Literary Worst of the Worst Thread

[racing_kitty]

Just a couple of simple ground rules...

1: Give a cogent reason why you think the book/author sucked.
2: Respect that one man's classic is another man's garbage. Be as harsh as you wish about the book/author, but keep the sand out of your vaginas if you disagree.

1...2...3... GO!

 

[Dame]

The Return of the Native. Thomas Hardy never should have put pen to paper. He pretty much wrote a drama-for-drama's-sake storyline that rivals today's tabloid TV. The break up and get back together rate is so ridiculous I couldn't follow it even with a flow chart. Hardy (unsurprisingly) had difficulty finding a publisher and ended up placing it in a magazine (Belgravia, a publication known for its sensationalism) as a serial piece. I would venture a guess that Jerry Springer is a big Thomas Hardy fan.

 

[RackMaster]

The book sucks cause it does nothing but glorify Mr. Brown and his sound making abilities. This is nothing but pure hate and bringing the noise "deficient" down. I thought more of Dr. Seuss but obviously the fame went to his head and he doesn't care about his fans any more.

 

[x SF med]

The book sucks cause it does nothing but glorify Mr. Brown and his sound making abilities. This is nothing but pure hate and bringing the noise "deficient" down. I thought more of Dr. Seuss but obviously the fame went to his head and he doesn't care about his fans any more.

View attachment 11728

I have to hate because Theodore Seuss Geisl is a genius... I don't like you Sam, I am...

 

[Totentanz]

Catcher in the Rye - a great American classic about a whiny, shiftless cunt whose only ambition in life is to remain a whiny, shiftless cunt. That's what I've always aspired to be...



I truly never understood the appeal of that piece of garbage. Even at the height of my teenage "fuck you" years, I could never identify with that SOB.

 

[CQB]

I do like his other novellas though, Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenters & Franny & Zooey. Particularly the latter as all three of the characters are well drawn, if you will.
I read David Kilkullens latest, Out of the Mountains, which was engrossing but fell away in the latter chapters. A great premise with good examples but closed it feeling a little unsatisfied.
Currently into Angler which charts Dick Cheneys vice presidency. (Gellman B.) Interesting, but led the reader to a Gotcha moment only to let the reader down.

 

[Salt USMC]

Unintended Consequences by John Ross.
I read this on one very long field op many years, and to this day I still don't know why. Nearly 900 pages of masturbatory garbage about one man's ability to kill hundreds of cops and soldiers with impunity. The book starts off nicely enough - a brief history of gun control legislation up until the 1990's. It's a fairly succinct history lesson. In the beginning, his characters are even a little interesting, though as the book drags on (and it draaaaaaags), Ross' limitations as a writer start to show. Subplots introduced and dropped almost immediately, more highly improbable scenarios than a Dan Brown novel, and generally amateurish writing characterize the latter half of this brick. The last 200 pages really shine, though, as Ross jumps straight into the deep end and concocts this ludicrous battle between the main character and the federal government, armed with nothing more than a 20mm Lahti rifle (that he learned to shoot during his childhood, somehow) and his wits. Whether it's SWAT troopers, armored vehicles, or helicopters, nothing can stand up to this Mary Sue and his magical anti-tank rifle. It reads like some kind of adolescent power fantasy, laced with just enough factual information to keep the book slightly grounded. I could see the book being an interesting read if you share Ross' personal vision, but I think an average gun owner would find this book an oddity on the same level as The Turner Diaries. Okay, maybe that's a little harsh. Ross probably isn't a racist, but there is one character in the book whose presence makes you question Ross' opinions on minorities. That aside, if I had to give the book a rating I'd give it 6 John Galts (out of 10).

 

[AWP]

I deplore most of the "classics" and their authors. The Bronte sisters, even Dickens, their work is boring and their prose dated...and this comes from a guy who once read Shakespeare for fun. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" probably because you were published, Charlie.

