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.

[bensmum]

The Da Vinci Code - absolutely unreadable! And I've never read any of the Harry Potter books so can't comment on those. Shame you read a spolier for "Kevin" rocky, I thought it was one of the best books I've read although certainly not the easiest.

[Kiki-frog]

Naomi - my sister bought a Barbara Cartland novel when we were teenagers, and passed it on to me. We ended up amusing ourselves by counting the times in the book Babs described her heroine as 'ethereal'. It was several hundred times, which we figured was a healthy percentage of the total word count.

[naomi24]

Funny you should mention books you can't get into, em. I never could get into Catherine Cookson. I've not managed to finish one of her books.

[naomi24]

Kiki, love it! :o)

[Arksided]

I'm not big on throwaway airport books but the worst I've ever read was by Lawrence Sanders 'McNally's risk', which although not a classic was simply painful reading.

[Bambiagain]

Kiki, I wonder if Barbara Cartland actually understood what "ethereal" means.

[nungate]

Time Travellers's Wife - tedious! Lucky that I am a quick reader so I didn't waste too much time reading it, and Gone with the Wind - after a few pages I began to dislike Scarlett O'Hara and gave it away, then best beloved won a copy at a meeting of the Film Society and gave it to me and I felt obliged to read it - I still loathe Scarlett and can't abide the film either.
I'm sure there are other books out there that I loathe but none spring to mind at the moment

[Kiki-frog]

Bambi - I believe that according to the Dame Babs Code of Literature, 'ethereal' is defined as 'blonde; blue-eyed; slim; under 20, or 25 at a pinch (these modern gals gadding about having careers and higher education - pah!); slightly impoverished through no fault of her own, but not so much that she can't afford to look gorgeous and keep her armpits shaved; and knees glued firmly together until the C of E vicar gets to the 'I now pronounce you man and wife' bit; whereupon she suddenly becomes a Marchioness. Easy really.

[craft1948]

lol Naomi the first Mr Craft reckoned I could be on Mastermind with The Life and Works of Catherine Cookson..............as opposed to knowing anything about housework.

[Bambiagain]

Kiki - are you sure you only read the one of hers?

I did read Georgette Heyer when I was young and thoroughly enjoyed her books. When I made the mistake of trying Barbara Cartland, I found the books to be thinly plotted, badly written imitations of Heyer.

[Kiki-frog]

Oh yes, and I forgot to add the bit about being menaced by a dashing and handsome cad and bounder.

[naomi24]

Craft, I struggled to get past a couple of paragraphs of Catherine Cookson, and I'm pretty much the same with housework. Neither are to be reckoned amongst my favourite pastimes ;o)

Kiki, bodice-ripping bounder, if you please. ;o)

[Kiki-frog]

Bloody hell, Naomi, did Dame Babs do bodice-ripping? I never read that book. Excuse me, I'm just off to lie down in a darkened room with a lavender water-soaked lace handkerchief upon my fevered (and very ethereal) brow....

[Prudie]

As an adult I just gave up on the books I hated but the ones I had to read that I hated at school were Kim. Animal Farm, Pride and Prejudice (sorry), all Dickens, The Kon-Tiki Expedition, L'Etranger and most of all Kafka's Metamorphosis.

[DaisyNonna]

Da Vinci Code hard to beat in awfulness stakes. Never managed to finish any Tolkien. Not too keen on Alice in Wonderland

[paddywak]

I'm a bit like tilly, in that I rapidly forget the books I didn't like in fact the only one I can think of is Gone With The Wind.In the early 70's I spent nearly six months bed bound in hospital following an accident I eventually exhausted the hospital library, a trolley with about 100 dog eared paper backs, the only one left being GWTW. I struggled through it untill my mum and dad arrived for visiting and I persuaded dad to nip down to the local news agents and pick up several books and threw GWTW away. It was terrible.

[tearinghair]

I've never been able to read Dickens, Prudie; we 'did' Great Expectations two years running (because of a change of O-level syllabus) and it put me off for life.

[emmie]

agree about The Da vinci Code, a load of old tosh, there have been others, so unmemorable to escape me completely.

[bensmum]

I'm so glad it's not just me who doesn't like Dickens - was almost afraid to admit it, lol.
I couldn't read Alice in Wonderland DaisyNonna - I found it very disturbing

[DaisyNonna]

Craft, not sure but think the bloody elves quote may have been C.S.Lewis. One of the Oxford group anyway.