most hated literary works

[bob]

inspired by my most hated movie thread

I hate Moby Dick, had to read it for a college class

same goes for Heart of Darkness

[akiratubo]

There's a James Rollins novel, Map of Bones.  At the end, the "hero" has a potential cure for his father's Alzheimer's.  Instead of giving it to his father, he pours it down the drain.  Why?  As I recall, the "hero" decided he shouldn't attempt to cheat fate and should instead enjoy whatever time he and his dad had le --- NO!  f**k YOU, BOOK!  THAT'S BULLs**t!

I've had a few family members die from Alzheimer's.  It is one of the worst ways to go imaginable.  If you withhold a potential cure from anyone who has the disease, especially if it's your father, even more especially if you have enough reason to believe it will work as the "hero" did, you are a monster.  A complete monster.  I wonder what the "hero's" mother would think if she found out what he did?  "Well, Ma, I'm sorry Dad died a nightmarish death and that you had to go through that hell right alongside him but if I'd given him the m-state gold, that would have been cheating fate and the time we had before he got really bad wouldn't have been as precious."

That is the only book I've ever read that made me angry enough to take it outside and burn it.

[HappyGilmore]

The Yearling- I had to read this over the summer for a school class.  I like reading, regardless of summer or not.  Just found the books selected to be quite a bit boring, this included.  I may still have it laying around somewhere.  Haven't touched it since 1998, and that says a lot.

[Ed, Ego and Superego]

Moby Dick...man, he needed an editor.
-Ed

[Psycho Circus]

Slaughterhouse 5 is one the worst books I've ever read. It's only about 200 pages long, yet it took me over two weeks to read. Paragraph after paragraph of some geeky guy jumping from WWII to some futuristic alien zoo through a series of dull events with the phrase "So it goes" repeated about 1,000,000 times on every page.

Crap.

[HappyGilmore]

Really?

Man, I really dug Slughterhouse 5.

[InformationGeek]

Most of the most hated literary pieces came from stuff my school assigned me to read. They were all the same in the sense they were almost all downers (Damn Newbery Medal awards.  All death and depression!) like Island of the Blue Dolphins, Bridge to Terabithia, The Giver, A Taste of Blackberries, On My Honor, and so on.  There not bad in a poorly written sense (Bridge to Terabithia's death was just crowbarred in and makes me groan now, while A Taste of Blackberries was just annoying), they are bad to me because I had to deal so much amount of deary and sad story telling.  If it wasn't for the Baily School Kids and Goosebumps, I would not enjoy reading at all.

For something I truly hate, I despise MW.  A comic, sure, but damn is it bad.  Mary Sue Villians (A villian who always wins over and over and over), complete and utter pointless to most plot points, chapters and characters that serve no purpose, unlikeable characters, every female character is useless, extremely distrubing rape scenes (One of which made the female characters fall in love with the villian.  Insert puking here), messages and morals completely lost or glossed over for more shock value, religious subtext that adds nothing (your attempt to be deep and profound fails), and an ending you could easily see coming a mile away once a certian character is introduced.  Utter, complete garbage.  Hard to believe the same man created Astro Boy and one of my favorite series, Black Jack.

[Jack]

Had to read Old Yeller when I was a little kid in grade school.  Being a huge animal lover, I mean, the poor doggie!  Give me a f***ing break, I was like 8 years old.  Damn nuns couldn't think of enough ways to display their hatred for children.

[Leah]

Lord of the Flies, If you've read it, you would know why.

[InformationGeek]

Lord of the Flies, If you've read it, you would know why.

I've read it.  I like the story, but my major problem with is the same problem I have with Red Badge of Courage, I can barely tell what is going on half of the time.  The way it is written and what is told of what is going on is very... strange.  It is a very complicated thing to read and unless I read a summary, I'm not going to figure out what happened. (I assume that's your problem with it as well)

It's a real shame because my all time favorite manga, The Drifting Classroom, takes a lot of influence from it and I see a lot of similiar elements in it.  I... I just can't enjoy Lord of the Flies like I want to.  It's really sad.

[ChaosTheory]

I never thought of it before, but most of the Newberry Award winners ARE major downers.  Not the best strategy for encouraging kids to read......

I hate everything by John Steinbeck, especially Grapes of Wrath and the Red Pony.
I don't remember how long it actually took me to get through The Old Man and the Sea, but it felt like months.
I've never understood how Wuthering Heights came to be regarded as The Greatest Romantic Novel EVER; Cathy's a brat, Heathcliff's a sadist and their obnoxious codependent relationship destroys their lives and the lives of everyone around them.  Also it employs that stupid "tell everything in flashbacks" method of narrative.

And I'm defining literature pretty loosely with this one, but My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is one of the most exploitative, precious, repulsive things I've ever read. 

[Allhallowsday]

Slaughterhouse 5 is one the worst books I've ever read. It's only about 200 pages long, yet it took me over two weeks to read. Paragraph after paragraph of some geeky guy jumping from WWII to some futuristic alien zoo through a series of dull events with the phrase "So it goes" repeated about 1,000,000 times on every page.

Crap.

This masterpiece of KURT VONNEGUT's is about "coming unstuck in time" (or, "losing it").  Did you know KURT VONNEGUT was there, a POW, during the firebombing of Dresden?  You just don't get it.  Everything that you think or feel about humanity is expressed in that book, though you didn't notice apparently, and that novel is more so the voice of the counter-culture than even Catcher In The Rye. 

And the little birdy say: poo-tee-weet?  

[Leah]

The Picture of Dorian Gray- I never liked the main guy, the 'victim' of being a vain ass, Top lofty pansy SOB. He deserved to be killed by his own arrogance
.

[InformationGeek]

I never thought of it before, but most of the Newberry Award winners ARE major downers.  Not the best strategy for encouraging kids to read......

And I'm defining literature pretty loosely with this one, but My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is one of the most exploitative, precious, repulsive things I've ever read. 

Apparently, depressing things equals kids enjoying reading.  There must be some sort of math equation that makes that thought process make sense.

So not fan of My Sister's Keeper?  How does it make you feel that there exists a movie adaption of it?

Skip to 0:34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5_3_DhVn5o

[ChaosTheory]

I never thought of it before, but most of the Newberry Award winners ARE major downers.  Not the best strategy for encouraging kids to read......

And I'm defining literature pretty loosely with this one, but My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult is one of the most exploitative, precious, repulsive things I've ever read. 

So not fan of My Sister's Keeper?  How does it make you feel that there exists a movie adaption of it?

Skip to 0:34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5_3_DhVn5o

Eh, not that surprised.  The book was a huge bestseller.  Bad books p**s me off more than bad movies, to tell the truth, since they waste more of your time.  (Or I resent their success, being a wannabe writer.)