So as you get older, you find less time for reading, and therefore you’re more annoyed when you end up having read a book that absolutely sucked. So let’s help each other out.

Post the books that just aren’t worth reading here, and why they sucked so hard. Link, rant, bash and argue to your hearts’ content.

(Obviously, exclude Kenneth Eng, Maradonia, Twilight, and Inheritance.)

Speaking of Phillip Pullman, I was very much tempted to chuck The Tin Princess at the wall. I’ve mentioned it once, I think.

I couldn’t finish it, one of the main characters seemed extremely fixated on the protagonist, who was called “The Cockney Queen” or something like that. She was probably a raging Mary Sue.

:/ This was probably a few years ago. How vague my complaints are.

ooh. But it’s a classic! (haven’t read it yet, by the way)

I find that pretty much anything that has a cover where the author’s name is larger than the book title. Exception is for Stephen King, of course, and this conversely goes double if the author is completely unknown to you.

I’ve had some bad experiences with bargan-bin author’s-name-larger-than-title books. Especially those where the name and title are embossed and picked out in flaking metallic gold paint.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. Almost everyone else I’ve talked to has loved that book, but I hated the ending. Nice job introducing some complex moral quandaries and not freaking resolving them!

headdesk

Commiserator!

cue tears of joy at finding another

It was set up very well, but then the ending just sort of… flumped.

Into fluffy killer snow.

YES. There was no emotional closure. I mean, I’m not saying it has to have a happy ending with fluffy bunnies hopping through sparkling meadows, but even depressing endings need to have closure!

YES. And there was NO CLOSURE! ARGH!

And honestly, Catcher In The Rye.

No! But it’s so random and funny. “I think I’ll give Jane a call.”

The Giver by Lois Lowry.

I love that book. =( But, yeah, the ending could’ve been better. I couldn’t get throught the sequel though.

Okay, so on to books I don’t like.

Mergers. It sucks, a lot. It’s an interesting concept, but the writing is aweful. He writes people’s thoughts in italics and uses quotation marks around them. His characters (even the supreme ancestral wise people) are immature and sort of stupid. It’s ver much kidified.

Maximum Ride: The Final Warning (and all in the series that follow this one). It has next to nothing to do with the plot of the first three books, and it’s quite obvious that the reader is being talked down to and manipulated. It’s a soap box, nothing more.

Born Blue. It started out okay. I felt bad for the main character and all. But then she got older, and her problems were the result of her own stupidity instead of poor circumstances. She’s just a very inconsiderate person, and I hated her as the novel wore on. Her childhood was screwed up, but I still couldn’t excuse her being so aweful and annoying.

The Invisible Man (not Invisible Man). It’s really boring. It just is. It’s best summed up in the Book-A-Minute (I think it’s by RinkWorks), which says, “I turned myself invisible… and it SUCKS!” That’s basically the whole story.

Amandine. It’s another one of those where I have about zero respect for all of the characters. It’s just so, shivery. I don’t like it all.

I will post more as I think of (and read) them.

Also, most books on a Scholastic Book Sale list. Some are good, but most are cheap crap.

This. Most of those are the ones with the stupid looking teens on the cover. I usually avoid books that have pictures of actual people on the cover. It depends on the picture, but when they are just standing there looking stupid, I just don’t feel enticed to read more.

If you don’t like romance (or the, I wanna say 1800s), don’t read Pride and Prejudice. I really do not like it at all. I don’t like that time period very much though. Yes, I know that’s when Jane Austen was alive, so that’s what she wrote about. It doesn’t make me like it anymore. I do, however, recognize that it is well-written.

/rant

I tried to read Sherlock Holmes once, did not care for it.

Yeah, I had trouble with that, too. Then I tried Pickwick Papers. It was interesting.

Tell me about it.

Or we could just do more reviews for II.

I’m working on a few now.

The Inspector returns!

The Inspector returns!
X

Hey, someone noticed I was gone. That never happens….

I noticed you were gone when you came back…

It’s great that you didn’t disappear into the cyber-vortex forever, like a lot of other old members…Corsair, MegaB, and all of them.

That was lovely, Moldorm.

wipes away single tear

Yeah, because he actually had a life, methinks.

