Name three books you hated that everyone else thought were terrific

[XemaSab]

1. Nickel and Dimed. I thought she sort of created a self-fulfilling prophecy by not staying longer in each place she moved to. Moving is expensive, and of course you're going to be ridiculously short on cash when you move to a new town, much less working minimum wage when you get there. Furthermore, all the people she worked with... how well can you get to know someone in a month? I think it would have been a MUCH more profound book if she had spent 6 months in each place, working each job. Doing it for a month makes her a tourist.

2. Collapse. I thought there were some flaky things in Guns, Germs, and Steel, but I also thought there were some good ideas. Collapse was just BAD. After the chapter on Easter Island I put the book back on the shelf and never finished it. The whole question "What was the islander who chopped down the last tree thinking?" would be much more profound if he didn't state that all the tree seeds found had been chewed by rats, and would be even more profound if palm "wood" was good for anything, which it isn't, because it isn't really wood. He just gets on a tangent and only presents stuff that supports his idea.

3. Cryptonomicon. The main (male) characters were one dimensional, the women were just there so the men could get laid (except for the ex wife and the two old women), there were HUGE numbers of typos, and he used the word "interstitial" 7 times. All that and there were whole 100 page sections that were boring as shit about random, nerdy, Aspie topics like Turing machines. :snore:

So what say ye, DU? :D

[Jade Fox]

1. I can think of two...

Mystic River. I read a glowing review, and it wasn't until I was near the end that I realized the book was never going to get good.

One Hundred Years of Solitude. Maybe it's the title, but I tried three times to get into that book, and failed.

[XemaSab]

3. One hundred years of solitude

Went ON and ON and ON... and the part with him having 17 sons with the same name who all got killed? Like WTF?

[femmocrat]

9. I hated that book! Never finished it.

"Love in the Time of Cholera" was so good, and "100 Years" so disappointing.

[crim son]

11. Wow. I absolutely loved that book.

I'm looking at it on my bookshelf right now. Sometimes it's just a mood thing. The mold and tedium which practically sprang from the pages suited me very well at the time I was reading it.

[EFerrari]

13. I did, too. In fact, I loved every word of his work.

He was a POS but he wrote like an angel.

[crim son]

16. I have an affinity

for Latin writers, and Russian ones. These people are so deeply human, so passionate, that it overwhelms me. The French, on the other hand... "Les Miserables"? Heaven help me have the patience.

[EFerrari]

18. I'm hooked on magical realism. But, you're right. I liked

the Russians, too, and I think that's because I'm a Latina and the culture felt familiar to me.

[Shakespeare]

43. Are you talking about Garcia-Marquez???

Good lord, I have the great fortune to meet the man a few years ago, and found him delightful. He's also a hardcore leftist.

[XemaSab]

15. Maybe it's less interesting

if your life is tedious and your bathroom moldy? :shrug:

[crim son]

17. Possibly!

I read it in the middle of summer, friendless, lonely, in a small town in Maine. I related to the humidity and most assuredly the solitude. :hug: I wish you a bit more excitement and a dab of bleach.

[amitten]

14. Five hundred thousand million bazillion years of solitude.

That was MY name for that book (hated it)!!!!

[yellowdogintexas]

2. Moby Dick, Catcher in the Rye, and anything by Ernest Hemingway

although he gets props for his love of cats

[EFerrari]

6. Anything by Hemingway, Moby Dick and ?

DaVinci Code? I got exactly two pp in and gave it away.

Hemingway bores the hell out of me. Moby Dick I'd probably like if I wrestled with it.

[idgiehkt]

10. 3rd vote for Moby Dick

I loved Catcher in the Rye and I was working with Holden Caulfied at the time (a prototype) which totally freaked me out completely.

The Fall of the House of Usher was stupid and needlessly perverted.

I don't know why I veer off toward short stories when I start talking about this stuff, I remember them better than novels.

I've liked everything that I've read by Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Maybe not loved, but liked.

