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Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Poll: Worst Page Turner (Nominations Needed)

What is the worst book you just couldn't put down?  

They're the books you hate to love (or maybe love to hate). But even though you couldn't stand them (or maybe you just knew you shouldn't be enjoying yourself), you just couldn't stop reading them. Whether they were deliciously bad and you grudge fucked those pages with your steely eyeballs, or it was more like movie popcorn, and you just didn't notice one handful of nutrition-less mouthful after another until you had finished the entire bag.

The Rules:

You may nominate TWO (2) books. Obviously the fifteen books you hate can't all be the worst. Any nominations you give me beyond your first two will be ignored because I'm a bad human being. (Though I will count them as "seconds" if someone else nominates the same book.)

As usual, I leave up to you what "worst" means. Trashiest? Worst written? Most train wreck plot? Biggest let down because people told you it was great? I'd rather be inclusive.

You may, and SHOULD, "second" as many of the existing nominations as you wish. Nothing will go on to our poll if its trashy awfulness doesn't have a second.

Note: While I technically take nominations from anywhere, you should make a comment to this post. Comments left on social media where I cross post (like my Facebook page) don't tend to get seconded there because they are so quickly buried beneath ever spewing content.

147 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. All of the Harry Potter books! I felt like a sucker walking around reading a "kid's book", so much so that I went out of my way to get the versions with the adult covers lol. But I just couldn't put them down. One after the other, I just lapped them up! lol

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  3. Twilight.
    Meyer writes in an a captivating way and I spent the whole series for the moment Bella grows a spine.
    I could see it when she bought the motorcycle, but then it got ripped away again.
    And I thought, "Oh, she found a spine and now she will need a trigger to push her to war so she stands up to Edward"
    Instead I got a supernatural tales of Domestic abuse

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    1. Second third fourth fifth whatever Twilight. For me it was really just that the writing style was awwwwful (like something I might have tried to write in high school) but I still wanted to know what happened.

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    2. For me it was the cheap ass ending. They all had plot armour so thick they never really WERE in danger. Cheapened the whole series for me.

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  4. All of the Twilight books, especially the fourth (I nearly threw it across the room, there was a horrible glaring grammatical error right at the end of a chapter and it was the last straw). I still don't know why I finished them. The only explanation I can think of is horrified fascination.

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    1. Twilight is the definition of 'love to hate'

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    2. I second this. Saddest part is they were the only books I've read TWICE. I feel like I'm admitting a cocaine addiction. For the record, the second time was even more torturous...but I also read them faster. :-(

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  5. Every novel of the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich. One for the Money had interesting characters and a good plot, but each following novel has less and less plot and more repetition. But I'm addicted to the Ranger/Morelli dilemma.

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    1. I hate it, but you're right. The love triangle kills me. :( It IS funny. But no great plots.

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  6. It - Stephen King. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks

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    1. Noo not it by Stephen King where you just too scared?

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    2. Personally, the pre-teen gangbang at the end ruined It for me.

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  8. The Corrections. I hated every character. I hated the plot. I hated how self-satisfied the writing was. I stayed up into the wee hours of the night three nights in a row hating every single word of that book.

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    1. Second. I hated every character; I only finished it because I wanted to witness their shitty-life-suffering. I wanted all of them to wind up face down in a flaming garbage heap. Franzen's "voice" makes me nauseated.
      (And that was before I knew what a douchecanoe he is personally.)

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  9. Ice Station - Matthew Reilly. Worse than a Michael Bay blockbuster, more implausible than Fast and the Furious movies, but I still had to finish it.

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  10. I refused to read Twilight based on the reviews it was getting so I'd have to say Da Vinci Code. I read it in one sitting but the historian in me hated every second of it as I could see so many issues with it. What made it worse was that it was written in a way that made all the conspiracy theories believable.

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    1. Second the Da Vinci Code. You beat me to it. The characters were cardboard - I kept picturing those life sized photos of actors with the author jumping behind one then the other reading the lines he wrote. And, yes, to what Helena said. Very unbelievable. But, I kept turning those pages.

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  11. Eat Pray Love! The most self indulgent rot I have ever read

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    Replies
    1. Have to agree but a quick read on a sunny avo with nothing else yawn

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    2. Second that! And Big Magic as well. Guilty pleasure AF

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  12. Definitely the Twilight series. Devoured the whole set in a matter of days and didn't realise until the end of the last book that I'd hated every second of it.

