What is the worst book you have ever read?

[GoodSarmatian]

If the series as a whole was bad enough to get mentioned here, why would you ever keep reading long enough get to the last book?

That is really strange. I understand it if a series declines in quality with time and you keep reading (or watching, or playing) because you're already invested and want to see how it ends, all the while hoping that it will improve again. But how can one get invested if part one is already bad ?
Speaking of series, I finally remembered a book that I really didn't like but voluntarily read from start to finish: The Ringworld Throne.
The first Ringworld novel was excellent, the second was decent, and I don't remember much about the third except that I was really disappointed.

And speaking of SF classics, honorable mention for Stranger in a Strange Land for the sueish characters, the cheesy free love stuff and general values dissonance (mostly sexism). The latter can be somewhat forgiven (but not enjoyed) in a 50+ year old work. But a character who is an ultra-rich genius author with three doctorates ? Really ?

 

[Akka]

Hmm...the Eragon series, particularly the last book. Pretty much all of the Twilight Saga...but again particularly the last book.

The question begs to be asked : what took you to read Twilight, and why would you continue to read a bad serie when you already disliked the several first entries ?

 

[Kyriakos]

The question begs to be asked : what took you to read Twilight, and why would you continue to read a bad serie when you already disliked the several first entries ?

Cause it is always darkest just before dawn?

 

[Akka]

Cause it is always darkest just before dawn?

But it's TWILIGHT ! It's the opposite of dawn, it's only going to be darker by definition !

 

[Lohrenswald]

But how can one get invested if part one is already bad ?

Spotting squandered potential

 

[Terxpahseyton]

In the case of a very successful series like Twilight, the hope for improvement or the seeking of assurance that it all really is as bad as the first book. After two or three books you may know the answers, but then you have already sunk so much into it that you may as well go for the satisfaction of completion.
Another possibly is the desire to be familiar with the entirety of a cultural phenomena.
Just speculating. Haven't actually done this.

But even though I am certain Twilight or Fifty shades of grey is bad, I still feel a slight urge to read it, some day.

 

[sophie]

If the series as a whole was bad enough to get mentioned here, why would you ever keep reading long enough get to the last book?

Eragon: I read the first two when I was a dumb middle schooler with poor taste. The latter two came out after I realized the series was a bad Star Wars rip-off written by a 16 year old but by that point I was invested enough in the series that I felt obliged to finish the series simple for completions' sake. Same reason I watched Shyamalan's Avatar adaption even though I knew that movie would be total garbage.

The question begs to be asked : what took you to read Twilight, and why would you continue to read a bad serie when you already disliked the several first entries ?

But it's TWILIGHT ! It's the opposite of dawn, it's only going to be darker by definition !

As for Twilight, I hate-read it for a girl. The first book is bad, but not like, offensively bad. Unlike the 2nd/3rd books in which Edward turns into a straight-up controlling, abusive ******* boyfriend and the series becomes an apologia to feminine subservience. Or the 4th which is a big anti-abortion screed. Also glorifies pedophilia and child-bride grooming? Eugh.

 

[Ferocitus]

The Bible is pretty terrible too actually. And I have to admit to not finishing that one.

You obviously read it incorrectly.

A SHORT REVIEW OF THE BACKWARDS BIBLE

The beginning is really exciting: the damned and the blessed are
taken from Heaven and Hell and placed on Earth, then a thousand year
reign of GOOD! (tm) followed by a thousand year reign of EVIL! (tm),
with lots of monsters running around bringing dead people to life and
creating mighty empires from rubble.

Then the monsters are locked away in their pits for all time, the
Seven Seals are put together, and an angel blows a trumpet, ending
the lives of billions at a stroke.

All that's a prologue for the main book, in which the Romans take a
dead man out of a tomb and bring him to life on a cross. After a bit
more healing, he is put on trial and released. He celebrates with a
First Supper with twelve friends. Later, he shrinks down into a little
baby, and gives gifts to three wise men.

In the second half of the book, Moses erects a golden calf for the
Children of Israel to dance around, then takes away the rules his
tribe has been living by and gives them to God on a mountaintop.
He then leads the tribe out of the Promised Land, through forty years
wandering in the wilderness and finally into slavery under the Pharaoh.
(This seems to be a criticism of middle management.)

Towards the end of the book, there's a list of "begats" chronicling
the decline of world population. Ultimately, there is only one couple
left, who leave a life of hard work to retire in a tropical garden.
God turns them into clay, then destroys the Earth, then finally
destroys all form and is utterly alone.

Kind of a bummer ending, if you ask me. Maybe you'd like it if you're
some existentialist weirdo. To each his own.

 

[sophie]

The Bible is pretty terrible too actually. And I have to admit to not finishing that one.

Maybe The Bible?

Y'all read it in the wrong language.

 

[Mouthwash]

Y'all read it in the wrong language.

I can tell you that's definitely true.

 

[Kyriakos]

But it's TWILIGHT ! It's the opposite of dawn, it's only going to be darker by definition !

Iirc the titles progress, eg to "Breaking dawn"?

 

[Arakhor]

I remember being rather bored by Book 6 (I think it was) of the Wheel of Time. A 61-page prologue is utterly ridiculous, even if you have a lot of reading time on holiday.

 

[Kyriakos]

I remember being rather bored by Book 6 (I think it was) of the Wheel of Time. A 61-page prologue is utterly ridiculous, even if you have a lot of reading time on holiday.

Iirc the prologue to The Possessed (Dostoevsky) is no less than 3 chapters long. Reading it takes the kind of time during which Kyrilov would just die in the closet from lack of oxygen.

 

[Ferocitus]

I haven't read WoT, but my family read most of them.
Did one of the male characters spend huge amounts of time in the bath,
avoiding housework or something like that?
If so, I think I know why my partner threw the book down in disgust.

 

[Gori the Grey]

I had to think about this for a long time, because I usually don't stick with bad books.

But I read this Poul Anderson book, can't even remember it's name, where the characters were Brawn, Brains and Beauty. It was schematic like that. They had names, but even they referred to themselves by those classifications.

They were on a planet inhabited by fungi, or spores, and if I recall correctly some main plot development depended on the fact that fungi are half animal and half plant or reproduce asexually or something.