The last book I remember reading that I just outright loathed was one by Dean Kootz I can't remember the name of.

[Cygnusx2112]

4. Atlas Shrugged

I don't know if "everyone" thought it was terrific, but about 500 pages in, I realized what tripe it was.
But I kept plugging on...

Add on to that an ~80 PAGE soliloqy by John Galt and its all I could keep from :wtf:

No more will I pick up 1000 page books by someone I've never read before...

[ThomCat]

20. Atlas Shrugged was predictable, dogmatic

and not even a particularly good story. It was 2 dimensional and preachy, but it didn't bother to see beyond it's own preaching.

I read this book and could not believe that people thought this was profound.

[XemaSab]

5. Oh, and Diamond is a really bad writer too...

His writing style is very stilted and awkward, and he has trouble distinguishing between FACTS and OPINION.

[femmocrat]

7. The DaVinci Code

Ulysses
Lady Chatterly's Lover

I don't read much fiction.

[Mz Pip]

63. Definitely agree on the DaVinci Code

Boring, linear no real surprises. Mrs' Jesus had a baby. BIg wow. :eyes:

Mz Pip
:dem:

[WhollyHeretic]

8. I think I'm going to get into trouble here (at least for one)

Interview with the Vampire -I had about 20 pages left put it down and never picked it back up again. I just didn't care. I'm a voracious reader and I've never gotten that far in a book and not finished it.

Managing and Maintaining a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Environment -People kept telling me things like "it's a laugh riot" or "thrilling action" But I just don't find it all that exciting. :shrug:

Here's the one that gets people foaming mad at me

1984 -I like dystopian novels but didn't enjoy this one. I didn't like the characters, the writing just didn't grab me.

:hide:

[crim son]

12. Everything by Ann Rice AFTER Interview With A Vampire,

all books by Dan Brown, anything at all written by E.M. Forster. Even his biography bores the hell out of me.

[ThomCat]

21. I agree. Ann Rice spiraled downhill, and Dan Brown sucks.

[crim son]

22. Sweetie, is there anything we don't agree on?

:hug:

[ThomCat]

38. Probably.

What's your opinion of Tofu? :P

:hug:

[crim son]

41. I like it and eat it regularly.

I guess this spells the end of our friendship, huh?

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

42. Have no fear. He is a vegan.

[crim son]

58. Oh. Right there

I have found we do disagree. I can't live without roast lamb.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

59. He won't lecture you on it.

Thom's even nicer in person than on DU (and he's very nice on DU).

Edited for stupid grammar.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. I hated Cryptonomicon, too

What a boring, disorganized mess.

Everyone assumed that I'd like Snow Falling on Cedars, because of its Japanese-American connection, but I didn't. I'm not sure why.

Let's see, the third. I've read so many bad mysteries, that it's hard to pick just one.

[Fenris]

23. 1. The Metamorphosis.

Of all the books I have disliked, this is the only one I threw across the room 5 times. What most people find to be an interesting existential parable, I find stupid.

2. The Scarlet Letter. To be fair, I know a lot of people who hate this book. But because it's considered a classic, I have to assume *a lot* of people like it. Tedious, dry, and dull.

3. Song of Solomon. This is the worst book I've ever read, hands down.

[LostInAnomie]

26. I agree with "The Metamorphosis"

I've never been too impressed with existentialist literature though. I like that philosophy but not the reading material.

2. Candide - I've always just thought it was kinda silly. Voltaire has always seemed to be good for catch phrases and slogans but not really for deep philosophy.

3. Guns, Germs, and Steel - Too simple.

[WildEyedLiberal]

24. Huckleberry Finn

I think if I'd read it when I was 12, I would have loved it. But as it was, I read it in high school, and the constant reaching efforts of my curriculum to make the book a big treatise on race relations just ruined for me what was obviously a book aimed at kids. I just hated the dialect, hated everything about it.

I also hated The Great Gatsby. What a dull, pretentious book. Also overdiscussed and analyzed in my lit class. Hell, maybe if I hadn't read these books in lit class, I wouldn't have hated them... who knows.