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  13. The Pretty Little Liars series.

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    1. I'll second that one. I kept saying "this is so bad," but I also kept going. The show has the same effect.

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  14. Dreamcatcher - Stephen King

    Definitely the most 'why am I enjoying this?' book that I couldn't put down.

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    1. This. I felt so betrayed reading this book.

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  15. Severed - Simon Kernick

    Because I needed something to read on a long 2 leg flight and grabbed it in the airport bookstore. Exhilarating page turner where the protagonist has to try and figure out if he's a murderer or if he is being framed. Way out there, garbage, disturbing, but I finished that thing before I landed at my destination. I have no idea what happened to it.

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  16. Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
    The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

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  17. L. Ron Hubbard - To the Stars. There's a book in desperate need of an editor. There are some interesting concepts, but they're buried under too many poorly written sentences and shoddy, cardboard characters.

    I got stubborn and had to finish it. It's mostly interesting for the book it could have been, had it been competently written.

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  18. 1. The Fault in Our Stars (I read it a few years before the movie came out, and though I could not put it down, my brain kept going "why are you reading this crap?")
    2. The 100 by Kass Morgan (This is the only series for which I would say this, but - after watching the TV show, the book was a great disappointment. But at least I stopped myself from reading the remaining two books in the trilogy.)

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  19. 1. The Fault in Our Stars (I read it a few years before the movie came out, and though I could not put it down, my brain kept going "why are you reading this crap?")
    2. The 100 by Kass Morgan (This is the only series for which I would say this, but - after watching the TV show, the book was a great disappointment. But at least I stopped myself from reading the remaining two books in the trilogy.)

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    Replies
    1. I felt the same way about Looking For Alaska. I reached the end in two or three days, and then went, why did I read this?!

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    2. Oh lord. Looking for Alaska. For SURE! I hated it more than that last twilight book or the 50 Shades where you find out Christian was messed up because he was abused by a sick old lady!!! (Was that the second one?? IDK???)

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  20. City of Dark Magic by Magnus Flyte. I hate it, hate it, hate it, but my eyes wouldn't stop reading it.
    In the same fashion, Inferno by Dan Brown. I hated that I couldn't put this awful book down.

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  21. Replies
    1. Also agree had the potential to be good, but all to predictable

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    2. I second this. Could've been so much better, but had a TV-movie ending. So disappointing.

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  22. An oldy, but a goody, in a bad sort of way: The Beach.

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  23. Stranger in a strange land. By R. Heinlein. Absolutely despised the entire book, grokking and all. Immediately threw it out, and feel horrible for even finishing it.

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    Replies
    1. I got on here to trash Twilight like everyone else, but Stranger in a Strange Land is 100% the correct answer.

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  24. Sookie Stackhouse Series by Charlaine Harris

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    1. I second Sookie Stackhouse. It's like Twilight for adults. I kept reading book after book until finally a female character understood and forgave a male character for raping her while both were locked in a trunk: he just couldn't biologically help himself, you see, and besides, it's different for male vampires because they neeeeeeeeeeeeeeed it.

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    2. Yes! Another good example of interesting characters held back by poor writing!

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    3. yes every Sookie Stackhouse novel after the first book was utter tripe--
      but, alas, I kept reading, minus the last book.

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    4. This is what I came here to list. It was all good when it was one psychic and one vampire, but then it was werewolves and werepanthers and witches and fairies and vampire politics and fairy wars,and on and on I read until I could read no more. So, did she end up with Bill or Eric?

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  25. The Twilight Series and the Fifty Shades of Grey Series - I read both from start to finish, desperately waiting for the female character to grow a spine, or a pair of balls - jeez, ANYTHING would have been better than the "woe is me, I'm not complete unless I'm being eaten / beaten to within an inch of my life"
    I also the read the most god-awful book ever in the history of books but cannot remember the name or the author. I picked it up at a book swap somewhere in the Caribbean. The story takes place underground where a bunch of people are hiding out - there are zombie-like killers / predators with voracious appetites above ground; and as they travel through the maze of underground caverns, they discover mutant crocodile / alligator / dinosaur things, giant squid, massive vampire bats. There's a coming-of-age struggle as well as a forbidden romance in there too. Pretty much every single story line you have ever read, all rolled into one sad sad sad book. If anyone recognises the plot and can name the book, I'd be most grateful!

