What is the worst book you’ve ever read?

Every Wednesday we are going to give you readers a chance to tell us about different aspects of books and reading in your life.   One or more of the Page Turners will answer the question and then we would like to hear from you!

 

I actually have a long list of disappointing books.  However, one of the worst boks I remember reading is actually a very popular one.

Yes,  ”How Stella Got Her Groove Back”, I despise this book.  When I was a teenager I was a part of the whole Terry McMillan craze.  I remember reading “Mama” and “Waiting to Exhale” and loving them.  However, this book just didn’t cut it.  I remember being frustrated by Stella pining over and over  the fact of  the age difference between her and her new lover.   Dang Stella, we got the point!   That book and even the movie were supremely lame to me and very boring.  Also we see how Terry McMillan’s real life “Groove” worked out.  Nuff said.  What is the worst book you have ever read?  Share, we won’t bite.

Sigh… bad books.

 

So a lot of our focus on this blog will be about books that we love or at least like a little, but what about bad books?  Funny you should ask:  I have read some great books and definitely some bad books.  Some I half expected to be bad, and some were huge let downs that made me extremely upset that I wasted the tine and/or money.  I realized in these bad books there was a common vein in them that lent to their lameness.

Here’s a short list:

• Nonsensical story lines and characters permeate the world of bad “literature.”  I have read books where none of the characters are realistic; they just kind of do whatever was in the authors head after a cocaine bender.  I like twists and turns in books, but make it believable and make it have a point.

• Underdeveloped characters are just as bad as the contrived ones.  I have read books where I couldn’t tell you more than one or two things about the main characters.  What part of the game is that?  Isn’t a big part of the point of a story about the characters themselves?  I want to build an emotional bond with character(s) in a book, it helps me get lost in the story or sometimes feel like I am part of a story.  I read to get that emotional experience, it’s what makes it fun or meaningful.

• Overuse of slang/patois/foreign language irks me to no end.  I understand that some stories require slang in the dialogue, but I am not talking about in the dialogue.  I am talking authors who write the entire narrative in that way.  It is distracting, bad writing, and will make me put a book down tout de suite(immediately/quickly).

• Overly simplistic writing….. I feel my side-eye flaring up.  I have read books, particularly “urban literature,” that read like a remedial English class project.  Now keep in mind, I don’t feel an author has to use overly colorful language and complicated indecipherable metaphors, but please give me something that makes me think past a 2nd grade level.

• BAD F*CKING GRAMMAR and misspellings. Here comes my pesky side-eye again….  Have you heard of an editor?  Was your editor taking shots while reading your book?  There is nothing worse than reading a book and finding excessive amounts of errors.  I should be thinking about a character’s unrequited love and not the proper use of there, their, they’re , noun/verb agreement, or how you say irregardless 4 times in the first chapter.  Not a good look.  Not a good look at all.

This is just a short list, what are some things that irk you and make a book unreadable?