Worst book you have read

[rockyracoon]

Leading on from chaptazbru's thread about the best books you have read, what are the worst.

Mine are The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, what an absolute boring load of twaddle, this is closely followed by We Need To Talk about Kevin, which I am struggling to get through at the moment and Animal Farm by George Orwell, this I had to read at school and felt like crying everytime I was sat in my English Class.

[ethandron]

Angela's ashes. Dear me, not only a depressing book but a badly written depressing book, in fact it's the most badly written book I've ever read.
When I'd finished it, I decided I was never again going to force myself to finish a book just because of the hype surrounding it. Dire.

[Flyhalf]

Frederick Forsyth's The Afghan, couldn't even bother to skip to the last few pages to see how it ended.

[owdhamer]

My rent book

[naomi24]

I loved Angela's Ashes. Didn't like the follow up though. I've forgotten what it's called.

[EDDIE51]

If I found a book such 'hard going' I would just leave it , I only read book I enjoy.

[DaisyNonna]

Just finished reading Wide Sargasso Sea for my reading group.Wish I had not bothered. As it was quite short I persevered. Wish it had been left as scraps of paper in plastic bags under her bed.

[naomi24]

Daisy, Isn't that a sequel to Jane Eyre - all about Bertha Rochester - or am I getting it mixed up with something else?

[ludwig]

'Tough Guys Don't Dance' by Norman Mailer. I read it about 20 years ago and have been retaining the memory of it ever snce, just in case someone asked me what was the worst book I ever read.
Thank god that's finally happened, because now I can forget about it.

[DaisyNonna]

Naomi, it is a prequel. Tome it just does not make sense. Perhaps someone else has read it and can enlighten me.

[boxtops]

I don't know - if I can't get into any book after the first four pages, In give up. I've got enough I want still to read, without persevering with stuff I don't like.

[naomi24]

Daisy, silly me. Of course it's a prequel. It would have to be wouldn't it. :o)

I haven't read it - but I will, and if I can make sense of it, I'll let you know.

[DaisyNonna]

Thanks Naomi. Would be interested in your opinion.

[boxtops]

I don't like books with gruesome detail - I was enjoying a book a while back, until it got to the bit where someone was vilely tortured. I couldn't read any more, but I kept going back and looking at the vile page, with some evil fascination although it made me feel sick. I gave it away in the end.

[askyourgran]

I always find Le Carre's books hard to get into

[starone]

The trouble is, we read some books because we are told they are good or that they are classics. At the moment I am struggling through a book of new short stories called First Thrills which is edited by Lee Child. I bought it because of his name as I assumed (wrongly) the stories would be good. Most of them are dire. None of them, even the one by Lee Child, are what I would call well written. I have started some of them and not finished them they were so badly written. I cannot write any kind of short story so I suppose I should not criticise, but when I pay for a book I expect it to be at least readable. After all that is what you pay for, the skill of the writer to keep you enthralled. Next stop for this one, when I have struggled to the end, (I hate to admit defeat) is the charity shop.

[nungate]

The Wide Sargasso sea is the story of Bertha Rochester, the mad first wife who was locked in the attic at Thornfield (was it?) where Jane Eyre went to be a governess. The story is told from the first Mrs Rochester's point of view - can't remember it all exactly as its been years and years since I read it. I do remember it starting in the West Indies though - still prefer Jane Eyre

[DaisyNonna]

Nungate, frightened by Jane Eyre as a 10 year old but in an odd way enjoyed it. Wide Sargasso Sea had paragraphs which did not make sense and I could not relate it to what I remembered of Jane Eyre.

[naomi24]

I remember sitting on my mum's lap, aged about four, watching Jane Eyre on television. Bertha frightened me so much, I was nineteen before I mustered the courage to read the book. Now it's a firm favourite.

[andrew1707]

All this reminds me of my manager at Waterstone's, where I worked when I was a nipper.
Whenever anyone came in and asked if we had any Mills and Boon he would answer "Sorry, no, this is a bookshop".

As for worst books: Wuthering Heights (was soooo wet); Silmarillion( It goes on and on!!!); 100 years of solitude(felt like 100 years); Anything by Harlan Coben (The first one or 2 books are okay, then you realise they are all the same characters and plots)

[DTCwordfan]

Chris Patten (2008). What Next? Surviving the Twenty-First Century - summed up in one word, "turgid"

His book on his governorship of Hong Kong, East and West....(1998) was excellent.