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    1. Aggressively seconding Fifty Shades of Grey. I only put it down to laugh at the atrocious writing and to let my blood pressure drop from the sheer frustration and anger of how romanticized the abuse was.

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    2. Second for 50 shades of grey. I read the first book to see what all the hype was about and I was baffled by how much buzz it got! I didn't care to read the other 2 books because I didn't want to torture myself with such bad writing!

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  26. #1 The Da Vinci Code. A colleague insisted I read it, saying it was a real page turner, so I kept turning pages waiting for it to be good.
    #2 The last of Jean M Auel's Earth Children books, something about caves. So bad I forgot the title. Repetitive and more repetitive, a major disappointment. But then again, I haven't read Twilight, or FSOG.

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    1. The land of painted caves. I agree, I loved the earlier books, but as the series progressed it got bogged down by the descriptions of caves and sceneries. The main character also became too Mary-Sue for my tastes. Still, I wanted to know how it ended, so I kept reading.

      Also, Twilight, which has been mentioned a million times already.

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  27. 1: American Psycho. I really hated every character, they were so annoying and frustrating, and the writing style is horrible. It's trash and I don't say that because of the murder or the sex, but because of the quality of the text.

    #2 Fifty Shades of Grey row: Although they all are written very badly, with the most boring female protagonist ever and with a very problematic sex moral - no, I don't mean BDSM and kinks in general are immoral, but there are many incidents when he is rape-y -; although this, it's easy to run through them.

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  28. Second American Psycho! Augh, what a nightmare. But the passages about pop music were compelling.

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  29. 1# The Catcher in the Rye. It elludes me how much people praise this book. I strongly disliked the main character and I hardly felt like anything happened throughout the story. It's just another angsty teenage novel with the only difference being that Rye js fifty years ahead of its time.
    2# I'm going to have to say what everyone else says and go with the Twilight Series. It's horrid, but Meyer still manages to captivate, maybe because the story is such an impredictable trainwreck that you can't not read how it finally derails and kills all in a fiery explosion of a bad climax

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    Replies
    1. I hated Catcher In The Rye but my reason for not putting it down is that I was reading it for high school english so I kinda had to get through it. Otherwise I'm sure I would have given up. So I'm not sure that really counts for the purpose of this poll :)

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  30. London Bridges by James Patterson and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.

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  31. Son of Rosemary, by Ira Levin comes to mind. After Rosemary's Baby I was so eager to find out what happened next that I kept reading, plot twist after unlikely plot twist right up until the utterly disappointing end. And then I threw the book through the room.

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  32. The manitou- Graham Masterton. Love these books. Proper pulp

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  33. I agree with the Twilight series on here. I still have no idea why I ended up finishing the series, but I found I just had to. Also, and I'm ashamed to admit this, but 50 Shades of Grey. I started reading it and just knew what I was reading was garbage but finished it anyways. It was a horrible depiction of the BDSM lifestyle with repetitive phrasing ("Don't bite your lip", "My inner Goddess", etc.).

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  34. 1) Twilight
    2) The DaVinci Code

    We should have Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer fight to the death in the Thunderdome, because seriously, this planet ain't big enough for the two of them.

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  35. So Timeless. and timely. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LLZ723K/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

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  36. Inferno and The Lost Symbol. Overrated, with flailing plots and overblown mysticism. Couldn't believe Dan Brown had to resort to playing with flimsy theories and populist conspiracies. And the structure of the books became quite predictable after his first 4 (and frankly, much better) books.

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  37. Eragon. I just... didn't even bother finishing the series because I stopped caring about what happened and which villain we were against now. But I read the first two in a flash. Ok books, but so clearly carbon-copies of the kid's favorite authors.

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  38. The Hunger Games and The Outlander Series. Horrible stuff but I could not stop reading them!

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    1. I liked the first 2 Hunger games books, but I despised Mockingjay.

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  39. This horrible Sci Fi thing called White Light. My husband never throws a book away - he BURNED this one.

    And The Da Vinci Code.

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    Replies
    1. You made me laugh out loud about your husband burning the book. I haven't read it, but as someone who cringes at the thought of hurting a book, I know that speaks volumes! (pun perhaps intended)

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  40. The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Melleck III. Read it for a book club, haha.

