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[Closed] Your top 3 'WTF was that rubbish' books ever

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Offline  johndoh
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Something Happened - Joseph Heller
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
Anything By - Andy McNab (sorry I have to admit trying once)

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:07 pm
Offline  Killer
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Moby Dick. Its just awful. WOrst book Ever!

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:09 pm
Offline  moonsaballoon
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I didn’t get catcher in the rye at all , I didn’t read it till my early twenties so I don’t know if I was the wrong age but it didn’t do much for me .

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:13 pm
Offline  DezB
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'Glamourama' Bret Easton Ellis. Threw it across the room
The Motley Crue biog everyone raves about, just appalling writing
Most "bestsellers", Like an Andy Mcnabb thing my mother gave me. 😛

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:14 pm
Offline  richmtb
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Moby Dick. Its just awful. WOrst book Ever

"He piled upon Killer's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

any of the Robert Ludlum Bourne books, the films are great, the books are incomprehensible nonsense.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:19 pm
Offline  Pierre
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I had to read Dombey and Son by Dickens at school. It was utter bilge. Full of characters with stupid names like Mr. Bumblytrump and Mrs. Snatchweazle.

Pretty much anything by Dan Brown belongs on the list.

And I read "Ready Player One" ahead of the film release, but thought it was total pants, the most basic writing and structure. The film was actually better than the book, but really not by much.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:20 pm
Offline  Tom-B
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Catcher in the Rye would be close to my top 3 favourites ever!

I really couldn't get going with anything by Anthony Burgess other than A Clockwork Orange.

I'd definitely put On The Road by Jack Kerouac in there....I just didn't get it at all.

Also, anything by Jane Austen!

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:21 pm
Offline  squirrelking
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The Long ______ - Terry Pratchett & Steven Baxter; protagonist is an utterly unlikable twunt, long drawn out and goes nowhere.

The Last Theorem - Arthur C Clarke & Frederik Pohl; As above really, utter drivel that never really gets started and ends out of nowhere. A lot of WTF plot holes as well.

2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson; supposedly science fiction, I'd go more social science fiction with none of the characters being in the slightest way likeable. Includes an excruciatingly long chapter about people walking along a tunnel whistling.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon

I thought that was good but I can appreciate why some folk wouldn't like it.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:21 pm

Offline  jimw
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Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell. Got to page 100 couldn’t take the present tense third person narrative any longer
Any of the Morse books by Colin Dexter
Both of these had tv productions that were far superior to the written narrative in my view, especially Wolf Hall.
+1 for the Bourne books

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:22 pm
Offline  savoyad
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The Chain by Adrian McKinty

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:23 pm
Offline  Pyro
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Just about anything by Ben Elton - Popcorn and Stark in particular.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:27 pm
Offline  Rich_s
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The only book I've ever given up on was American Psycho. Got about 3/4 of the way through and... gave up.

Mind you, I've just been given a book called "Enemy of the State" a Mitch Rapp book which shows every sign of being an absolute turd. And I'm 10 pages in...

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:28 pm
Offline  timbog160
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How late it was how late.

I barely understood a word of it and just thought the bloke was a bit of a d***...

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:29 pm
Offline  pondo
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Catch 22
Hitchhiker's Guide (could probably do with revisiting)
Hamnet - much raved about, I got *checks Kindle* 28 pages in and gave up, unconscious.

+1 for Moby Dick

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:31 pm
Offline  sirromj
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I don't remember reading anything that left me thinking WTF was that rubbish, but that's probably because I used to deliberately seek out books that would be a bit WTF-ery. So clutching at straws, and all my books are packed away, nor read a book for years.

