The first book in the Left Behind series came out in 1995...

Thanks. I stand corrected. Senior moment.

The only memory I have of Scarlet Letter is torment. As a poster earlier stated, at some point I just tuned out and let my eyes flow over the pages without retaining anything. It was TERRIBLE.

I at least made it through all of the other books assigned in HS (Wuthering Heights, Separate Peace, Great Expectations, etc) and knew what happened. I may not have enjoyed them or understood why they were considered classics/great but my brain didn't shut down reading them either. Can't say the same for SL.


To the one that said Tale of Two Cities that caught me off guard. I haven't read it in a long time but at the time I did it was one of my favorites from the 19th century and definitely my favorite Dickens novel. Just last week my 5th grader, who reads everything she can get her hands on, pulled it off the shelf and asked me about it. It lead to a discussion about the French revolution and me telling her it would be different than most of the things she read but that I thought she would enjoy it. I may rethink that and tell her to hold off a few years.

'To the Lighthouse" by Virginia Woolf.
Never would have touched it except was assigned to do book report in HS.

I enjoyed A Tale of Two Cities quite a bit

Man, we even rented the movie to see if that was better. Not the Demi Moore version; there was another one done a couple decades ago that was supposed to be more true to the book, and it still was impossible to pay attention. It's like 4 1/2 hours long.

It's just not an interesting story at all.

Anything written by one of the Brontes, I can't recall any authors I liked less than them from all the books I read in HS.

rhoswen said:

---

You guys will laugh but "50 Shades of Grey." It seriously reads like it was written at an 8th grade reading level. It's HORRIBLE.

---

I was coming to post this, its awful.

schmendeler said:

---

I mean the hunger games were children's books. Seems a little unfair to lump then in with books intended for adults.

---

Technically young adult. And honestly a lot of young adult is as good as or better than a lot of adult books

i've stopped ready many, many "classics' due to boredom. the worst book i've ever made it all the way through was cell by stephen king. garbage.

The Dark Tower: Gunslinger was totally awful. I think I only made it halfway through.

Clan of the Cave Bear also bored me out of my mind.

Great Expectations was certainly tough, considering I had to read it over the summer when I would have rather been outside enjoying myself as a young teenager.

aggieforester05 said:

---

The Dark Tower: Gunslinger was totally awful. I think I only made it halfway through.

Clan of the Cave Bear also bored me out of my mind.

Great Expectations was certainly tough, considering I had to read it over the summer when I would have rather been outside enjoying myself as a young teenager.

---

I fought through Gunslinger because so many people praised it so highly. I kept waiting for it to turn fantastic. It never did.

I doubt I finished the second chapter if Great Expectations. Sure, I was a teen, but I didn't need to be an adult to know it wasn't for me.

Dread Pirate Roberts said:

---

aggieforester05 said:

---

The Dark Tower: Gunslinger was totally awful. I think I only made it halfway through.

---

I fought through Gunslinger because so many people praised it so highly. I kept waiting for it to turn fantastic. It never did.

---

I recently started re-reading the Dark Tower series. I agree Gunslinger is a little slow and random. It's all background and setup. But if you can get through it (or even if not), Drawing of the Three is very good.

Bruce Almighty said:

---

Neil Gaiman books suck. I've tried American Gods and 2-3 others and have given up on all of them. I just do not like his writing style.

---

I love his stories.
I just do not like the way that he tells them.

Plus he suffers a bit from the Steven King syndrome - fantastic setup, iffy resolution (although he is better than King in that regard).

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon - Steven King.

Book was meh and then had the dumbest ending

Things Fall Apart was ****ty.

Teacher_Ag said:

---

Things Fall Apart was ****ty.

---

you mean you dont like children being murdered by fathers?

The Relic

Great Expectations is objectively terrible. Dickens is probably the worst author among those considered masters. Paid by the word and milked every shilling he could from his publisher.

