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saintanneshs
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I'd like to jump from the "Am I missing something..." thread to ask if it would be okay for us to share our "worst reads, ever" with each other.
What do you think, Chari? Would that be okay? (In the interest of fending-off well-intentioned recommendations from friends and neighbors...)
I'll start with my all-time worst read:
Sophie's Choice by William Styron 
Why? For all the hype, it's nothing more than a voyage of voyeurism and depravity. The real meat of the book is so saturated with the author's perverse characterizations that I felt like it was stripping my humanity away from me, rather than enabling me to grow from the experience of having read it. For me (and this is just my take on literature), growth is the only real reason I can find in investing the time to read
...otherwise, why not just watch tv? I think I'll try Night next time I want a book about the Holocaust
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abcmommy
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Wicked is up there. Talk about a waste of time and effort. I couldnt wait to lay it aside. Fall on Your Knees (Anne Marie MacDonald?)was a nightmare.
Also, anything by Sedaris. disgusting.
I like old lady books, or so I have been told.
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lapazfarm
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I agree about Wicked and any Sedaris books. Yuck. I think we can all agree DaVinci Code belongs on this list!
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Theresa
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Chari
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saintanneshs wrote:
I'd like to jump from the "Am I missing something..." thread to ask if it would be okay for us to share our "worst reads, ever" with each other.
What do you think, Chari? Would that be okay? (In the interest of fending-off well-intentioned recommendations from friends and neighbors...)
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GREAT IDEA, Kristin!! 
I will have to think about the worst book I ever read.....not sure if I have any in the last 20 years since I have been reading good stuff only 
Night!
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5athome
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I still have nightmares about my highschool reading assignment - Moby Dick.
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guitarnan
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Well, it's hard to narrow it down to just one...I won't include anything I didn't finish, though! (That leaves off quite a few losers from high school and from Mom's book club.)
I'd say that Middlesex: A Novel tops my list. I can't believe how much acclaim it's received...I've commented in another thread about how much disgusting stuff is in this book. My mom's book club read it (a bunch of Catholic ladies in their 60's!!!) and Mom sent it on. Fortunately, Mom didn't read it. There is so much depravity in this book; I wouldn't want it in my house. (I got rid of it.)
Other books I wish I'd never read:
The Sparrow (and its sequel, conveniently forgotten!)
The Volcano Lovers
The Color Purple
Dracula (well-written but incredibly disturbing)
Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman (college reading for a SF course, truly stupid AND disgusting)
Yuck.
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ShawnaB
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I'll add The Red Tent: A Novel by Anita Diamant. I heard SO many good things about this book, and I must admit, it was a page turner, but it was immortal..and explicit, and a truly feminist retelling of the story of the Old Testament patriarchs. It bordered on blasphemy. I started feeling very convicted about reading it, and tossed it about 1/2 way through. Then I found myself thinking about the story for a week(for it wasvery gripping!), and being glad that I actually threw it away, so I was not tempted to pick it up again!
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Rebecca
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 In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
I think it was on my senior high school reading list. Talk about a book that has haunted me for my whole life.
I am very easily affected by images in books or movies. I really need to guard myself against what I read and see or I have horrific nightmares/daymares. (Is daymares a word?  ) All I know is that sometimes I will think about something I have read or seen (during the day) and it takes all I've got not to have some sort of panic attack.
I think St. Paul was right when he said, "Whatever is good, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." (Phil. 4:8)
God Bless,
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guitarnan
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Rebecca,
I'm the same way. That's why I hated Dracula so much. I had to read it for a college class and threw it across the room at least once a day while I was reading it. My poor roommates must have rejoiced when I finished that book!
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Silas Marner was a book I studied in high school. Hated it.
But in the category of one I wish I hadn't read is the sequel to Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I enjoyed the first one so immensely, as my mother's family was from Louisiana.
So I couldn't wait to read the sequel Little Altars Everywhere. So many evils presented against family life in the second. I still cannot shake some visual images. What a downer...
There were some books that I never finished because they were so bad. World According to Garp I found a copy left in my car one day...can't remember who was reading it. I didn't know much about it, except I had seen a movie advertised. I didn't get past the first few chapters, it was so explicit and awful. That taught me to ask first before reading!
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lapazfarm
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When I was a teen i loved the Anne Rice vampire books. That was before I entered the church. Now I can look back and see what an evil effect they had on me. Also some Stephen King books can really haunt the imagination.