[trackfan]

25. If I hated it, I probably wouldn't finish it - but then it wouldn't be

fair to say I hated it, since I wouldn't have actually read it. What a paradox.

[Cygnusx2112]

28. That was my dilema...

I hated Atlas Shrugged about page 500, but couldn't actually say I read it, if I bailed.

I slogged thru the additional 500, 600?, 700? pages and now can say with certainty it sucked. :)

[gkdmaths]

27. The first three books of

the bible.

but you knew that was coming.

/gkd

[XemaSab]

30. I almost forgot:

I didn't care much for LOTR.... dull, dull, dull... too uninteresting to inspire hatred. :P

[gkdmaths]

32. Hey Now!!!!

thats crossing the line a little, doncha think?

;)

[XemaSab]

33. No, I don't think

Furthermore, that would have taken up all three books right there, and would have left no room for Cryptonomicon, which wasn't just boring, but offensive and poorly written/edited as well. Well, more so than Tolkien. :P

[gkdmaths]

34. well, it would have all made sense if

you'd just read the Silmarillion.

Really.

O8)

on edit: I should add that, when I was in middle and highschool, my friends and I would write the requisite 'notes' in elvish, strictly following Mr. Tolkien's well-documented rules. Of course this was exceedingly juvenile, but hell, we could.

[XemaSab]

35. That's what they said about the Hobbit

Book #4 on my list of top three most boring books ever.

[gkdmaths]

36. Okay, I will give it to you.

but remember, you're talking to a guy who reads The Merck Index and J. Chem. Ed. for fun - W.V. Quine's Mathematical Logic sits next to my toilet for some light reading when necessary.

:o

I heard the most beautiful birdsong yesterday outside the lab and I wanted to tape it so I could ask you what it was. Whatever it was now rivals S.neglecta as my favorite flier.

[XemaSab]

40. Was it fluty, bubbly, whistling, or what?

What's the habitat like? :shrug:

[gkdmaths]

56. it was in a 40 year old rhodie under

an elevated skywalk between two concrete five-story laboratory buildings.

it was really bubly and melodic, long winded but broken into non-repeating parts. I saw a little guy fly out of there, but it was what my kind of birder calls an LBB (little brown bird).

sorry!

[XemaSab]

57. How bout the Winter Wren?

http://www.birdnote.org/uploadedFiles/Birdnote/2005/April/041205-WIWR-KPLU.mp3

[gkdmaths]

62. Hey, yeah!

its a pretty good match by song and visually. I've never paid that much attention to the wren to understand its song. Troglodytes troglodytes just moved up a few spots on my list.

:thumbsup: thanks!

[gkdmaths]

69. And here's your raccoon head

Sorry, its the only one I could find that wouldnt alert the FedEx guy that he might be handling a significant biohazard via the odor.



:7

[WolverineDG]

47. Sticking up for XemaSab

I tried & tried & tried, but I could NEVER get past the first few chapters of the first LOTR books. :boring:

I tried so hard & so often, I've got a "Go Directly to Heaven" card. :P Damn, that book drove me nuts!

dg

[XemaSab]

52. I stuck it out

Because I was like "this HAS to get better."

But it didn't. :P

[Oeditpus Rex]

29. Only one I can think of is 'The Shipping News'

Horrible, horrible writing.

I actually liked the movie better.

[EFerrari]

31. That was a great, freaky movie. Beautiful, too.

[peacefreak]

37. I agree with you on that.

Tried 3 times to read that sucker. Hated it. Spot on about the movie.

[annonymous]

39. I absolutely hated The Hobbit.

I gave up after 100 pages. Other overrated books of mine include The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy which I found terribly boring, and Wuthering Heights by Charlotte Bronte? I had to read that one in high school and found Heathcliff to be totally creepy.

[idgiehkt]

48. the Prince of Tides was hard to follow for me

and really unbelievable too.

