Most Disappoining book you've read

[HitterD]

Originally Posted by oilers_fan

I purchased State of Fear by Michael Crichton, and only made it through about 40 pages...what a horrible read.

And after putting Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz in as one of my favorite books, I continue to be disappointed by pretty much everything else by Koontz. The books are fairly lousy, but for some reason I continue to read them. I guess I am just hoping I become enthralled again like I was with Fear Nothing.

I agree to some extent, Fear Nothing is incredible. Did you read Sieze the Night, though??? It was the sequel to Fear Nothing, and I thought is was nearly as good as the first, and am STILL anxiosly awaiting the third and last installment in the series.

I also really enjoy the Odd Thomas series, in fact, I find alot of his newer books to be alot more enjoyable than his older ones. His ideas are much more original and his writing has progressed a ton.

[Caged Great]

The wars by timothy Findley.

By far the worst piece of garbage I've ever read.

[Locke]

The Life of Pi sucked something hard and crusty. Damn I hated that book. Made all the worse because I HAD to read it because my mom gave it to me and she wanted to discuss it after. Man that book sucked. Ok, it had its moments, but they never made up for the sheer suckitude of most of the book.

Timeline by Micheal Crichton made me want to sear out my eyeballs in unrealistically dramatic fashion. I got about three chapters in, saw the movie trailer with Paul Walker and I chucked that crap. I gave it to the neighbor's kid who is about 8, and he chucked it because he said it was crap.

As for some of the other books mentioned here:

A Farewell to Arms - I am not a fan of Hemingway's literary style, the book had lots to say, but man, it really makes you forcibly extract it. Not a fan.

Catch 22 and Hitchiker's Guide - I personally loved both, but I can see where some wouldnt, it really appeals to a certain twisted eclectic sense of humour.

Heart of Darkness - Much the same as a farewell to arms except I actually enjoyed this book, I dont know if its because of reading it for English 31 or what, but this book, while not exactly flowing ar anything was really good. Same goes for the catcher in the rye.

The Hobbit - Tolkien is really slow to get things going guys, I know the beginning sucks pretty hard, but I highly recommend you stick with it, it is a really good book once you get past all the initial crap like how many pots he has to pack and the 20 pages he spends deciding how much tea and crackers to bring with him.

The Lord of The Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring is the exact same thing. Once you get past the really boring beginning its awesome. That book took me more time to read than the other two combined.

Locke.

[JohnnyB]

Dead Babies, by Martin Amis, is a regretted purchase.
I really enjoyed Money, and was hoping for something with similar style and flair. Dead Babies was just self indulgent crap though.

[CaptainCrunch]

Anything by Stephen King, especially the endings. IT was such an awesome concept, then the ending came

The Hobbit/Lord of the Rings - Way to much singing for my taste.

[604flames]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

Dead Babies, by Martin Amis, is a regretted purchase.
I really enjoyed Money, and was hoping for something with similar style and flair. Dead Babies was just self indulgent crap though.

Haven't read Dead Babies, but loved Money, London Fields, and Time's Arrow.
Most disappointing, in Amisian (is that a word?) terms... The Old Devils, by Kingsley Amis. Had to read it for school, and man oh man was that dry.

[Flash Walken]

I could've sworn i posted in this thread...

Anyway, Kermit, I agree, flat earth was quite possibly the worst, more underwhelming book I've ever read...The only one I can think of that is worse is Dershowitz's The Case for Israel.

[RubberDuck]

Originally Posted by Cowperson

Hemingway's "A Farewell To Arms" is actually a superb book . . . . . but the ending will have you throwing it across the room in shock and disappointment . . . . although that type of ending would have been common in authors writing in that time frame, the late 1920's/1930's.

Cowperson

I love Hemmingway but you need to prepare yourself for a downer of an ending. The first one I read was "To have and have not" and I had the same shock and disappointment at the end. I'm reading "For whom the bell tolls" now and I'm just waiting for something horrible to happen.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by RubberDuck

I love Hemmingway but you need to prepare yourself for a downer of an ending. The first one I read was "To have and have not" and I had the same shock and disappointment at the end. I'm reading "For whom the bell tolls" now and I'm just waiting for something horrible to happen.

That one is without question pretty horrible.

Locke.

[Vulcan]

I tried reading G B Shaw's Pygmalion and couldn't get past the first few pages. Boring as hell and doubly dissapointing as he is my only famous ancester.

[Sainters7]

Originally Posted by Red

Really? I enjoyed The Davinci Code, I thought it was really fast paced.

My recent dissapointments:

Freakonomics and Tipping Point. Boring "sky is blue" books

I usually don't read fiction(I got a serious thing for sports autobiographies and true crime novels), so my list of fiction books for this thread is a short one. Out of them, I'd have to agree that the DaVinci Code was my most disappointing book. Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy it. But I had just heard SO much about it(basically the book form of "Crash", in terms of hype, and disappointment for me), so my expectations were off the charts for it. Plus, I had just finished reading Angels & Demons, which I absolutely loved, so I was expecting DaVinci Code to be better.