Can recollect that Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson didn't lead me on to reading anything more by him, just didn't do it for me. Attempted reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon at least four times but never succeeded, too many unknown words in every sentence. Practical Common LISP a programming book, not practical, or common, and I'm not brains enough.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:34 pm
Offline  brant
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Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast
by Charlie Connelly

Absolutely terrible terrible book. Quite the worst I've ever read.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R2DKBWFJLC0SM9/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0349116032

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:35 pm

Offline  thebibbles
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The bible and other religious fiction books.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:35 pm
Offline  ransos
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Anything by Thomas Hardy. I find his prose to be tedious at best.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:37 pm
Offline  paino
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Catch 22. 3 attempts, 3 failures. Also, most Jo Nesbo ‘thrillers’ have been anything but.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:38 pm
Offline  munrobiker
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Something Happened – Joseph Heller

I came here to mention this. What a load of shite.

It's like he wrote a book that was deliberately designed to play a shit joke on the reader and wind them up but without Heller being there to see the punchline. I'm sure it's a book as art or something but it's by far the worst thing I've ever read.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:38 pm
Offline  johndoh
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Catch 22

You see, I read that and enjoyed it and went on to read Something Happened which I detested.

I also gave up on Black Spring by Henry Miller but I think that probably says more about an 18 year old me than it did the standard of the book.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:38 pm
Offline  donald
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Lanark by Alasdair Gray.

It's clearly not rubbish but it was a big WTF for me.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:39 pm
Offline  Ewan
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Lord of the rings and the hobbit. Shite.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:40 pm
Offline  nickc
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Anything by Dan Brown, they’re all bilge, really really awful writing. How the **** are they best sellers

another vote for On The Road and the Robert Ludlum Bourne books they are just unreadable nonsense.

the Jam: our story written by Foxton and Buckler, just a horrible bitter polemic about Paul Weller.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:42 pm

Offline  dashed
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+3 (or whatever we're up to) for Moby Dick. 500 pages and the bloody whale only appears in the last 20 pages or so.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:47 pm
Offline  docgeoffyjones
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Lord of the rings and the hobbit. Shite.

+1

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 4:53 pm
Offline  funkmasterp
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Another vote for Moby Dick, Dan Brown and the Bourne books. I’ll read pretty much anything and still think they’re crap. I’ll probably get grief for this one, Grapes of Wrath, starts really well, but just dwindles in to monotony.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:03 pm
Offline  p7eaven
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Does this mean that we can rubbish stuff that we just ‘didn’t like’ (or even get) or does it have to be a vaguely qualified drubbing of books more objectively awful as opposed to ‘not my cup of tea’ ?

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:09 pm
Offline  Rich_s
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Oh gosh yes! The Bourne books. Eric von Lustbader as writer. Impenetrable bollocks.

While I'm on that, Sherlock Holmes. Read the whole lot - not impressed.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:11 pm
Offline  andeh
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Glad I'm not the only one who thought On The Road was terrible.

It's reads like it was written in one sitting by a pretentious narcissist who was high on speed.....oh, wait.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:14 pm
Offline  ThePinkster
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May get flamed here but anything by Tolkein.
Just can't get into the writing style, seems way too obsessed with inconsequential details that fill up pages of useless & boring description.

I love Terry Pratchett but have to agree about the Long Earth series of books. Have read a couple of them but and they have huge potential but the stories just don't seem to go anywhere.

Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is another one. I know so many who have raved about it but just don't get it.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:17 pm
Offline  creakingdoor
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1984.
WTF was that last chapter all about?
I think he must have been under some pressure from his publishers so thought 'f##k it, that'll have to do'.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:19 pm

Offline  willard
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The Night's Dawn trilogy.

I tried. I made it through the first book by skim reading it, but the second book just killed my soul. I could not finish it and left the third book un-touched. They are long, complex and have many, small typefaced words in. Avoid.

In a similar vein, the Mission: Earth tripe that L. Ron Hubbard wrote. It's shit. Avoid it.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:19 pm
Offline  peter1979
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Great expectations. Really enjoyed David Copperfield but this one just dragged on and on. I gave up before the good bits by the looks of it.

The chimp paradox. I just couldn't buy into it.

