What Was The Worst Book You Ever Read?

He complains the entire time about his family, but had never done a single thing to address what he was complaining about.

That is pretty much the definition of whiny.

Did you read it? Honestly, did you?

His family doesn't really care about him, not many people do, kind of like an insect. He turns into a bug, and if turned into a bug, I'd expect to be able to tell my family and they'd care. If I worked my ass off everyday and then suddenly I don't want to leave my room, they'd ask if something was wrong.

Maybe you have a cold family life too, idk.

He was already miserable when he turned into a bug because of his family. He was whiny and annoying, complaining about how they'd always used him, even though it was his own fault for being an enabler.

He was a miserable wretch of a character.

Your argument can be summed up into "he should have stopped being a pussy."

This was life for a lot of folks at the time it was written, except that many of them had loving families. He feels such a sense of responsibility that he tries to help out even as a bug. Hes a touching tragic character who is locked in tradition and abuse.

You dont have to agree with a character or even like him for that character to be a good one.

I believe its meant as satire. Embodying the opposite of the original concept; illuminating and understandable by initiates of mystery schools.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Ass

This fucking piece of shit. Dickens' worst attributes contrived into one pile of absurdist, sentimentalist crock. Fuck Dickens.

A Wrinkle in Time. Simpering, pseudo-intellectual garbage.

>"dude, quit being a little bitch."

And do what? Should he just play the new FIFA on his Xbox One? Go lift some weights? Drink some Vegas bombs?

He's a fucking insect. It's a book for anyone who's felt like an insect in real life. If you've never thought "why the hell even get out of bed today", I envy you but at the same time I kind of don't because Kafka's works kind of predict/set the precedent for modern literature.

>Just plane miserable

Walden
go build a cabin up your own ass! build it deep and Thoreau!

What about Pickwick Papers? There are some really funny moments in it. Hard Times is rather prudish and preachy, from what I remember, and there was a lot of sentimentality but that's also true for Oliver Twist. He's was writing to a huge Victorian audience who wanted lovable, likeable rogues and bad, insufferable villains. It may be a bit trite to write so, but he was very good at it and his works are a remarkable documentation of Victorian England.

Neuromancer sucked and was severely disappointing.

I'm inclined to disagree. I think that book is fascinating and fucked up in some interesting ways.

Don Quixote, though, is grueling and cancerous, imo.

*Vermin

keke

Worst book I ever read? Either American Gods by Neil Gaimen or The Scarlet Letter, both which are widely liked which makes me feel insecure about my reading tastes. But my favorite books are The Catcher in the Rye/ A Portrait...The Great Gatsby, and a Tale of Two Cities. Make of me what you will.

You take that back you Cucklord.
The Knight of Sorrowful Countenance will have none of it.

Brave New World was pretty obnoxious. Not the worst, but it left a really bad impression on me.

>obnoxious attempts to make it seem like a authoritarian nightmare (LOLZ THEY ALL HAVE THE NAMES OF COMMUNISTS AND INDUSTRIALISTS)
>an attempt to criticize hedonism (everyone has sex all the time) which just comes off a spooked Christian morality and doesn't even make sense in the context of the universe (it is a bad thing that children engage in exploration of their bodies, or adults engage in polygamy, the evil people say its a good thing!)
>people are soulless automations! (like Marx who ends up only caring for sex) Superior people have different opinions (like Watson. who is basically superman) or read literature (like John, who naturally has a problem with sexual relationships because he's spooked by Christian morality)
>people take drugs all the time and thats a bad thing because it keeps them sedated, but Huxley wrote a book after taking drugs, soo.....
>religion is restricted by the evil State because they want to keep people controlled, but Huxley criticized organized religion all the time, so....
>science and scientism is bad, but no great alternatives are given by the book, because the native Americans they come across live like shit and are superstitious. The state has a togetherness program that provides a similarly helpful bonding experience for its members to engage in, so what the fuck is the problem?

If there is subtly between all this hypocritical presentation of different points, I woouldn't know it because he just beats you over the head with one idea or another and keeps hitting you, until he realises one might not be so bad and just prevent the exact view with reconciliation. I can see why people might like it back in the day but now I see where all the anti-science, new age crap of the modern comes from.

Its like those dickheads on the internet that read 1984 and then try and interpret its themes of authoritarianism, loss of individuality, and technology, the book

Why are people like this taught how to read? You obviously can't understand anyone but yourself, you may as well just go do manual labor and die at 40.

