Books you can't bloody stand...

Couldn't agree more. with all of this. Nicholas Sparks is the most pompous, overblown, formulaic writer. The rest are just formulaic and boring

I would have to throw Nora Roberts in with Nicholas Sparks. I see them EVERYWHERE.  I've never read any of their stuff, but I know of it and wouldn't touch it. :S

The Highway Code

The Highway Code

HA!

As I Lay Dying, I would have to class that as the worst book I have ever read.  Ugh.

Another one - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  Everyone seemed to love it....except me. I kept reading, thinking "it must get better," but it never did.

A friend recommended The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  OMG... horrible.  Dh and I both have MAs in History and it just made us want to slam our heads in doors repeatedly.  The concept was awful and the storytelling I just found to be horrible.  I may have already said this one, but it so deserves to be panned again. 

Another one - The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.  Everyone seemed to love it....except me. I kept reading, thinking "it must get better," but it never did.

I had the same experience!

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. Put me off wanting to be an English major.

A friend recommended The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  OMG... horrible.  Dh and I both have MAs in History and it just made us want to slam our heads in doors repeatedly.  The concept was awful and the storytelling I just found to be horrible.  I may have already said this one, but it so deserves to be panned again. 

Bummer! My husband has a PhD in history and he really enjoyed it! So did I! Her newer book, The Swan Thieves, didn't get either of us very excited. I managed to finish it, but he's given up.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.  I tried, I just couldn't get into it. 

I had to read that book when I was a senior in High School. I thought that it was a good story.

I read the Twilight books, and don't really see a big deal in the craze. The characters are not that well developed, and the story was kind of meh. I liked the books when I first read them in high school, but now, as I try to read them, I just can not get into it again.

A friend recommended The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  OMG... horrible.  Dh and I both have MAs in History and it just made us want to slam our heads in doors repeatedly.  The concept was awful and the storytelling I just found to be horrible.  I may have already said this one, but it so deserves to be panned again. 

This makes me so happy. I could not stand the book, and I was the only person I know who didn't absolutely love it. I was so excited, because all the sources I trusted were on and on about this amazing new novel and author.

I hated it. Even if I could set the history aside (which I struggled with; I can't stand poetic license with known histories), the story was put together clumsily. What most annoyed me, though, was that Kostova could write some really moving passages and describe places fantastically. When a good writer doesn't carry his or her potential all the way, it makes a weak book even worse. From what I understand, she spent something like ten years writing it, but I guess after that, she was ready to get it to a publisher and out the door, so there doesn't seem to have been much time spent editing.

Count of Monte Cristo 

Count of Monte Cristo 

That's my favourite book! I've read it 5 times!  Though I can certainly understand how it might not be for everyone.

In the spirit of living in the UK, I decided to try reading a number of Booker Mann finalists....I got through a couple and then decided Parrot and Olivier in American might be fun...three months later and I'm on page 39. My commitment is waning.

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne. Put me off wanting to be an English major.

I'd never heard of this book till about a week ago (due to reading for the course I've just started), but now I've seen it referenced in 3 wildly different settings.  Yours is the first negative reaction to it I've seen.

Mine would be Age of Innocence.  To be fair, I've only read it the one time and that was back in high school.  I also read and disliked The Scarlet Letter in high school but then subsequently had to reread it as an undergrad and really liked it.  However, I did open a friend's copy of Age of and read a page and still thought it sounded really tediously overdone.  I probably wouldn't care as much if it weren't so often held up as one of the best novels ever written.