Sapiens. Still muddling through it but definitely not living up to its hype.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:24 pm
Offline  llama
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100 years of solitude. Wolf hall. Grapes of wrath East of Eden

To much for me, don't get how people really enjoy that kind of thing

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:34 pm
Offline  Richie_B
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The girl on the train - Probably the first book I have given up on in thirty years due to complete lack of interest in the plot, characters, or anything else about it.

The Road - Completely over hyped, unnecessarily grim

Anything by Will Self - I am not interested in how clever Will Self thinks he is

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:36 pm
Offline  ElShalimo
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hundreds of pages of utter bilge

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:40 pm
Offline  keefmac
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Only read one Dan Brown book, Digital Fortress. Utter balls.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:40 pm
Offline  johndoh
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Does this mean that we can rubbish stuff that we just ‘didn’t like’ (or even get) or does it have to be a vaguely qualified drubbing of books more objectively awful as opposed to ‘not my cup of tea’ ?

That's up to you, do what you like. There are no rules in Book Club.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:41 pm
Offline  paton
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Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
If you you think you get it then you are not.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:46 pm

Offline  nickc
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Sapiens. Still muddling through it but definitely not living up to its hype.

or to give it it's byline, Man states bleedin' obvious

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:58 pm
Offline  vinnyeh
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Battlefield Earth. L Ron Hubbard. Scientology. Really, truly a terrible book. Not quite as bad as the movie, though.
Exodus. Leon Uris for its prejudices.
The Silmarillion. Because it started the trend for dead author's estates publishing shit that was best left unpublished, and pushing it to unthinking fanbases.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:58 pm
Offline  andytherocketeer
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Dan Brown - Da Vinci Code was nonsense, so quite why I wasted time on Angels+Demons I have no idea, cos that one was complete and utter nonsense.

LOTR - just goes on and on and on and ariston and on and on - could easily have abridged it to cut out all the waffle and just get on with a bit of story and get it over and done with in a fraction of the book. And 1 DVD rather than a 3 double sided DVD box set for the movie version.

Did try out a Pratchett book once, but gave up on about page 6 cos it was rubbish too. Forget which one, but must have been one of the first.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 5:59 pm
Offline  big_n_daft
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon

I quite liked it

Birdsong, derivative pap not even engagingly written.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 6:13 pm
Offline  Philby
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Another vote for On the Road, The Road and The Catcher in the Rye. Plus I'll throw in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, described by one review as a 'spirited and exhilarating read', two words that simply do not describe the author's aim to try and put the most obscure words in a sentence.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 6:53 pm
Offline  twistedpencil
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Nomad by James Swallow - picked up because it was apparently like I Am Pilgrim that I enjoyed.

It was god-awful, not even the best book titled Nomad that was released that year - Alan Partridge's Nomad was far superior - back of the net!

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 6:56 pm
Offline  teesoo
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Was once given 'The Fourth Estate' by Jeffrey Archer as a Christmas present. Presumably by someone who didn't like me very much. It was genuinely awful.

Also struggled with the last bit of 2001: A space odyssey

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 6:56 pm
Offline  DezB
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Jack Kerouac, yeah man, you had to be there! on the right drugs, dropping out man... I wasn’t, so agree On The Road was shite.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 6:57 pm

Offline  kilo
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Tess of the D’Urbevilles, ploughed through that auld shite whilst commuting, a struggle and then found my copy had forty pages missing towards the end so binned it off.
Hobbits, they don’t exist and they’re all toss
Can’t say On The Road made much of an impression.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 7:03 pm
Offline  funkmasterp
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picked up because it was apparently like I Am Pilgrim that I enjoyed.

Totally OT but I’ve had the follow up on pre-order for roughly four thousand years. Occasionally get updates with a new release date, but at this point it’s either not going to get released or be completely shit.

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 7:05 pm
Offline  twistedpencil
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@funkmasterp - was the same here, however I've given up on it, I suspect the author believes it's worth more than the publishers are prepared to pay and I suspect it'll be shit 🙂

 
Posted : 15/02/2021 7:13 pm
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