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  41. The Divergent series. While I read them, I thought they were fantastic, even better than the hunger games, but by the time the movies came out, I'd realized that they just... weren't good. They still gave me some major feels, though, so I guess in that sense it wasn't that bad

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    1. I will second these - I read all three over Spring Break.

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    2. Didn't mind the first two, but Allegiant had enough holes in the plot to drive a truck through, and the ending made me regret ever starting.

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  42. 1. Fifty Shades of Grey - Analysis of Archetypes, Blah, Blah, Blah... Mommy Porn... They lied...
    2. Gone Girl - I have never hated every character and page, but needing to get to the end, so much...

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  43. Since the criterion includes "read the whole damn thing," I have to go with DaVinci Code and Bridges of Madison County, which was so bad, I literally, not figuratively, fell out of bed laughing at it. (Just FYI, I have a FB page on this very subject: The Parker Awards. Stinko books that should be thrown with great force.)

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  44. "Confederacy of Dunces." I had to read it in college. Just so bad. I'm currently trying to get through "The Night Manager."

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  45. Swan Song by Robert McCammon. Over rated, poorly written, plots full of holes, basics of science just ignored. I felt compelled to read all 956 pages always hoping it would become more cohesive but it didn't. Worst "dystopian" novel I've read and I've read many.

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  46. Ian Fleming's 'Casino Royale' for me. It's the only James Bond novel I've read, and honestly it was total trash but it was entertaining and I felt kind of guilty for being entertained by it.

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  47. White Gold Wielder, by Stephen R. Donaldson. by the time the sixth book came out I could care less about the so called hero.

    Shannara Series by Terry Brooks. Read the first book, couldn't be bothered to read the hot mess that followed.

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    Replies
    1. Second "White Gold Wielder". Really the whole trilogy was shit.

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    2. Yes to both. Especially White Gold Wielder.
      Just starting to realise that I really have read a lot of crap!

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  48. Twilight

    and

    Divergent

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  49. Fifty Shades of Grey, hands down. It's terribly written and so repetitive. Once you've read the first "sexual scene" you've read them all in that book.

    I got given all three when they first came out and I'm a fast reader but it took me a year to get through the first one, it was so terrible, I haven't been able to go back and read the next two.

    The only one that comes to mind is a book I read recently, I didn't hate it or think it was awful, but the main character got on my nerves and I wanted to reach in and smack her, was a book called You Don't Have to Say You Love Me but Sarra Manning. The main character, Neve, was annoying and so self absorbed! I spent the whole time hoping her love interest, William, would find someone else, somebody who would treat him better, the same for all of her friends. Can't bring myself to read another of her books, just in case all of her main characters are like that! :(

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  50. Twilight. I kept turning pages. Wroth each page I formed I hated myself more for wasting my time on such a poorly written book with the most underdeveloped characters ever.

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  51. Perfume by Patrick Süskind.
    The florid descriptions were so long-winded I could barely stand it! So irritating! But I persevered, hoping I'd love the book in the end. Alas, 'twas not to be. To top it off, the ending was implausible and I wasn't convinced. I even went to see the film just so I could see how the filmmaker handled the massed orgy scene. Hilarious. Hundreds of extras looking very uncomfortable getting naked and touching each other. This is the only book I hated that I was determined to finish.

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  52. Dragon Tattoo books. Terrible writing, but you just have to see that woman get her revenge.

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  53. 1) Pillars of the Earth. I finished it, even though it was almost a tortuous read. With the exception of few characters, I disliked them. And of course, the few I liked were either killed off or flashed across the page only occasionally. Perhaps, it was the writing style, but I did it.

    2) Fifty Shades of Grey. Perhaps, my reading of the genre is to blame. I've read Anais Nin and several other authors that ventured into this world and I couldn't really enjoy it. The only way I could describe the series is with one word, "meh".

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  54. The worst page-turner I have read recently was Stephen King's "Under the Dome" a few months ago. The premise was very appealing, and the way the plot progressed was very promising. But the ending was an absolute, huge disappointment and it made me regret spending all the reading time that those 800 pages required. Yes it was like eating pop-corn. You can't stop but it adds up to nothing. Promised myself I would never read another Stephen King novel EVER... But I am sure I will break that rule. Hahaha

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  55. The Girl on the Train...I just did not see what so many people claimed to see in this book! I hated it, as did many others who use our library.
    The Left Behind series...should have been 1-2 books, was stretched out to make more money. Mostly, it was about people crying about why they got 'left behind' and others got to go. Yuck.