Did I already say Heart of Darkness? The “then he was dead, then he wasn’t” thing reminded me of it.

I picture books in my mind as I read, like a movie. Heart of Darkness was like all the actors were walking around in the dark and mumbling. I couldn’t tell what was happening or if Kurtz was dead or not.

I’d dislike that part of Holmes stories more if I were better at guessing whodunnit. I read mysteries for entertainment, not for brain workouts. Does anybody else do this?

I suspect everyone possible to suspect, and I’m still wrong on every count!

If that’s the case, I should guess Agatha Christie’s every time.

Ever since reading The Series of Unfortunate Events I learned not to read book series more then 8 books long. I found TSoUE just a big repeat, after the 8th book I gave up on it, it got too predicable, every book just a repeat.

And Gloatia read them, so that’s a de-incentive.
Uhm, anything by Scott O’Dell if you are creeped out by the fact that the guy has a penchant for writing fiction from the point of view of young Native American girls. And the angst is tedious.

Magic Tree House

They hold a special place in my heart as the series that got my sister to love reading. She hates them now, but whatever. XD

Island of the Blue Dolphins

I haven’t read that book in forever, but I vaguely remember it being one of my favorites. Methinks I’m overdue for a reread…

_{Um. The Host is actually quite good if you don’t mind a slow plot mostly focused on romance and surviving in a desert. Which I don’t. I’m not saying it’s flawless, but I *koff*reallyenjoyedit*koff*}

What did you want to happen?

YES LYK, SRSLY. IT’S THE BEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD.
;)

The whole bodysnatching thing just reminded me of Animorphs.

Otherwise, though, the Host was much better than Twilight.

Agreed. There was a point when I actually liked The Host, but then I re-read it and found it to be rather… Mmph.

ATLAS SHRUGGED.

That is all.

Don’t even get me started. Ayn Rand is a terrible person and a worse writer.

I hate Ayn Rand as well. She’s a terrible writer. Her plots are ridiculous, her characters are unlikeable (she thinks that Mary Sues/Gary Stus are good characters because they’re larger than life), and her philosphy basically translates into barbarism (the strong take from the weak).

Well, I guess that was life under Stalin’s rule…I always felt sorry for her because of that, but I’ve heard from others who have read her work that all her characters are perfect and pretty and BORING.

EDIT: I loved Gatsby too…I couldn’t help but falling in love with Gatsby and his optimism, gangster business be damned! They’re having a Gatsby-themed party at one of the sororities weekend after next…I kind of want to go, but I have no idea what I’d do there.

I know! I tend to over-analyze my work and not get anything done.

I read Gatsby for school last year and loved it. Still do.

For some reason, it’s up to comfort-reading status now. I have no idea why. The decline of the Great American Dream isn’t exactly comforting.

Also, without Gatsby, The Wire would either not exist or be notably different.

Splendour. Horrible. I couldn’t make the head nor tail of it. It’s just a bunch of “romance” stories all bunched up together to make one full story that’s supposed to have connections with each other. I didn’t see any connection or I was too overwhelmed with high societies to understand what the heck the author’s trying to say.

How so?

Gatsby’s story has a lot of overlap with a number of Wire characters involved in ‘The Game,’ in that the endgame they have in mind for themselves involve leaving the streets behind and using their drug money to build real lives for themselves outside The Game. They can never really escape, though, because the things they did on the streets always catches up with them.

In S2, one of these characters even gets a little speech about it. Has spoilers and language, though.

I feel really bad for Goths. They’re usually stereotyped and misrepresented in the wider media.

"They’re usually stereotyped and misrepresented in the wider media."

I think you would be hard pressed to find something the wider media doesn't stereotypes and misrepresents, but...yeah. Poor Goths.
Also, although I find it unlikely that someone here will come across them, since they are not translated in any language I know about besides my own, I need to rant a bit about the Uma Aventura books. It's a long running series about a bunch of kids who solve misters along with their pets (now, where have I seen that one being used before?). Good writing and grammar and such, but the plot keeps repeating over and over and over for over forty books. Not to mention that the authors ripped off Enyd Blyton and twisted her characters and plot-lines in every way they could think about, to the point that the poor woman must be turning in her grave from shame.