Wuthering Heights wouldn't have done it for me if now for the arm raking across the glass part, that kind of hooked me in.

[Calliope]

49. Obnoxious pedant here

It was Emily Bronte. But I agree with you. I still don't understand why Heathcliff is supposed to be such a romantic figure

[WolverineDG]

51. You might like the Thursday Next series

by Jasper Fforde. One of the books (Well of Lost Plots) pretty much rips "Wuthering Heights" to shreds.

dg

[yvr girl]

44. The Bridges of Madison County

I'd heard so much about it, and couldn't understand the hype after I read it. The author never found an adjective he didn't like. It was so tiresome.

[kwassa]

72. I was laughing so hard after the first chapter that I upset someone

who loved the book.

I never made it farther than that.

[Shell Beau]

45. Anything by Dan Brown

[Richardo]

74. Right on, Shell

:thumbsup:

[KFC]

46. Harry Potter, Harry Potter, and Harry Potter

I read the first one in about an hour. Third grade level crap.

[XemaSab]

53. You are dead to me.

:P

[Raster]

80. Have you read any of the others??

Betcha you'll change your opinion. My favorite so far is the fourth. Dark, very dark.

[WolverineDG]

50. Bell Jar, Catcher in the Rye, LOTR series

The DaVinci Code (dear god, he would always stop the action to go into PAGES of exposition); ironically, I'm one of those weirdos who liked the movie better (except for Tom Hanks' hair.)

Anything by Ann Rice (dear god x 2, I once counted about 25+ pages of some old vampire philosophizing about being a vampire, when all I wanted him to do was STFU & get on with the damn story) :boring:

I know that's more than three but I don't care. :p

dg

[TimeChaser]

54. Let's see... I couldn't stand The Great Gatsby

I don't like the Hobbit, even though I love everything else LotR related. I've read the Silmarillion three times :D

Hm... can't think of a third right now. :shrug:

[Liberalynn]

55. Know it is a Classic but the "Grapes of Wrath"

I understood the metaphor between the Okies and the turtle crossing the road, who kept getting knocked over, but three pages of the turtle crossing the road?

I know it's lesson was important, and it was a great issue book, but I have to confess, I thought it was the most boring thing I ever read.

I couldn't even make it through the movie! Confessed to my 11th grade English teacher, that it was a struggle for me to complete the assignment. She was disappointed because she said I was one of most enthusiastic sutdents about the classics, and she was really surprised I hated this one.

Love books and reading and even have loved many of the classics, and other Steinbeck novels like "East of Eden" just not the Grapes of Wrath!

Didn't care for the Red Badge of Courage either by Crane!

[skygazer]

60. The Horse Whisperer

The guy who wrote it knew nothing about horses - the behavior portrayed was ridiculous. It was a love story (or something) set within a horsy milieu. Very bad.

I'll add my vote for Moby Dick - never been able to slog all the way through it.

And I've never thought The Pet Goat was good enough to justify ignoring 9/11.

[RetroLounge]

61. Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace

as big a three books, 3 times worse than anything else, totally a slog-fest of pretentious writing and amazinglyly annoyinng and long endnotes.

anyone who says they read the whole thing is lying. or needs to get a life. or just has Infinite amounts of patience.

RL

[jane_pippin]

65. Thank you--I hated that monster too.

I stuck it out for 400 pages. 4-fucking-hundred pages of masturbatory, go-nowhere, neo post-modern (excuse me a moment, :eyes: ) plotless drivel hiding under some kind of hipster boy-genius cred, or who knows what. I had to stop, and I rarely give up on a book. Generally, even if I don't like a book, I finish it in case the ending or the book as a whole changes my mind. Not this one. It's one of 3 books out of a lifetime of reading I had to just give up on.

Oh, and some guy tried telling me that I "just didn't get it." Yeah. Because I'm an idiot, right? :eyes: I got it pal. I just thought it was utter crap.

[RetroLounge]

66. "just didn't get it."

