having to slog through 600+ pages of drivel.
“Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer. I read it in high school so maybe I wouldn’t hate it as much as I do if I wasn’t forced to read it, but the plot is basically about a booksmart kid who decides to leave his rich parents and society behind to live in remote Alaska. The book follows Chris McCandless along his journey from the Eastern part of the country, through the South, and finally up the West coast and to Alaska (hitchhiking mostly). When he gets to Alaska, instead of actually being prepared and realizing the risk, he goes into “Into the Wild” incredibly unprepared - he ends up having to stay at his remote camp well into the spring because he didn’t consider all the snow melting would render the river blocking his path back to society completely uncrossable. He ends up dying because he ruins most of a moose by failing to properly smoke the meat, and eats a poisionous plant out of desperation. Obviously this could have been avoided by just doing the proper research or bringing extra food (he only brought a few pounds of rice, and the guy who drove him to his final stop literally told him it was a bad idea to do this with so few supplies and only a .22 rifle). Basically his horrible death could have been easily avoided if he wasn’t such an idiot.
The author clearly had a ton of respect for the guy, because he spent a year or two peicing all this together. He spoke about Chris (the unprepared trancendentalist wannabe) with a great deal of reverence, acting like he was a martyr for a cause unclear to me. Why you would want to spend years of your life in an attempt to immortalize an idiot, I am not sure. The author also decided to randomly interrupt the main story with a few chapters about his own moronic adventures, which made an already bad book worse.
When I was a kid I absolutely loved The Chronicles of Narnia and I hated The Last Battle. I thought King Tirian was an unpleasant asshole and I thought killing the Pevensies sucked because they all go to Narnia Heaven forever while Susan has to bury them.
It probably wasn’t a bad book but it felt like it ended my childhood.
I’ve read some utter wank in my day, but the one that first springs to mind is Fault in their Stars by John Green.
A tossup between books 7-10 of the Wheel of Time series. I gave up half way through book 10 and resent the time that I wasted on the series. 20 years later I still recall the desperate hope that the next chapter/book would advance the storyline, only to be greeted with more subplots, stupid things happening because of characters inability/unwillingness to communicate, and overly verbose descriptions of every little thing.
I hear the final books, written by a different author, were much better.
Imo, it’s worth getting to the end at this point… You’re already past the worst. Brandon Sanderson finished the series and if he does anything well it’s building an avalanche of a climax.
Equus. Was forced to read it for highschool English literature class. Never again.
I saw it as a play, and it was amazing. Never understood why English teachers have students read plays. The whole point of a play is to have it performed. It’s like trying to teach swimming in an empty pool.
Bible.
