It's Not Only Fish That Flop (Top Ten Unreadable/Unfinishable Books)

Member Name: Shadowtwinchaos

Product:	Top Ten Unreadable/Unfinishable Books
Date:	20/12/01 (114 review reads)
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Advantages: Now I have great door jams, They do a great job of holding up my book shelf, If we ever loose power, we can burn them for heat

Disadvantages: I wasted WAY too much time reading them, I think some of them may have warped my vision, I wonder if I can blame a brain tumor on one of them?

I started reading at a very young age. Reading has always been a big part of my life. In books I have traveled to foreign places, I have ridden on dragons, I have been at the bottom of the ocean. There is little you can’t find in books if you want to. I have shared my love of reading with my children.

Books have long been considered to be dear friends to me. But in my many journeys, I have also found some enemies. There is, much to my dismay, some books that I truly believe should have never been penned. So, with no further ado, here is my top 10 books that you should never read.

1. Hunger of Memory : The Education of Richard Rodriguez : An Autobiography
by Richard Rodriguez

I was dating a young man many years ago who was attending college. He was having quite a bit of trouble in his English classes. So, being the wonderful girlfriend that I was, I offered to help him. This entailed reading this book and writing a report on it. Now, I can read just about anything from cereal boxes to junk magazines. I could barely struggle through this book. With long, descriptive paragraphs about his childhood and his memories, I found myself yawning and losing the point on almost every page. I will admit that I wrote and admirable paper that earned my boyfriend an A. However, I also would warn anyone against picking this book up.

2. The Scarlet Letter by by Nathaniel Hawthorne

I went through a period in time where I wanted to broaden my horizons. To do this I took several trips to the library with the quest of checking out some classic books. I figured that if they had withstood the test of time, there must be some redeeming quality about them. Not in this case. I started the book knowing the basic story line. A woman living in a Quaker town in the early Colonial days is an unwed mother. The town forces her to wear a scarlet letter sewn on all of her clothing. Interesting, right? Well, I have to say, there were way
too many words in this book. I know, how can there be too many words in a book? Easy, the descriptions dragged, the plot hung behind, the point is lost several times and the climax was less than climactic. All in all, a real thumbs down.

3. Gerald’s Game by Stephen King

I am a real King fan, I have read, and enjoyed many of his books. I own half of them to read again and again. So I set forth to read this with eager delight. The beginning caught my attention right away. A husband and wife decide to spice up their love life by going to their summer cottage for romp. However, it is the middle of winter and the area is deserted. The husband decides to try something new to bring excitement to their boring love making sessions by handcuffing his wife to the bed. He then promptly dies of a heart attack. How inconvenient. Especially since his wife is now stranded, handcuffed to the bed in the middle of winter. Amusing. That is the first few pages. After that, it goes downhill. With everything from a wild dog breaking in to the house to begin gnawing on her dead spouse to the frequent flashbacks to her childhood, there is nothing to recommend this book to anyone. A real Stephen King Flop.

3. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

One of those books that they force you to read in school, I never did manage to finish this one. I faked it on all of my papers with Cliff Notes in hand. As I have always understood “If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with b*llsh@t” It always seemed to work. The story, as I understand it, it had something to do with some rich guy, his lost love and tragedy. He meets the girl, he goes off to war, she marries some jerk, he comes back blah blah blah. Once again, too many words. Yadda, Yadda, Yadda. Now I understand that this is touted as Fitzgerald’s finest work. I’m gald that I never read anything else by him if this is the best he can do. Sorr
y, it’s a two thumbs down.

4. The Woods Are Dark by Richard Laymon

I often haunt yard sales and garage sales for books. I love to uncover a hidden treasure in books. Most people have boxes set up with tons of books for a quarter or a dollar. This was one such book. I got it for a quarter, so I can’t say that I invested much in it. However, I have to say that it wasn’t even worth the quarter. It’s about a town called Barlow. The people of this town capture strangers and tie them to trees in the woods to appease the creatures who live there. What are the creatures? Children who had ran away into the woods and become wild cannibals. If the towns people don’t feed them strangers then they attack the town. Filled with gross scenes, sex, violence and the mandatory love story, I have to say it completely stunk. Bad writing, bad plot, no characters, a complete flop.

5. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Another one of those books that they forced me to read in school. It is long, depressing and boring. A story about a family in the Dust Bowl during the Depression. It’s not just that the story is depressing. I found the characters to be flat, the descriptions long and boring. There was a serious lack of good dialog. Nothing to get or hold your attention. It is said to be a “Great American Novel” . I know that there are a great deal of other books and stories that American writers have put out that I found much more absorbing. Another no go here.

6. Swan’s Song by Robert R. McCammon

Here is a story that I wish I had never read. I truly enjoyed Stephen King’s book “The Stand”. This is a wannabe of that book. Set in the world after the nuclear holocaust, everyone who is left develops a crusty growth over there face. There are good guys and bad guys. They pick sides. There is a child named Swan who is suppose to possess the power of life. The
good and bad battle over her. There are quite a few scenes that are far too descriptive of things like gross wounds and death. I have to say I was incredibly surprised I made it through this book without vomiting at some of the descriptions. But besides that point, the story sucked. Here is one I hope I never see again.

7. Amityville: The Horror Returns by John G. Jones

Okay, I read the first one. I read the second one, but did they have to keep going? This story is of the same stupid family, the same boring evil presence that seems to follow them everywhere, the same asanine things keep happening. How did it get in this time? In a doll house. The evil traveled across country via the doll house to find the family that had escaped. They had moved to a modern ranch home thousands of miles away. They thought they had escaped. But the parents go away for a weekend and come back to find the house transformed into the haunted Amity house all over again. Once again they go to all kinds of super natural lengths to expel the evil. This time they turn to a Native American Shaman to help them. Lame Lame Lame. The least they could have done is try to make it interesting. This one falls very short of even being interesting.

8. Bio of an Ogre by Piers Anthony

Piers Anthony has written a great many books in his time. He has written the Xanth series which I adored. He wrote the Incarnations of Immortality which I also loved. So when I picked up this book, I thought I would find a great deal of insight into the author’s life. I usually find autobiographies interesting. However, I found this to be a book full of whining and finger pointing. He blames everyone from his family, his schools, publishers and a great deal of other people for the problems in his life. He complains about the world today and sounds like he really thinks he’s better than other people. All in all, I was disappointed. Instead of finding insight into his
work and feeling closer to one of my favorite authors I felt offended and disgusted. A serious let down from someone I thought I would greatly respect. He may have written many books that I like, but I most certainly didn’t like this one and seriously doubt if I would like him as a person.

9. The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King

Now I know I’ve said that I really like Stephen King and I do. I love a great many of his books. However, this was another flop that I have to say I’m sorry I ever read. The story line is simple. A young girl is having problems dealing with her parents divorce. Her mother her and her brother for a hike in the woods. The girl steps off the path to pee and gets lost. Now, I find it incredibly hard to believe that on a national trail, a girl can take a few steps off the path and get lost. But after she gets lost things go from bad to worse. She gets hurt, she gets chased by things, she hallucinates. Her passion in life is baseball, so she begins thinking she is seeing her favorite baseball player, Tom Gordon. He begins to lead her and show her the way. Okay, yeah, right. I kept reading thinking that it would improve. It didn’t. It wasn’t scary. It wasn’t believable. It wasn’t entertaining. It was almost as bad as Gerald’s Game.

10. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Okay, here we go again with another great classic. So many people rave about this book being a classic I wonder if they ever read it. It is one of the longest, most boring books I have ever been forced to read. It is suppose to be this great symbol of man and his struggle with obsession and his own mortality and so on and so forth. No. It’s not. It’s a long boring book about a man chasing a whale with long boring descriptions of days at sea. There is way too much detail about Cap’n Ahab. There is way too much description period. Of all the classics, I mos
t certainly find this the most boring. Not even the story line is catchy. The plot is too simple, the prose too long, the descriptions boring, the characters not endearing. There is nothing to recommend wasting your time reading this book. I think so many times people rave about classics so that people begin to feel they have to rave about it too or find themselves being looked at as stupid. Not me, I believe the great white sunk and the book stunk.


Well, there you go. My list of “Books To Never Read”. I’m sure that many people out there will disagree with some of my choices, but that’s the great thing about opinions. No one has to agree with me. But, if you haven’t read any of these books, bless you, you are the lucky ones. Some of these I was forced to read, some I read by choice, but one way or another, I am sorry that I did.

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