You really shouldn't feel bad about disliking American Gods. I'm a Gaiman fan but you aren't about to hear me say it's high lit.

>he's being a pussy

To be fair

A) Lots of people feel this way. Have shit family lives, dead end jobs, can barely get out of bed in the morning, all they want to do is eat breakfast and not think or feel about anything

B) Considering Kafka's history of family abuse and shit personal life, its probably just "my memoirs if I was a cockroach".

I agree with most of this.
I haven't read it since 9th grade but I remember it being the first book I absolutely hated.

That being said I actually enjoyed all the other famous Dystopian stories.

I'm addition to all of this Huxley was a proponent of eugenics and was trying to support the Caste system in the book according to various interviews.
But the Soma though.

I agree.
The book is not that deep, sure it has symbolism and a kind of unique metaphor to being a bug, but it still is only a masterpiece to those who sniff their own farts and wouldn't know true depth of a reading experience.

most of that is your interpretation, which seems to ironically revolve around a christian morality hangup. nowhere in the book does it say "scientism is bad" or "sex all the time is bad." brave new world isn't the greatest book ever, but any halfway sophisticated reader can see that it's a more nuanced work than that.

>nowhere in the book does it say "scientism is bad" or "sex all the time is bad."
>more nuanced work than that

I'd like to agree with that, but I just can't. He presents ideas in the most simplistic and obnoxious manner possible. He makes the state and their almost industrial eugenics program out to be the bad guys with graphic illustrations of alienation, unconsciousness and borderline body horror. Yet he seems to agree with a lot of it in external sources, and the alternative he presents (a superstitious Native American tribe) seems really shitty, except for John.

He fails to achieve any kind of nuisance. As I said before he just beats you over the head with one idea or the other, and makes the likable characters seem up themselves. Oh John is noble because he has deep connection with religion and read Shakespeare. He's the only one not duped by the lifestyle the state is created. Yet he's also crazy and judgmental. Watson is the same but can only achieve this state of knowledge by being a literal super human because he does everything perfectly. Pretty easy to take a step back when you aren't the bullied, ismasculnated Marx or a beta.

Why does everything have to be a "masterpiece"? It's not a fucking masterpiece, or 2deep4u, or anything. It's a story told in an interesting way, about a topic personal to the author, and also incredibly relatable and understandable to a lot of people.

If I wanted to read boring and witless drivel for hours on end I'd read an accounting textbook.

Whats the difference between Soma and the drugs he took? One makes you unconscious and easier to control, but apparently when Huxley does it it gives him deeper meaning of life?

Whats the difference between the practice of personal spirituality and the group demonstrations in the book?

Its a very funny book, but long as fuck, and you kind of get the idea after the first chapter

I am not in Huxley's side of this fight friendo.
I was attempting to point out the ridiculousness of supporting eugenics and caste systems and writing an entire book about how you don't like drugs. (Apparently was his intent, which is only relevant since we're actually talking about the author himself at the moment.)

>Cervantes

>witless

I see your comprehension level is pretty low there friendo.
Would you have preferred the comedy stylings of Seth MacFarlane, perhaps?

I read some meme books from /pol/. The way of men and generation identity. The way of men was particularly bad. That was last year.

This year I reread the chrysalids, having first read it sometime 10 years ago, and was severely disappointed. The themes are capricious and contradictory... It seems like the author had little to actually say, and came up with a poorly formed story based on an excellent concept. I am surprised they made us read it in high school.

you're a dolt with no ability for critical thinking

kafka.org/index.php?aid=220

read this, if it doesn't help, leave lit and never come back

Yeah but everyone loves it

Grown men were obsessed with a show about magical cartoon ponies for quite some time there, I wouldn't bank to much on the appeal to the masses fallacy

>to

Committing sudoku, brb

That's not true at all, I don't think I've seen literally anyone else on this board who actually liked it.

I see you've been convinced that parody and meta-parody are something you should be impressed over and are obviously butthurt that I'm not impressed over them. I believe got it right. The book doesn't need to be so fucking drawn out, and the second volume is just too much auto-fellatio for my taste.

But you know, people fawn over extensive pieces of mildly witty literature all the time; so don't stop on my account.

I meant everyone in the normie sense. Check good reads.

OK what about Le Scurlet Lettur :D
>much symbols and ancestry and stronk femule

I like it, and it seems to be on a lot of "Top 25 must read fucking whatever" lists, but if its not your thing who cares? Even this board have conflicting opinions over must reads like Don Quixote or Metamorphises

American Gods isn't even on our radar.

>witless

>mildly witty

Pick one.