I'd say in the non-fiction category it is Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow. I made the mistake of reading it after Sledge's With the Old Breed and these two are apples and potatoes. Leckie was descriptive, but spent so much time waxing philosophically about himself, his thoughts, his opinions...I thought it detracted from the book. I don't need pure "war porn" and was interested in his POV regarding one of the little known campaigns of WWII, but couldn't finish the book because he kept drifting. If you want a look at the psychology of one man in WWII, grab the book. If not, let the reader beware.

Fiction: Dan Brown. Which book? Yes. Honorable mention: Clive Cussler. The former brings cut-and-paste pseudohistory "suspense" to mass media while the latter tried to inject sections of bubblegum and sugar into a "man's man" kind of story. These gentlemen are why I avoid fiction.

 

[Salt USMC]

Fiction: Dan Brown. Which book? Yes.

Sentences like this are why I love you.

 

[CQB]

TBH, I'll give a book about 50 pages, after that...it's a door stopper.

 

[BloodStripe]

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty.

Not that the book is awful, it is absolutely brilliant. However, it scared the ever living fucking daylight out of me. When I was in sixth grade, we were spending Thanksgiving weekend at my Grandparents house down in Tennessee and the house they lived in was a former tobacco farm farmhouse built in the 1800's. In the attic my Grandma had quite the collection of books and I stumbled across this gem while looking for another book. Having never seen the movie because it was rated "R", I was excited to read the book that it was based on as if to say 'f you' to my parents. My Grandpa had turned a corner of the shed into his workshop and so, I spent the next two or three days enthralled in that book, in there and away from everyone so I wasn't caught reading it. Whether my Grandparents was haunted or not is still a highly debatable subject within the family, but after reading that book, I don't think I slept the rest of the time I was there as I swear I kept hearing and seeing things.

Seriously, if you have not read this book, do yourself a favor and read it. It blows the movie out of the water and remains to this day the scariest book I have read.

 

[DA SWO]

Warthog Wrath: Close Support in Afghanistan: War in Afghanistan

The title made it look like the book was written as a historical piece. I never figured out if it was written after interviewing someone, or is actually a fictionalized account of A-10 operations in Afghanistan.

The book jumps back and forth between the main story, and overly detailed explanations of equipment and units. The author could have put the detailed explanations into an appendix at the end, and let those unfamiliar with the military find the data there.

The third person writing style must be a UK thing, as I can not recall an American author writing like this; that style is very distracting. The author seems to have rolled every "Cool Guy" A-10 story into this book.

So much promise, so little delivery.

Someone in High School wanting an Action/Adventure book might like this one.

Soon to be deleted from my Kindle.

 

[racing_kitty]

My personal favorite to bash with all my might is Carson McCullers' waste of paper, The Member of the Wedding. Somehow, McCullers managed to make two days feel like twenty years of my life had been wasted just so I could attempt to read a novel that is more confusing than little Frankie's estrogen addled, pubescent brain. Jumping around the timeline worked for Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction, but that's because he probably read the book and said "This is exactly what I DON'T want to do!" Character development isn't exactly what I would call it, because all you're focused on is that lunatic bag of scabs bitching about her brother getting married. Somehow, she managed to make pre-teen angst about as dry as geriatric vag.

I understand that when reading fiction, a suspension of disbelief is warranted to enjoy the story before you. That being said, there's absolutely no way in God's green earth I'm going to believe that she was able to pull a piece of soldier ass in a bar at the age of 12. Even if he lied about his age to get in, he's not going to have any interest in a girl of that age unless he's some kind of skeevin' pedo freak.

