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Old 06-21-2008, 01:56 PM
 
485 posts, read 1,949,124 times
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But wasn't the journey fascinating?

The end was bound to be disappointing.

Just like real life!
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Old 06-21-2008, 03:46 PM
 
Location: Funky Town
15,927 posts, read 8,117,544 times
Reputation: 58595
Quote:
Originally Posted by jadybug View Post
"The Good, The Bad, and The Very Ugly"-by Sondra Locke
LoL, this made me laugh. I enjoy nonfiction, and "tell all" books, also. I can only imagine the "smack" Sandra Locke tried to smear on Clint. I love everything about him, and can only imagine what the spurned, bitter, no talent, gold digger. S.L. had to say.
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Old 06-22-2008, 10:07 AM
 
Location: Piedmont NC
4,596 posts, read 11,421,737 times
Reputation: 9170
Quote:
Originally Posted by sberdrow View Post
looks like Stephen King is running away with the Worst Author title.
Aww, c'mon! Cut the guy some slack. He has done for reading the very thing even Shakespeare did in his time -- appealed to the masses, and been successful at getting many reading again. Granted, he has really written some trash, but he also put together some great selections, too.

I'll take a Stephen King over any Barbara Cortland, or the other Romance novelists, any day -- but I don't begrudge anyone reading, regardless. (And I have, in my own day, picked up a 'trashy' book, myself.)

Anyway, I did solicit opinions on the worst author/book some of us have ever read, and you are as entitled to your opinions as what I, or anyone else am/is. I just had to defend this one. Interesting, the authors and works that have come up, anyway. It has let me get some of the frustration out that should have been directed at my HS English teachers and college lit professors -- I'd love to ask them, "what were you thinking?"
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Old 06-25-2008, 01:17 PM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
5,765 posts, read 10,961,738 times
Reputation: 2830
Quote:
Originally Posted by sberdrow View Post
Ive only read 92 books in my life, but the worst of all was Insomnia by Stephen King. Im normally into his books for the most part, especially the early stuff, but that book was so bad. I have a supersition that if you dont finish a book, it will bring you bad luck, so I trudged thru this miserable piece of crap. Irony is it took me 3 months to read because INSOMNIA put me to sleep after 4 pages nearly every time

That's funny. I have two friends that are Stephen King fanatics and both of them have this as their favorite Stephen King book. I have never read it but it is on my list because they both strongly recommended it.
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Old 06-25-2008, 01:18 PM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
5,765 posts, read 10,961,738 times
Reputation: 2830
Quote:
Originally Posted by K-Luv View Post
Worst book? I dunno. I wouldn't waste my time finishing a book that I thought was lame.

Worst author, hands down in opinion, has to be Stephan King. He is just too effin long winded! The guy can spend twenty pages describing someone walking down the street; with nothing happening except that the guy is walking down the street. Total bore.

I dont think he is like that at all. I will tell you one author that is like that is Dean Koontz. He is by far the most overly descriptive author I have read.
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Old 06-25-2008, 01:23 PM
 
Location: Kansas City, MO
5,765 posts, read 10,961,738 times
Reputation: 2830
Quote:
Originally Posted by krakenten View Post
But wasn't the journey fascinating?

The end was bound to be disappointing.

Just like real life!

I agree. I was disappointed by the ending when I finished the book but have given it much thought since and I couldnt think of a better way to end it.
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Old 06-25-2008, 02:17 PM
 
Location: Albany, GA (Hell's Waiting Room)
602 posts, read 1,957,205 times
Reputation: 287
Quote:
Originally Posted by kanhawk View Post
This may not be the worst book I've read but more the biggest disappointment. I had been an early fan of Stephen King's fantasy series, The Dark Tower. While the later ones started deteriorating in quality, I was still looking forward to the final book since I had been reading these books for 20 years. When the final book The Dark Tower, came out, I was extremely disappointed. I wanted it to be so much better than it was. The final scene was like some idea stolen from a twilight zone episode, not original or imaginative at all. I felt cheated by the author after investing all those years in that series. Still the early volumes were good. Too bad about the end.
This is SO TRUE. I read the first few books and loved them, but by the end, Stephen King had stuck his big old self into the picture like some inept photographer, and ruined everything. And given his propensity for going on and on and EVERLOVING ON about getting hit by a van, I imagine grocery lists at the King mansion look something like:

  • Cocaine
  • Beeah
  • Lobstah
  • Did I mention I was hit by a van?
He starts killing off characters left and right, and pulls something out of his butt about how he is "God" to these characters, and...feh. I'm getting all veiny-headed about it, and it was simply a crappy ending to what started out as a great series of books. I wish suppurating pustules on Stephen King. You hear that, King? SUPPURATING PUSTULES! Gaaah.

Heh. Sorry.

I was also going to nominate Danielle Steele and Dan Brown as crappiest authors. Dan Brown's prose is embarrassingly bad and childish. It amazes me that anything he's written has sold to anyone other than his mom.

And Thomas Hardy. Don't get me started on Thomas Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge left clawmarks on my very soul with its ability to bore to the point of torment.

Last edited by FlourChild; 06-25-2008 at 02:20 PM.. Reason: Addition
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Old 06-26-2008, 12:16 AM
 
Location: St Simons Island, GA
23,354 posts, read 43,822,059 times
Reputation: 16544
Quote:
Originally Posted by RDSLOTS View Post
Likewise for The Bridges of Madison County. I was enjoying the story enough until the anti-climatic (all puns intended) moment when the silly photographer gets on his soapbox about being a man out-of-step with the times and rants about for pages, no less. OMG, but I'd have handed him his trousers and sent him on his way
A M E N; this was my immediate choice, hands down.
This book's success was a total enigma to me.
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Old 06-26-2008, 10:21 AM
 
Location: Piedmont NC
4,596 posts, read 11,421,737 times
Reputation: 9170
Quote:
Originally Posted by LovinDecatur View Post
A M E N; this was my immediate choice, hands down.
This book's success was a total enigma to me.
The photographer's rant about being a man out-of-step with the time seemed so unrealistic to me -- in bed, after a first love-making session, wasn't it? I kept thinking, 'you are kidding me, here, right?' I couldn't help but think it was the author's personal slant-and-rant.

My husband and I liked Nicholas Spark's sentimental, slightly sappy The Notebook -- somewhat our own love story -- but I recall flinging Message in a Bottle across the room, and then reading aloud the account of his leaving the docks in a small sailboat in 15-knot winds. "Fool" doesn't even come close to describing such lunacy, and anyone who sails, lives near a shore, would recognize the absurdity of it -- especially in one who was raised in/around water and on boats, for crying out loud. Too much to try to 'disbelieve' for us. How I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt -- NC author and all, and I am nothing if not loyal to NC writers.

Of course, they are making money writing books, and I'm NOT.
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Old 06-27-2008, 07:01 AM
 
Location: Where we enjoy all four seasons
20,797 posts, read 9,710,694 times
Reputation: 15936
The book Lovely Bones was highly recommended to me by so many people....I bought it and could not get into it. I couldn't get past the fact that this was a child telling her story of how she was molested and murdered and she is telling her own story. Too much for me. Gave me the creeps.
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