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Oh my god, you've nailed it. I'm the buyer at a bookstore, so not only do I go through 1000's of pages of catalogues full of just really bad books, but I get at least one self-published author a day trying to get me to carry their book. If they're local and nice, I'll usually take one or two on consignment. But... so MANY!
Self-published=no marketing, horrible covers hand-drawn by somebody's kid with a box full of colored pencils (not always, but by and large), no EDITING, no direction from a highly trained staff of seasoned professionals hell-bent on making their book the best it can possibly be... The truth is, if you've self-published a book, you've been printed, not published. There's a difference.
If any of you out there are writing a book and are wondering what to do with it, please, please, please: research where your book belongs, research agents that represent books like yours, get an agent, follow their advice, listen to your editors, fight for your artistic vision while still listening to the opinions of others, be nice to everybody because word gets around fast... Self-publishing is and should always be a last resort.
I see exactly what you meanabout the context, and in dialogue I do think that short sentences work. I was talking about the narration. I once read a book, well, tried to read a book, in which the first paragraph was made up of all simple sentences. For example, "She looked at the roof. It had a hole. She wondered if she should repair it. She thought about the cost of the repairs." It just makes a book incredibly hard to read. But that may be a persons preference, so I shall say no more.
Exactly how I feel about Hemingway. Maybe the writer was trying to follow his advice - that old 'start with one true thing' bit. But it's the other side of the coin - think of James Joyce's lack of punctuation and sentences that run on forever! Stream of consciousness? More like stream of confusion.
As I mentioned earlier, Hemingway killed me. I had to read Old Man and the Sea, and it was the longest 100 pages of my life. Give me Faulkner any day.
I took a language and composition class, and I loved it. we had to read both authors, among many others, and I truly enjoyed Faulkner. I also liked Fitzgerald and Hawthorne. I could not stand Dickens or Wilde.
RD, you're having trouble coming up with 5 favorites,
yet you are limiting us to 1 single worse book/author? lols. I can't just pick one of these either!
I just read a terrible book. It was "The Secret Between Us", by Barbara Delinsky. Yuck. Has anyone else read that ? I usually quit at 50 pages, if I don't like the book, but, I wanted to find out what happened, so I stuck it out. silly me.
This review sums it up perfectly :
I did not enjoy this book. I struggled to get through the story line. There was too much of the "same thing." The author repeated herself too many times to overlook and the characters issues were "beat to death" I could not find sympathy I just wanted everyone to get over it and move on in their lives. The ending was really bad . It was so "tidy" it really made me think " this sucks" all this time for that? I would not recommend. Sorry
What it's about: From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Relationships are brought to the limit in Delinsky's splendid latest exploration of family dynamics. On a rainy night, Deborah Monroe and her teenage daughter, Grace, are driving home when their car hits a man. The victim, who turns out to be Grace's history teacher, is unconscious but alive. Although Grace was driving, Deborah sends her home and takes responsibility for the accident when the cops show up. Deborah is juggling a lot: as a family doctor, she is in private practice with her über-demanding widower father, who is trying to hide a drinking problem; her son, Dylan, is vision impaired; her mother's death continues to affect the family; Deborah is still dealing with her ex-husband's new, separate life; and her unmarried sister, Jill, has just announced she's pregnant. Grace's guilt about not taking responsibility for the accident makes her withdraw from friends and family, and the accident victim turns out to have a more complex private life than anyone imagined. The author seamlessly resolves relationship issues without sentiment, throws in a promising romance for Deborah and offers a redemptive scene between Grace and her grandfather. Delinsky combines her understanding of human nature with absorbing, unpredictable storytelling—a winning combination. (Jan.)
Too funny, Jess 5. Feel free to rattle on about all of the worst authors/works you've ever read.
Most of us here have been unable to limit it to just one anyway. What I do admire, or appreciate, about how we've handled this, is how we've supported our arguments with examples, reasons, etc. Most important, I think, when you trash something.
I wish I could recall the lines in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Ernest, specifically the afternoon tea, during which the two young women are taking jabs at one another. It opens so funny, with one asking if the other minds if she 'speaks frankly?' To which she replies, something about being frank is necessary, especially if one has something most unpleasant to say.
Now that I've botched the whole deal, I'll try to find it, and quote it.
Worse book ever?? Anything on Oprah's list. I happened to start reading a book and could not figure out why I couldn't finish it. I put it aside and later found out it was on her list. Coincidence..hmmmm. But, to give her credit, out of all of her books, there is one that I enjoyed, The Cane River.
I have to disagree about the DaVinci Code. It was campy and silly and too many people took it to have true facts, but, it was a fun read. I have never understood why there are so many books and TV specials about a fiction book. Did they forget the fiction part?
Romance books? Sorry, there are times I have to escape and that is an entirely different thread.
Seeing these debates has made me proud about one thing, people are still reading. Sometimes it seems to be a lost art.
From high school days...never liked The Great Gatsby.
On my own, I picked up "The Spy Who Came In From the Cold". I liked it, real interesting. So I picked up The Russia House by the same author, and it put me to sleep...which wasn't what I wanted...especially with a book that thick!
A lot of people like Stephen King...but I sometimes find him OVERLY wordy and descriptive.
I had to read Heart of Darkness in 8th grade. It was sooo HORRIBLE. Drivel.
Anything by Thea Devane should be immediately trashed. And burned.
The Great Gatsby was boring. I forgot about that.
I've never liked Poe either.
Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane. That book really cheats the reader. The book is marketed as a police detective story and it is at first. But half way through it takes a turn into what you'd see in any number of Twilight Zone episodes. It starts out with 2 police detectives traveling to an island off the coast of Boston to investigate a murder at a mental institution. Halfway through the book you start realizing that (spoiler) they are actually inmates in the institution and this all a fantasy. Total ripoff.
"Wicked" the book the Broadway play is based on was hands-down the worst dreck I ever read.
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Maybe the writer was trying to follow his advice - that old 'start with one true thing' bit. But it's the other side of the coin - think of James Joyce's lack of punctuation and sentences that run on forever! Stream of consciousness? More like stream of confusion.
RD, you're having trouble coming up with 5 favorites,