McCullers failed to elicit so much as an ounce of sympathy from me for Frankie's plight when I was forced to read it in high school, and my opinion most assuredly did not get any better with age. The girl wasn't coming of age, she was preparing to make some therapist's Key West retirement plan a reality. I couldn't help but feel a bit jealous of her dear Uncle Charlie because he was fortunate enough to permanently cease metabolic function somewhere near the middle of this crap, rendering him immune from this whelp's neurotic prattle. At least in "My Girl," Anna Chlumsky's character had an excuse, what with growing up living in a funeral parlor. Instead, we have over a hundred pages of twaddle that simply pans out as an ode to Sigmund Freud.

I'm steadily kicking myself in the arse for even thinking that I could stomach this crap twenty five years after it was first assigned on a summer reading list. Unlike Lord of the Flies or 1984, which I could better understand and appreciate after I had a few years' life experience, the only thing that time changed with regards to my opinion of what I consider the worst novel ever written is that this time I was free to punt it off to the secondhand bookstore when I got well and properly sick of it without risk of a failing grade. Classic, my ass.

 

[Red Flag 1]

Just about any,"Jack Reacher" novel. One point five books was about all I can handle. Tom Cruise was of no help for the character either. It was simply ro much fantasy ro be taken for real. Even his "connections" were just too much. One connection was a female 0-7 who took leave time to back him up in a gunfight and such. Just too far out there to ne enjoyable. But then, that's just my $.02.

 

[RetPara]

I'd say in the non-fiction category it is Leckie's Helmet for My Pillow. I made the mistake of reading it after Sledge's With the Old Breed and these two are apples and potatoes. Leckie was descriptive, but spent so much time waxing philosophically about himself, his thoughts, his opinions...I thought it detracted from the book. I don't need pure "war porn" and was interested in his POV regarding one of the little known campaigns of WWII, but couldn't finish the book because he kept drifting. If you want a look at the psychology of one man in WWII, grab the book. If not, let the reader beware.

Fiction: Dan Brown. Which book? Yes. Honorable mention: Clive Cussler. The former brings cut-and-paste pseudohistory "suspense" to mass media while the latter tried to inject sections of bubblegum and sugar into a "man's man" kind of story. These gentlemen are why I avoid fiction.

Thank you. To this I would probably add a lot of Tom Clancy's later works.... they turned formulation based like Cussler....

 

[Dame]

The Archangel Response by Kevin Harmon
Skip it. Unless of course you like "Bill Gates Goes Rogue on Software Pirates" as a story line. It wasn't a truly horrible book until the main character starts trying to defend his one-man nation state ideas on how being a business owner justifies having your own spec ops program. Michael Cavanaugh (the protagonist) has such a skewed view of his place in the world that I'm starting to suspect the author may have some serious issues. With unlimited monetary resources, this game inventor decides to take out the pirates. So of course he builds secret bunkers, and mansions in the middle of Montana with vast acreage around, and still keeps a place in D.C. He figures if Congress won't act on the problems of copyright infringement (like they are law enforcement) then he'll do it himself with lots of very large explosions and some serious log10 bank account cyber hacks. But then, surprise surprise, the bad guys come after his girlfriend. Now the gloves are off. Gaaack! That (Chapter 67) was as far as I read until I had to walk away. That's about the end of the second third of the book. I hate leaving books unfinished but I'm not sure I can go back to reading this when I have just about zero sympathy for a guy who isn't above killing people to protect his gameware copyrights.

 

[AWP]

That sounds like where Google and Apple will be in 5 - 10 years.

 

[LibraryLady]

Mein Kampf. Slogged through it in High School. Why? To this day, I don't understand that sadistic phase of my life.

LL

 

[racing_kitty]

Mein Kampf. Slogged through it in High School. Why? To this day, I don't understand that sadistic phase of my life.

LL

I'm going to go with open rebellion, and the crushing desire to piss people off by being in possession of said tome. Doesn't matter if you agreed or not.

 

[LibraryLady]

I'm going to go with open rebellion, and the crushing desire to piss people off by being in possession of said tome. Doesn't matter if you agreed or not.

It made a wonderful contrast to the Shakespeare I used for light reading around it!

LL