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    Replies
    1. Seconding Left Behind. The sad thing is, it had potential: interesting premise, originality. But the writing was abysmal. The characters could have been great, but the author made them feel about as real as cardboard cutouts. Character development was never shown, they just suddenly went from A to Z with no explanation whatsoever. It seriously lacked in description, too. Pivotal scenes that should have been gut-wrenching or anxiety-inducing were bland and stilted. I kept waiting for things to get better, but they never did.

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    2. I'll second The Girl On The Train. One of these books where it's obvious from the start who the villain is but you read it to the end just to make sure you're right.

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  56. Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. Honestly, I would love to nominate everything ever written by him, but this...book...is the icing on the metaphorical cake that is literary garbage. It took weeks to force myself to finish it, and the moment I did, I threw it in the trash. It's clichéd, unoriginal, boring, badly written drivel that doesn't even have a semblance of a plot, or character development.

    I don't understand how it ever got published.

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  57. Every Cornwell book, but specially Stonehenge.

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  58. The LOTR trilogy. Utter misogynist navelgazing and the ur of "worldbuilding > story, character development, plot, and pacing" trend. But I still read all of it, twice, because I like being knowledgeable about things other people enjoy so that I can convince my friends that the things they love are utter rubbish.

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  59. I have to agree on Atlas Shrugged. The first time I read it, I actually put it down with only five pages still to read. Couldn't take any more. But I - annoyingly enough - thought about it for years, and read it again when my husband read it (because I had talked so negatively about it). This time I flashed though it, or fractal read it, as my husband says, and yes. Still furiously angry at the book. And the end? Bah.

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  60. Like many others I second Twilight. Couldn't stop reading even though the writing was so cheesy.

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  61. Second for Atlas Shrugged. The protagonists are all Mary Sues and the villains are laughably evil.
    One particular passage that stood out for its ridiculous nature: the female protagonist is at a party of snooty liberals/socialists (Ayn Rand's villains, obviously) and some novelist is discussing their newest work. When someone asks what it is about, they say only, "Frustration".
    Rubbish. Although now that I think about it, maybe Rand was talking about her own book...

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  62. Clypsis - Roger Zelazny's Alien Speedway #1, by Jeffrey Carter

    I found Twilight VERY easy to put down, FWIW.

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  63. Okay, I've read through the whole list and I don't see this one anywhere - Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers. Heinous plot, I can't stand his writing (or his ethics?), but... I read the whole damned thing. And then watched the movie, which was worse.

    I couldn't finish either Twilight or Divergent so not seconding either of them.

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  64. 1) Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. Plot scenario interesting. Writing awful and just why he thought 6 or so pages every other chapter blathering on about church architecture lent itself to the story just because he got fascinated with it. A born again church architecturephile does not make a good novel. Thank goodness his interest wasn't skinning rabbits.
    2) The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald. Lauded as the great American novel. Boring and indulgent about not very much. Like Trump it will not make America great again.

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  65. 1.) I read Heinlein's _Friday_ and hated every page. It was my first Heinlein so I kept waiting for it turn out that he was being sarcastic about women loving to be groped. But he wasn't. Worst. Book. In. Show.

    2.) Anne Rice's _The Tale of the Body Thief_. Rice could not rehabilitate Lestat for me after he casually raped woman on the grounds that having a regular human body was so intoxicating that he couldn't help himself. Then he gives her jewelry because that's not doubling down on the rape or anything. After that, he spends the book with a new object, a nun named Gretchen. The only thing we come to know about her is that she's very pure and virtuous, and has probably never double clicked her own mouse while reading the sexy parts of Shirley Conran's _Lace_. Which I also read every page of. But I was only 15 and web browsers were limited to text back then.

    I get it that violent predation from a hero or antihero is a storytelling technique that can be used effectively. But like first person present, success is extremely rare, it's popular with novice writers, and it should not be tried before establishing at least a double shit ton of cred.