Although it was enjoyable, I felt A&D was the much better read. I think they shouldve made that one into the movie. More compelling story, better scenery(all the Italian piazzas wouldve been amazing to see), and the over-the-top, almost cheesy Hollywood ending to the book would've been perfect for the big screen. It almost seemed like the ending was written for a motion picture.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

The wars by timothy Findley.

By far the worst piece of garbage I've ever read.

You go to hell and you die!

[SARGE voice] "I hope you get raped..twice!" [/SARGE voice]

Other books though that reach into the horrible realm for me are Heart of Darkness (my English teacher mother convinced me to read it, and I discussed with her how much I hated that book) and Palaniuk's Survivor. Never have a read an author who is so full of himself and his views on the world. I wanted to spit after reading that book.

[metallicat]

Originally Posted by HitterD

I agree to some extent, Fear Nothing is incredible. Did you read Sieze the Night, though??? It was the sequel to Fear Nothing, and I thought is was nearly as good as the first, and am STILL anxiosly awaiting the third and last installment in the series.

I also really enjoy the Odd Thomas series, in fact, I find alot of his newer books to be alot more enjoyable than his older ones. His ideas are much more original and his writing has progressed a ton.

Yup, I've read Seize the Night, but I have to do so again. I rushed through it the first time, so I didn't get to absorb it as much. I would have read Fear Nothing again as well, but I leant my copy to a friend and never got it back.

I too await the third installment, but fear we will never see it.

But I have read some of his newer books which have turned me off from him for the most part. The Husband was horrible...and Life Expectancy, while it offered some interesting twists, was pretty dull.

[SaskaBushFire]

Flags of Our Fathers.

I haven't read a bad book in a long time, but this is up on my list. I totally respect Iwo Jima, I respect Americans and how hard they fought in the war, but this book is bad imo. It drags on, there are a few 30-40 page spurts where the writeing is great, then it will slump for another 30.

Also on that list pretty much everything by Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, it was good when I was 13, tried to read a Dragonlance the other month, just horrible.

[RougeUnderoos]

Originally Posted by Sainters7

almost cheesy Hollywood ending

Almost cheesy?

I don't mean to be rude, and I recognize that books are a "taste" thing, but I can't believe how many people actually liked that book. It is, without a doubt, the worst book I've ever read in my life. The only reason I didn't throw it in the trash is because I wanted to see how bad it could get and it got worse than I could have imagined.

I didn't think much of the Da Vinci Code but it looks like Ulysses next to Angels and Demons.

[Antithesis]

Dan Brown has gotten very disappointing. I enjoyed Da Vinci Code ... and then I read Angels and Demons and realized it was essentially the same basic plot structure ... books that are based on 'shocking reveals' should actually involve ... you know ... shocking reveals?

[Superfraggle]

Wow...there are a whole lot of excellent (at least I thought so) books in this thread. Most of the ones I've read that have been mentioned, actually. The only one I agree with is the Dune one. I really liked the first three Dune books. The ones afterward were very disappointing.

I'm not surprised at all the posts saying things like "I couldn't get past "x" number of pages", but I do question the validity of their classification of the books. How can you know what a book is like if you've only read 8-20 pages out of hundreds? For example, I read The Constant Gardener, by John le Carre for a class this year, and was really unimpressed by the first...50 or so pages. Having finished the book, I can honestly say I really enjoyed it, though. There was a lot of leadup, which was slow, but, once you got into the meat of the novel, it was riveting.

[I_H8_Crawford]

Children of Dune series - I fought through Dune, ended up somewhat enjoying it. Then I turned to this crap. I still remember in Grade 9 English we had an extra course once a week where we would do silent reading and do a journal based on what we read that class. For this book my entries literally consisted of "This book sucks. This book is boooooooorrrrrrring. This book is boring. This book is booooooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiinggggggg" You get the idea.

Not a fan of DaVinci code.

Heart of Darkness - I'd rather wade through nasty feces filled sludge than go through that book again.

Eyes of the Dragon by Stephen King - what a horrible book.

Any of the Shannara books after the Heritage of Shannara series - Isle Witch? Give me a break, what crap.

Sphere by Michael Crichton - Are you freaking kidding me???? What a ######ed ending!! Seriously, WORST ENDING EVER. A 5 year old kid could do a better job at writing an ending.

[CaramonLS]

Originally Posted by SaskaBushFire

Also on that list pretty much everything by Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance, it was good when I was 13, tried to read a Dragonlance the other month, just horrible.

Dunno which ones you read, but I would have to agree that anything not made by Weis/Hickman is going to be pretty bad (apart from maybe 1 or 2 other authors).

I really did enjoy the War of the Souls Trilogy, I thought they were quite well written.

[Sparks]

Stephen King's It.

You'd get all excited about a scene, then he'd write something like "Little did little Jimmy know, it would be the last day of his life." Oh, wow. So he dies. Well, there goes the suspense.

Or, he'd write a fantastic scene and you would be all pumped about it, and then he'd go off on some 200 page tangent about some other newly introduced character's life down on the farm (or something). I don't care about so-and-so! I don't want to read 200 pages of mundane, irrelevant details!

I realize that most books use that technique to draw out the suspense, but not like this. Blegh!

Freakonomics

First year sociology. The cherry on the top is the entire first chapter explaining how Steven Levitt, or whatever, is the most brilliant man to ever walk the earth.