I just love that condescending reply...

I got it, it just sucked ass, and you thinking you got it does NOT make you cool...

:hi:

RL

[jane_pippin]

68. Ha ha! Exactly. But you know, he had a point...

it's a big book for a little lady to stuff in her tiny brain all by herself.

Speaking of big books, have you checked out The Children's Hospital yet? It's the best thing I've read in years, and I feel like I'm on a mission to get people to read it. I don't even like to say what it's about because half the joy of reading it is letting the story unfold while thinking, "Oh my god, is this what I think this is? Oh man, this is what I think it is!" So, I'll just say it's a beautiful, apocalyptic, epic and I know you'd like it.

edit: girls can't spell. :D

[RetroLounge]

71. Not yet, but it just went on my list...

I GOTTA stop giving all my money Schwatrz :rofl:

:D

RL

[jane_pippin]

77. I didn't say you had to *buy* it--just read it.

It's at the library. (Though I think there's a short waiting list for it).

Of course, if you want to give your money to your local indie bookstore, far be it from me to stop you. :D

[InvisibleTouch]

64. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

I'm a big sci-fi fan, and an obsessive reader who finishes almost everything she starts, no matter how awful - but this one, I just absolutely could not get through. Tried several times.

And I'll add my vote for anything by Hemmingway. He writes like a third-grader: "See Spot run." How anyone could consider this "classic" material, I'll never understand. But then, I like a more florid and descriptive writing style. And I tell myself that if someone who wrote like Hemmingway could get published, then surely I can too!

[tinfoilinfor2005]

67. My friends were all oohing and ahhing about James Patterson.

I read one of his novels while on a holiday last year. It was pure drivel. Yuk. What a waste of good reading time.

[pitohui]

70. i guess i'm the official aspie of this thread

didn't read the other two but i loved cryptonomicon, what a terrific story!

and those folks downthread who didn't enjoy infinite jest, what the hell? that's the book you take to the desert island if you are allowed no other books, that is it, that's everything, the story of the 80s, the story of america, the story of addiction -- everything!

and someone couldn't follow the prince of tides? what's that about? a great book but not exactly one of those books you read with a code and a map in your hand -- what's to "follow?"



the only book i can think of offhand that i didn't like that everyone supposedly liked was the pandering piece of shit ender's game

i'm sure there are others but when it comes to books, i find the ones that stay in the mind are the good ones not the bad

aha, thanks to the poster who reminded me of ann rice, a wonderful lady who has done so much for new orleans, but i just can't read her work, i'm glad others like it though and allow her to give to the preservation society etcetera -- she is just not to my taste altho i know her heart is in the right place -- i like her super short stuff (the first beauty book, the interview with a vampire) but i feel books that are primarily porno/sexually charged need to be short for obvious reasons and once she got into the long drawn out stuff it just got to be too much for me

ok, and another shout-out to the person who pointed out james patterson is drivel, that makes it three! he sure is, thank you!

[iconoclastic cat]

73. Sister Carrie, Tough Guys Don't Dance, Already Dead, Confederacy of Dunces

and so many others.

[mitchum]

75. "Gravity's Rainbow", "The Corrections", "Prozac Nation"

[philosophie_en_rose]

76. The Bible (mainly Old Testament); DaVinci Code; Dune

After reading the OT, I remain completely flabbergasted by freeper censors that are so offended by sex and violence. Gruesome stuff right there.

I read the DaVinci Code at a friend's house while waiting for pancakes. It was okay, but not anything special.

Dune was unbearably dull, dull, and dull. Did I mention dull?

[boobooday]

78. Bridges of Madison County

Totally putrid. :puke: Lame, stupid, chauvenist.

Anything by Hemingway.

Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving (I think that was the one) pissed me off at the end and left me feeling betrayed.

[lettre de cachet]

79. Trees

I like many of Anne Rice's books, but while I'm reading them I keep thinking, "Please don't describe the trees again." She goes on and on about trees and I have to skip paragraphs.