    There are a lot of great books that I hated. My intense dislike of such books or series like _Lord of the Rings_ is not enough to say that they're bad. But for some reason, I neeeeeeeeeeeeed you to understand that I hated _Vanity Fair_, that it's objectively bad, almost as bad as _The Scarlett Letter_. I think decrying such classics assuages my intellectual insecurity. ;) I blame re-reading _Lace_. Last year. Out loud.

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  66. The Name of the Wind! I am reading now

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  67. Nominating the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter Series by Laurell K Hamilton. The first few were great, but now it is mainly just pr0n and what is probably a very poor portrayal of poly lifestyle. And yet I keep reading them and cannot stop...

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  68. "The Mortal Instruments" series by Cassandra Clare. Total waste of time, plot and characters were awful, but it was like a train wreck-I couldn't stop reading.

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  69. Every Anita Blake book after number 5.
    Mansfield Park.

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  70. Every Anita Blake book after number 5.
    Mansfield Park.

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  71. An Exchange of Hostages by Susan R. Matthews. At first I just didn't know what I thought about it, but by the time I realized how much I despised it, I couldn't. Stop. Reading. And hated every minute of it.

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  72. The Children of Húrin- Tolkien and Lord Foul's Bane- Donaldson

    Both for the same reason. If the plot climaxes were represented on a heart monitor, they would flatline. Both stories have ideas that could have been made into something great, but they were atrociously presented.

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  73. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates I hated myself for reading it.

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  74. seconding all the Anita Blake books by Laurel K. Hamilton.

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  75. John Dies at the End by David Wong, or Off To Be The Wizard by Scott Meyer (OTBTW had a great premise but fell so far flat I ended up hating the book)

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  76. Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire
    I forced myself to finish just so I could know the end, but it was torture for me.

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  77. Godplayers by Damien Roderick (Broderick maybe?)

    Timecaster by I Don't Remember His Name

    Both were steaming piles of ego-masturbating wish fulfillment with unreasonable character and plot development.

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  78. Since is has to be one I read all of...

    1.) Looking for Alaska. It was my pick for our bookclub. Man, I hated every single person in the book. The depiction of teens in this way is so annoying. I know these kids exists, but I've got a major beef with the constant depiction of teens that these "recommended" books constantly peddle. I would have quit the book had it not been my pick lol!

    2.) Whichever 50 Shades book it is that reveals the depth of Christian's childhood abuse as a empathy gathering device/excuse for his lifestyle. I'm totally ok with BDSM as a lifestyle choice. I don't really care what you do. But that.... From there I finished the series in a matter of days because I couldn't even wrap my head around what I was being told. I needed some sort of giant plot twist to reconcile all the excuses in those books. Of course, nothing even came. I thought about picking up the book from Christian's perspective but mentally slapped myself and walked away. :D
    *Also, I'm from Vancouver, WA and have lived in Seattle, too, so all the total bull about her running to places and her school and the locations. UGH!!! Don't write about a place you've never been with such detail!!! Annoying!!

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  79. Oh my god, YES!!! SECONDING THIS!

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  80. Game of Thrones. Just the books, not the series.

    Although I could have easily put these bloodporn and rapegristle books down, and I wanted to with a consistency I feel even now -- and I'm not even reading them now -- I could not and still can not fathom the vast love for this dreck. I read every last word looking for something to enjoy. Nothing.

    Leal. You can, if you want, easily point to the page where the author learned that word. Because it's never used before book two and it's nigh omnipresence after that -- and it just becomes cringeworthier each time it appears. Just circling that word lightly in pencil adds about an ounce and a half in weight to the series. Fucking leal. You can bet your ass and Bender's shiny one that I sure as hell found at least four castles-worth of that goddamn word.

    Plus, the author admitted that he just used the stories he made up to either entertain himself or explain away many MANY pet turtles that died in his inept care as a child. Admitted. That's an excellent word. Observe how I shall only use it twice, here.

    Can somebody please either tell me who the main character is? Failing that, can somebody pretty PRETTY please tell Turtledeath McGee that there's a fairly vital thing called "a main character"?

    These books can go. My boiling-ice rage for them will never die.

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    1. I'm seconding this myself. That's how much I hate myself for trusting others that these... books... had anything worthwhile to offer.

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  82. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Fascinating writing but seriously the weirdest heebie-jeebies.
    I've never read Twilight, but the Divergent series made me feel so silly (yet, I read them all!).

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