The Student Room Group

The worst books you've ever read

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Reply 40
Standing out - by Katie price... I kid, i kid.. i wouldnt read that crap.

The catcher in the rye was pretty bad imo. I just dont understand why people love it.

I always hated 'Of mice and men'. I was forced to read it for school and just didnt understand the appeal
Original post by (:Becca(:
The Great Gatsby. It's so bad I wouldn't even use it as toilet paper.


I agree, it is so terrible, have to read it for GCSE. Also OP, anything written by that bastard Jeremy Clarkson that talent less dick:biggrin:
Original post by (:Becca(:
The Great Gatsby. It's so bad I wouldn't even use it as toilet paper.


We had to study that when I did my IB diploma... I liked it, but only because it was short!!
Garden Spells and Across the Universe was pretty bad. Go Ask Alice is horrible too.
i read a book years and years ago called the five people you meet in heaven or something along those lines, cannot put in to words how baaad it was.
also borrowed twilight off a friend before it became popular, made me cringe all the way through however it was strangely addictive, so i can see why people like it lol.
also i know ill get slated, but just started reading fear and loathing in las vegas, i know its supposed to be a good book, i cant get in to it...i mean seeing as the main characters are supposed to be under the influence of drugs throughout most of it, you'd think the imagery would be a little more interesting.
also agree with the lord of the rings, the first one wasnt too bad once i managed to get through pages and pages of descriptive scenery and pointless elf poetry( i started skipping them lol), but couldnt get through a quarter of the second. so dry.
(edited 12 years ago)
Original post by Energy_Purple
God, I hated the final chapter of A Handmaids Tale. I feel like it just ruined the amazing climax that was built up in the last proper chapter. I loved the idea of not knowing whether Offred had been captured or had managed to escape, and whilst the ending was unique, I felt it very much lead to an anti-climax. Sometimes, not knowing is the best way in my opinion :smile:


I know, I'm usually not so satisfied reading such an ambiguous ending, but it was very good. It was like that throughout the whole book, like how Atwood never explicitly said where it took place, but if you put the clues together you realized it was in Boston and the government buildings were once Harvard. (The film did end with Offred escaping and living in the mountains, but she is alone and unsure of her future.)
Reply 46
A book called "One for Sorrow, Two for Joy". I think it was about magpies ruling the world. Perhaps the Owls of Ga'hoole will prove better, although bird-related fiction has now been tainted in my view.
Apologies if you like this book!
1) Never let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was just so boring and the plot sucked and I hated the characters, like, ALL OF THEM!

2) The Great Gatsby. I had to read it for bookclub and I hated it SO MUCH. It had the most uneventful plot ever and everyone in the book were just idiots and I didn't even care about what happened at the end, I was just glad it was over. I think here's something I'm missing though, cause eveyone seems to LOVE it.:/


Original post by hao362
Eragon and Eldest; complete carcon copy of classic Star Wars.

LOTR: Fellowship... might just be because i was 7 but this book had so much unnecessary crap in it. The sequels are great though


Agree with you on Fellowship. It took forever for the plot to go anywhere, I swear the first 50 pages were just about Bilbo's party and the next 50 pages they were just walking. It has a realy good plot but it just takes FOREVER to get anywhere. It's one of the few books where I liked the movie adaptation better just because of the pacing.
Noughts and crosses- Took me forever to realise who was black and who was white plus the sex scene was bad.
The color purple- I don't know if it was just me but I couldn't understand the English in the book.
Original post by chronic_fatigue
The color purple- I don't know if it was just me but I couldn't understand the English in the book.


Ah the joys of having to read that first letter out loud... :sick:
Reply 50
The Great Gatsby. I swear, everytime we had to study that book at AS I felt like a part of me was dying. I had to watch the film before I had any idea what the **** was going on. :l Even then I fell asleep during the film. It was such a slow and boring plot, though I thought if it was written in first person from Gatsby, it would have been a much more entertaining read.

How I loathed English Literature A Level.
Catcher in the Rye: Love JD Salinger but hated that book -Holden was a spoilt brat!

Wuthering Heights : I cant begin to explain how deep my hatred runs for this book. Just argh :facepalm:
Reply 52
I bought this book on holiday from a limited english language section just as the store was about to close so it was in a rush. It's cheesy crap. There's the most pathetic moment in this novel - two different parties bumping into each other on a deep ocean bed, one group are about to run out of oxygen and perish until they're saved by a random group! Needless to say I stopped reading it very soon.

Reply 53
when i was younger i thought i'd choose a completely random book from my school library. i found one that had been there for decades and not been taken out once. then i understood why. never read 'the old men at the zoo' by angus wilson :tongue:.
Reply 54
The Secret
The Lovely Bones - I just couldn't get into it :| The plot seemed ridiculous and the narrator irritated me.

Dracula - misogynist crap. Hated the way Stoker seemed to be writing vicariously through Van Helsing, and the ending was anti-climatic and depressingly predictable.
Robinson Crusoe.

Tedious drivel, only managed 100 pages.
Reply 57
Original post by Pensivedore
1) Never let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was just so boring and the plot sucked and I hated the characters, like, ALL OF THEM!


Totally agree. I've no idea why this book received so much praise, it's like Ishiguro had an okay idea and then thought to himself: 'okay, that's my book done, no need for character development or an actual plot'.
I usually love dystopian fiction but this was just awful.
Reply 58
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein.

Terribly written, a real chore to read, couldn't even finish it. Shame because the story sounded quite interesting.
Every bloody book in the Twilight series. A friend made me read the first and like a lamb to its slaughter, I (naively) thought the second might be better...How wrong I was... That's 2-3 days of my life I'm never getting back...

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