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?
This “spiritual” biography about Beethoven (I missed the “spiritual” part of it when purchasing it for $1 at a cafe). It sucked absolute dookie and reminded me that flowery language does not equal intelligence and obscures a damn point. I was absolutely grasping for take-away factoids about our maestro and gleaned three things out of 200 pages of eye-clawing fluff: he was a lonely bastard; he had a brother named Carl; he had beef with a few princes over lack of payment.