For me, it’s Jude the Obscure. That book is easily the worst book I have ever read, without a single redeeming quality, other than that it finally ends. I only finished it because Far from the Madding Crowd was so damn good.

But really, Jude is the gold standard of awful books, in my opinion.

What’s your so-awful-it-deserves-shelf-space book, if you have one?

Or am I just weird?

  • 2leewhohot@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    Let me Introduce you to TOYS by James Patterson and the actual author, Neil McMahon. If you’re a struggling writer who thinks their manuscript is just not good enough to ever be published, I encourage you to go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words.

    It wants to be hot shit on a silver platter. It’s actually a cold turd on a paper plate. It wants to be a futuristic James Bond, but it can’t even manage to be Bill Cosby’s Leonard, Part Six

    Just open a random page, read a couple of paragraphs, and be inspired that some asshole wrote it, some asshole edited it, and some asshole published it.

    It is just god-awful. I love it so much.

    • bequietbekind@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words

      This is the most lowkey spicy burn I’ve seen in quite some time.

    • bitchysquid@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      When I was 11 years old and naive, I loved the Maximum Ride novels. But even at that age I could tell somebody was phoning it in for those novels. I still fantasize about what a competent (or even just attentive) writer could have done with that story! It could have kicked ass

    • starsn420@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I have this book. It doesn’t make sense, but I read it about every 3 years, and I love it.