God yes the book is too drawn out and has at least 100 descriptions of Sancho and Don Quixote eating lunch for no specific reason.
I wouldn't say that makes a pile of witless drivel.
Sancho's period as the governor of the island was one of my favorite comedic moments in literature, and I do regret that you did not enjoy this classic. I don't think it's hung around for 500 years by virtue of it being garbage, but I won't lean too heavily on that fallacy.

>5. I thought Dune[...]
Fucking this. Dune shouldn't be considered a literary classic by any measure but it's the first kind of "low-tier" sf novel I've read and it blows Huxley out of the water. Brave New World and especially Island are just bad, misguided, disdainful and painfully British pieces of junk. The part in Island where the islanders rewrite Oedipus Rex into a self-help novel is just painful. I read Angels and Demons, Da Vinci Code, and Cujo, and Island is worse than all of them.

The thing about the apple is genesis is wrong. It's never explicitly stated the fruit is an apple. It only started being thought of as an apple by puritans in the 1600s or something like that.

Okay, why the fuck do you care about that? Normies like Stephen King and YA shit.

Thanks for the replies. I expected everyone on here to be snarky, sarcastic snobs from all the lurking I do.

I read Stephen King for pleasure sometimes =| need a break once in a while from meme books

Well you didn't think wrong, but no really cares, and people are up for a debate over books they like.

I mean, its a book, what kind of piss fight after you going to have? Like if I say "I can really relate to Shadow as a character" and you disagree, is that really going to set off my autism?

Just don't talk shit about Dostoevsky and you should be fine. This isn't like tumblr where you mildly encroach upon those nerd's fandoms.

What did you dislike about it now that you are here?

but kafka probably didn't know that though, so the interpretation still holds up

but thanks for that info, interesting...

Reading "Shadow" and "Autism" so close together has now changed the main character into Shadow the Hedgehog for me mentally.

Trying to figure out whether you guys are sincere about the books you like. Getting into Ulysses right now since I liked portrait so much. Also, who guys constantly recycle authors and books in your converations.

FAAAAAARRRRRKKKKKKKKK

I guess no is going to read that book now, lol

I dunno, if we we're shit posting it would be more obvious I think. I like American Gods and I recommend it too all my friends. Its defiantly a step up to the usual diet of random shit people I know read, and even "patricians" I know don't dislike it.

I am not going to say its high art, but I don't think anyone ever did.

Psh, nothin' puhsonnel kid

Good night user. Nice talking to you, man.

There are a lot of bad books out there that exist simply because people THINK they're good books, and either don't understand what they're reading, or have it on their shelves to impress others. (pic related).
>durrhurr lets do drugs and bang our heads on a typewriter, it's the 70's, man.
>gonzo cover
>appeal to approaching-middle-age Boomers who hated Nixon

I stood in the store and read a few pages of "50 Shades of Grey" when it was all the rage. I just couldn't believe a badly-written book could get such hype -- even making the talk-show circuit and women's book club events. What the fuck?

Some women didn't even understand when I insisted "It's BAD. It's a BAD BOOK" thinking I was against the subject matter, and not the lack of skill the author shat onto the pages. They think I just "didn't get it", or something. Depressing.

the book did what it was supposed to do for readers

if u went into it expecting good prose or a meaningful resolution, then you're being deliberately hard headed and should reevaluate your priorities

Goodnight book fags, nice talking to you

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

Not "bad" per se in that he's obviously not illiterate. He's just pretentious, self-important and overrated to the point where it really irritates me. I obtained nothing of value reading about his account of a road trip and nothing in this book could be described as transgressive. It's life through an instagram filter, albeit in the 50s. Every time he tries to say something "deep" it just falls flat.

Other than Burroughs, everyone associated with the "beat generation" (really just a clique of self-appointed hipsters) is just a pseud.

>I am not in Huxley's side of this fight friendo

I know, but i'm geniunally asking why there is this clear contradiction between what he wrote and what he actually does in real life.

>but Huxley wrote a book after taking drugs
A person did X so he may not criticize X
Memes!
>, soo.....
Stop that.

Snow Crash tries so hard to be cool but it just comes off as nerd power fantasy #63479. And the pacing is unbearable towards the end.

Yes, that's the point. Kafka's protagonists are all deeply flawed and the pain they endure is of their own making.

Worst book I ever read was probably The Alchemist. Paolo Coelho is an evil, evil man for putting such a piece of shit out there to be read and forced on schoolchildren.

Neuromancer is even worse.