AliasMan02 said:

---

Great Expectations is objectively terrible. Dickens is probably the worst author among those considered masters. Paid by the word and milked every shilling he could from his publisher.

---

yeah, it was terrible. the paltrow/hawke movie version from the 90s did the horrid book justice as it was a horrid film. the only good thing to come from it was the chris cornell single sunshower

I hated Gulliver's Travels so much. Even the horrible Ted Danson miniseries they did in the 90s was more bearable than the actual book, at least it was done after a couple of hours.

I'm another vote for Confederacy of Dunces. I'd seen multiple online reviews that raved about how funny it was, so I was excited to read it (doubly so because somebody had checked it out from the library when I first went to find it, so I sat on the waiting list for a couple of weeks. Yes younguns, this is something people used to do). Then I read it and felt completely let down. I thought a few parts were mildly funny, but for the most part, I thought it was boring AF.

I've seen many posts about Confederacy of Dunces. The only people I know that have liked the book are part of the fedora / neck beard crowd that speak of it like an inside joke to play up how clever they are.

nai06 said:

---

Teacher_Ag said:

---

Things Fall Apart was ****ty.

---

you mean you dont like children being murdered by fathers?

---

Or yams?

Angels and Demons

BQ08 said:

---

nai06 said:

---

Teacher_Ag said:

---

Things Fall Apart was ****ty.

---

you mean you dont like children being murdered by fathers?

---

Or yams?

---

so many yams

AliasMan02 said:

---

Great Expectations is objectively terrible. Dickens is probably the worst author among those considered masters. Paid by the word and milked every shilling he could from his publisher.

---

Absolute truth

Cstrickland05 said:

---

91_Aggie said:

---

schmendeler said:

---

The one that I hated the most is the Scarlet Letter. I could find a way to enjoy just about anything we read in high school as a class but this was terrible. So bad that I completely shut down any sort of intellectual comprehension and just "read" the pages without actually reading it. What a waste of class time.

---

I did this, too. I remember the class discussions and when the teacher pointed out that (Spoiler Alert) Dimmsdale was the one who the affair with Hester, I was like "How the heck did you make that jump?", but again, it was just such a dry slog, that I wasn't even comprehending what i was reading.


But Catcher in the Rye is up there for me for one of the worst books ever. What a complete piece of crap this book is.

---

Agree on Catcher in the Rye. Terrible book. After finishing it, I was wondering why it is considered a classic and why it's banned by a lot of schools.

---

I also don't understand the praise. It's terrible. One of the only books I've ever regretted reading. I can appreciate high quality books and movies and those that are just popcorn/entertainment quality, but Catcher in the Rye is just bad.

Dr. Watson said:

---

How are some of you defining "worst book"? Scarlet Letter isn't my idea of easy reading, but it's also not the worst book I've ever read by a long shot. That would go to The Da Vinci Code. It was mildly entertaining, but Dan Brown might be the worst wordsmith I have EVER come across. A third grader can put together a more complex sentence and a more realistic plot.

---

First novel that came to mind. Tried any number of times to get through. just so I could know what was asserted as fact. The premise was a good foundation for a novel, the writing and the plot were nearly unreadable. I don't really understand how it got published much less became a runaway best seller.

The Poisonwood Bible. Utterly unreadable.

unimboti nkum said:

---

The Poisonwood Bible. Utterly unreadable.

---

I really enjoyed that book.

The malapropisms from Rachel were hysterical.

My answer to this question is usually "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Nonsensical, terrible book that is somehow considered one of the top 100 books written in the 20th century in many circles.

Other candidates include:

• Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
• Catcher in the Rye
• The Old Man and the Sea

From the genre I usually read:

• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson
• Rats and Gargoyles by Mary Gentle (embarrassed to even admit this but I attempted to read this many years ago for some reason)

Interesting to hear the negativity with Perdido Street Station. That series was darkly depressing, but I found it interesting.

The book that has a title and paper and words written on it