Books you can't bloody stand...

Anything Dan Brown.  His writing is just terrible!

Some people may shoot me, but, Charles Dickens.  I think his stories are wonderful but his writing, since he was paid by the word, is just too verbose, which makes otherwise great stories, terribly boring.

I saw a lot of mention of Heart of Darkness.  I totally agree!!

Some people may shoot me, but, Charles Dickens.  I think his stories are wonderful but his writing, since he was paid by the word, is just too verbose, which makes otherwise great stories, terribly boring.

I completely agree! The other thing I don't like is his characters are all like caricatures, they are flat and stereotypical.

Some people may shoot me, but, Charles Dickens.  I think his stories are wonderful but his writing, since he was paid by the word, is just too verbose, which makes otherwise great stories, terribly boring.

Huh, I didn't know that about him. I wonder if my old boss was also paid by the word... 

Huh, I didn't know that about him. I wonder if my old boss was also paid by the word... 

Ha ha!  My boss too!  Perhaps they are related to each other AND Dickens!   

I completely agree! The other thing I don't like is his characters are all like caricatures, they are flat and stereotypical.

Makes me glad I was able to avoid having to read him in school.  I did try Great Expectations when I was younger, but never made it past the first page.

I Dickens!

I have officially added a book to my "can't bloody stand" list.

The Sledding Hill by Chris Crutcher

Before all else, I will say that it IS a YA book. That said...

I had to read this "book" for my Banned Books and Censorship class and it was the worst piece of self-advertising diatribe I have ever read.

I'm not a huge grammarnazi, but when the first sentence of a book ends with a preposition, and the author utilizes both run-on sentences and non-sentence phrases that end with periods quite frequently, it makes a super hard read. See, I like run-on sentences, but I'm not a professional writer who should be using an editor that would be able to fix these issues. Not only that, but he name-drops Stephen King about 7 times before the 8th chapter. The only thing that really excuses the horrible writing is the fact that the entire book (except sections where other characters are thinking and not clearly punctuated with any sort of quotations, therefore confusing you until you realize he has switched POVs) is from the point of view of a dead 14-year-old boy. That sort of excuses the bad grammar and stupid word usage (like "jillion"). 

In addition to all of this, the book's plot is centered around a dead boy who follows around his mute-by-choice friend (who is still alive) as he takes a "modern literature" course that features a book that the "teacher chooses and really likes" by none other than Chris Crutcher. That's right! He features his own book in his OWN BOOK!

 

Now obviously there's a reason for this... you would assume. The book he features in this book is one that was highly challenged for banning on several occasions because it contained a gay character and a teenaged female character who gets an abortion. Essentially the moral of the story is that you shouldn't ban books.


The thing I don't understand is that an overwhelming amount of students in this HONORS CLASS said they loved the book, and one girl said she went to the author's website and wrote him an email about how much she loved it (the author actually responded). This has to be like the "Dan Brown" effect where basically the teacher says she likes it so everyone else says so. Otherwise I just don't understand how this book is that great.

 

Billy Budd
Killer Angels
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Great Gatsby
The Iliad
The Odyssey
A Separate Peace

Hmm...most William Faulkner annoys me.  And Tropic of Cancer wasn't all that I thought it'd be.  The book that immediately springs to mind is Heart of Darkness....pointless!   

I'm so glad to see someone else didn't like "Heart of Darkness".  I had to read it as part of an English Lit class and it was PURE TORTURE!

I still don't know why I hated it so much but I suppose it doesn't matter, it was just bloody awful!!!!

Oh I like Ayn Rand although I thought the two that I read got a bit long in places.  I've read the Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.  I didn't like the long long speeches the characters made that she basically used to describe her beliefs.  But I liked the stories quite a lot.

Geeta - swell!  Another fan of those Ayn Rand books!  I agree with you, the speeches got a bit long but the stories were unforgettable.

It's a bit interesting the idea behind the private sector railways in Atlas Shrugged - having lived in the UK for a while and knowing the realities of public transport as a public good, her ideas were a bit naive, so I did have to take poetic licence by overlooking that - still a brilliant book!

I can't stand William Faulkner - I have never been able to get through one of his books. His style just winds me up!

I'm so glad to see someone else didn't like "Heart of Darkness".  I had to read it as part of an English Lit class and it was PURE TORTURE!

I still don't know why I hated it so much but I suppose it doesn't matter, it was just bloody awful!!!!

I was supposed to read that for AP English my senior year...I tried really hard but couldn't manage to get more than halfway through it; I gave up and relied on my ol'friend Cliff It was, without a doubt, the worst book I ever read (or attempted to). 

I had to read Heart of Darknessfor AP English in high school as well. I hated it. The movie Apocalypse Now is loosely based on it. Another strange movie.

anything by Charles Dickens...they are just very bleak and depressing

Anything by Jodi Picoult!  I find her writing atrocious.