>Worst book I ever read was probably The Alchemist. Paolo Coelho is an evil, evil man for putting such a piece of shit out there to be read and forced on schoolchildren.
>schoolchildren

don't tell me they teach coelho

Had to read it in 10th grade right between the Odyssey and Romeo and Juliet.

I liked it 3.5/5

>A person did X so he may not criticize X
Well when he is literally demonsising it and claiming people who engage it are someone unconscious to their surroundings and emotions, and are lesser creatures as a result (John's mother went into a fucking coma after being deprived for so long) then its a little weird that he is using it for perosnal reasons.

You could argue that he is against the excessive intake of drugs, but then you have attractive and likable characters like Watson and Mond whom we are supposed to emulate that don't engage in drug use and are bored by the en-devour.

Taipei. Absolute tripe.
>Hurr durr I'm such a degenerate drug addict
>Oh but it's ok because I'm just trying to separate from the world maaaaan

Literally nothing but the musings of a petulant child.

That's because Asian Americans can't into creativity. Same thing with most American minorities. They only ever write about 'the struggle,' which is total bullshit anyway.
>Oh man life is so hard/difficult/different for me in this arbitrary way because I'm Asian/black/Mexican/Irish
No, you're life is just fine. Stop writing mundane and pedestrian novels about mundane and pedestrian events. Just because you lived in Flushing/Bronx/Williamsburg doesn't make you interesting, different, or deep. It just means you lived in an ethnocentric neighborhood and nothing more. You aren't oppressed, you're just a retard and a hack who can't write and should fuck off and die.

That or they write about the homeland which is just as cringy because they have no actual connection to it any longer. It would be like me writing a book about Prussia.

Basically he wrote the book for betas about what it's like to be a beta. Get the fuck over it and yourself. Yes, go out and do those things. Stop being a whiny bitch and fix your station in life.

Steppenwolf, didn't even get halfway.

>CRAWLING IN MY SKIN
*disjointed pseudo-intellectual rambling about goethe and the bourgeois*
>THESE WOUNDS THEY WILL NOT HEAL

>Hedonism and sexual deviance is in any way acceptable
>Christian morality is bad
Wew lad.

The only book I regret spending time on.

>Cervantes
>Witless
Wew lad...
>Accounting
>Drivel
WEW LAD... Guess you don't like regulation that keeps companies accountable to the benefit of the individual investor and the public eye. Off to Somalia with you.

Another example of why the unintelligent shouldn't be allowed to be literate

Ceremony by Silko, nonstop Indian wanking, half-baked environmentalism, and shit poems, I read it in one night for a class and wanted nothing more than death by the end of it.

>The way of men
Literally, WHY CAN'T I BEAT MY WIFE!? the book. I've heard good things about Generation Identity though, why didn't you care for it?

Almost every single one of them had an obligatory scene in which the protagonist enters an American school and has to change her name to something Americans can pronounce, and this was always supposed to be extremely sad.

You'll get that here, but you have to remember Veeky Forums is also the smartest board on Veeky Forums (hue hue) so you should still expect reasonable discussion so long as it's not a meme topic, like DFW, and even then you can still discuss it in most cases. We just actually expect you to be able to defend your points rationally here and don't give though to people whose arguments amount to 'I'm right because I said so' or 'faggot.' We're happy to have a back and forth if you're cordial and show signs of intelligence.

If you don't enjoy the meme books then don't read them. Not everyone is cut out for reading advanced texts. Unless you're an actual academic there's no point in reading if you don't get enjoyment out of it. Just read what makes you happy and that you enjoy. Just because I like Joyce and Dostoevsky doesn't mean you can't like Stephen King and George Orwell.

Yes, but definitely read Dubliners and the Greeks before starting Ulysses. You really need to in order to form a complete understanding.

This but I also apply it to Borroughs as well. They're so annoying.

>Veeky Forums is also the smartest board on Veeky Forums

>Thinking people should stop complaining about things they can easily remedy is unintelligent
Hmm, really makes you think.

Of course they did, just like every black author has a line about how the white kids all wanted to touch the black girls hair. It's so obnoxious. Minority writers really are the worst.

>not noting the (hue hue) following this statement that implies that the proceeding remark has little value in the face of its own proclaimed importance

Found the bourgeois bohemian & hedonistic libertine.

Not surprising some milquetoast white boys can't appreciate it.

There's nothing wrong with eugenics or caste systems, you utopian dweeb.

God help this Child
No longer Human
Eat When You feel sad
that poetry collection by Mira Gonzalez