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saintanneshs
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Rebecca wrote:
| I think St. Paul was right when he said, "Whatever is good, whatever is true, whatever is honest, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things." (Phil. 4:8) |
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Rebecca, and now Hollywood has not only made a movie of the book, but it won awards ??? 
I'm with you, the images in a book, for better or worse, stay with me a LONG time too, which is why I started this thread. It must be along the same lines of why p***ography is so addictive for some people...something to do with the shock certain images have that stick in your brain, in spite of you wanting to turn them "off." I mistakenly read a VC Andrews book and a couple of Stephen King books in study hall in high school (my girlfriends were all reading them, so I thought why not) and I still can't get some of the images out of my head, and it was 15 years ago!! If it hadn't been for rediscovering my faith, I might have gone on reading that stuff, thinking that was what everyone else read, after all, it's everywhere from the grocery store aisles to relatives' homes... 
So many times in school we were REQUIRED to read pointless, demoralizing, sometimes paralyzing books and I want to avoid anything recommended to me or my family by friends or relatives who don't share our criteria for "good literature"...It's amazing how many people think they are elevating themselves by reading literature, even though they don't use any more discernment with books than with the some of the trash on the television. 
Okay, enough of my soap box...
I think I must like "old lady" books too! 
Has anyone read anything by Anne Rice (former vampire-lady turned Christian)? My little sister has read almost everything by her and although I haven't read any of her books, I think the titles alone scare me...
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saintanneshs
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Oops...I was composing my reply while Theresa posted about Anne Rice
Thanks for being so quick, Theresa!
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LisaD
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Worst books...
Amityville Horror. I read it in high school and 25 years later, I still get freaked out if I think about it too much.
Anne Rice, not the vampire ones, but the witch ones. Yuck.
Left Behind...just awful writing, imo.
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ITA with the sequel to the Yayas. *shudder* what is with the incest in books?
Anything that presents incest is, to me, pretty gratuitously and unnecesarily evil. Almost every society on earth has an incest taboo for a reason and why authors think that such a provactive and hideous topic makes good writing material I will never ever understand.
I liked Da Vinci code, in the sense that it was a terrific fast paced read but obviously the author has a HUGE ax to grind and his claim that its all true reminds me of the whole James Frey controversy (another book Im sure I'd hate.) Yeah, those pictures exist but the rest of it is obviously imagined dreck at best and blasphemous at worst. also, gratuitously violent/ gory imo.
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Kathryn UK
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Two books I had to read during my school days that I loathed ... The Antiquary by Walter Scott (have never been able to face anything else by him since), and The Lord of the Flies by William Golding.
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Mists of Avalon...long, I kept thinking it would be redeeming or get better, totally anti-Christian.
The Red Tent was hideous all the way through, Shawna. I read it twice for book clubs.
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Loren
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I read some Stephen King and Dean Koontz books while I was nursing. BIG mistake. I'd be up alone in the middle of the night with a baby happily attached, and I'd be worried the whole time about the creep who could see in the dark or the other creep who collected body parts.
Those are the ones that have affected me the most. I agree that the Left Behind series was pretty much a waste of my time.
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Loren wrote:
| I read some Stephen King and Dean Koontz books while I was nursing. BIG mistake. |
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Oh gosh, I read Pet Sematary (sic) when I was a teenager, and it was just awful ... of course, I couldn't put it down, and would read it late into the night, but it was just terrible how frightened and sickened I felt from reading that. (Why do we do things like that when we are kids?!)
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ShawnaB wrote:
| I'll add The Red Tent: A Novel by Anita Diamant. I heard SO many good things about this book, and I must admit, it was a page turner, but it was immortal..and explicit, and a truly feminist retelling of the story of the Old Testament patriarchs. It bordered on blasphemy. I started feeling very convicted about reading it, and tossed it about 1/2 way through. Then I found myself thinking about the story for a week(for it wasvery gripping!), and being glad that I actually threw it away, so I was not tempted to pick it up again! |
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I did the exact same thing! The trash was too good for the book, really. I can't believe how many people have said it was a favorite of theirs, even my mil, and sister. I shudder thinking of that book and the skewed view of the OT it presents
Christine
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4Real Forums : Book Club
Topic: Worst read, ever
