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What's the worst book you've ever read?

I

Ilmater

Diamond Member
For me, it has to be "A Clockwork Orange."

I know many of you will say that the movie was great, and it was, but the original book has an extra chapter. The movie completely excluded the 21st chapter of Burgess' book, in which the character has a COMPLETE moral turn-around. It's the worst chapter of any book that I've ever read, and is SO bad that it makes the whole book completely worthless IMO. He basically felt that no work of fiction is worth the paper it's written on unless the character has a moral enlightenment. It's the sloppiest writing ever.

For those that haven't read the book but have seen the movie, after everything that happened in the movie (which is pretty true to the book up to that point), the main character sees some of the guys he used to hang with have families and decides to change his life around. How ridiculous is that?! I reads like he had an hour to get the book to the publisher but just couldn't let it go without writing in the aforementioned moral enlightenment. Plus, it changes the meaning of the whole thing quite a bit. Rather than just saying that you can't truly make anyone change just by forcing them to be good, it's also saying that truly changing has to come from within. This would be fine if there was some foundation, but there is none. In the course of a few hours he sees a few of the guys he used to hang with and decides to make a 180 degree change in his life. WHO THE FVCK DOES THAT?!

Terrible.

Cliff Notes (how appropriate):
- What was the worst book you've ever read?
- Mine is "A Clockwork Orange" in its original form with the 21st chapter
- Basically in a day's time or so the main character just decides that he needs to be a better person.
 
Its a play actually, called "Our Town" Absolutely worst piece of trash ever written. Had a Newberry Award or somesuch too. That book really ruined my respect for book awards.

A Seperate Peace was pretty bad too, but Our Town takes the cake.
 
Stienbeck's - The Red Pony, totaly pointless.
there was another book that I hated (I dont know the title) about some native american rodeo rider that cheats people by throwing rides, and then grows old and goes to herd sheep, boring drivel.
Both of these were required reading in Jr High, needless to say I didnt like my teacher much and almost failed english because of it.
 
i think that a lot of you have a lingering anger over school assignments. almost all of these books you've rated horribly are books that i've had to read for high school projects or essays. 😛
 
Originally posted by: Vaerilis
Bertolt Brecht - Mutter Courage und Ihre Kinder (Mother Courage and her children)
The theatrical play is a WMD.
Click to expand...
I've heard of this one. I understand the US was under close scrutiny after dropping that on Iraq. Thousands were bored/confused to death.
 
There are several that tie for worst:

A Clockwork Orange
Catch 22
Heart of Darkness
Red Badge of Courage
Billy Budd
 
I enjoy reading and spend a lot of free time doing so, but I still couldn't stand most of the books I had to read in high school, especially when I was in Honors English, like Lord of the Flies. This might have actually been OK if I hadn't had to spend all my time analyzing the symbolism behind the crap like the severed head and doing stuff like creating a fake report card for the leader of the boys (Yes, I actually had to do this for an assignment while we were reading it). I've got a copy at home that I may dust off and try reading to see if its any better without having to over-analyze the deeper meaning of the story.

Yes, the books would probably have been a lot better if I hadn't been forced to read them and could just enjoy them at my own pace. I read "To Kill A Mockingbird" at one point on my own and it was a hell of a lot better that way, I'd have to say.

Other than that, I can't say I've read anything truly horrible with the exception of *cough*Terry Goodkind*cough*.

 
Originally posted by: mandala
There are several that tie for worst:

A Clockwork Orange
Catch 22
Heart of Darkness
Red Badge of Courage
Billy Budd
Click to expand...

heh heh...Billy Budd.

The only book on which I got a 100% on the test in my Jr. year in HS.
 
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

He's basically writing a story through the eyes of an extremely disfunctional family. One's mentally retarded, one is crazy, and one is a bastage. 😉 The crazy brother is the section of the novel that gets hard to understand because there's no punctuation!!!
 
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