Canonical answer is The Homecoming Saga by Orson Scott Card, since it turns out that if the good guys have a mind controlling god computer that’s always right on their side it gets really hard to have meaningful conflict.
I tend to quit books if I don’t find them very good. One I did finish that I fucking hated was The Girl on the Train. All of the characters were fucking insufferable.
The bible. Inconsistent, unethical, and immoral.
I don’t know if this counts, but when I was about 13I was very excited to find an enormous book in my favorite genre at the time, Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.
It was the first book I ever put down in disgust without finishing. In the almost half-century since then, there are under a dozen that I haven’t finished. Shows you just how bad it is.
I read all of Mission Earth. All 12(?) volumes. I couldn’t possibly say why - I hated it.
A collection of short stories by Harlan Ellison.
It was an absolutely insufferable read. Specifically, his foreword between each story.
Stephen King’s It
Great story, but the writing was exceedingly dull, apart from the first chapter. I even tried getting through it via audiobook and still only made it halfway through. It’s just a chore.
I enjoyed it…until the insanely problematic ending.
The worst book I’ve ever read has to be 1984. The book is excellent, but did not do good things for me so it goes down as the worst
Did you ever contrast it with Brave New World? In many ways the latter is more disturbing since the masses are kept busy with frivolity to question their world.
Left Behind. I’m probably a huge idiot for not realizing for the entire thing without knowing before hand what the context was, but I read it with the idea that it was some kind of apocalyptic sci-fi, and then only in the very last few pages of the book did it finally hit me in the face that it was religious doomsday bullshit. I do have to compliment it for the storytelling and world setting, but holy shit was I disappointed with the end direction 🤦
You should see the movie. It stars nic cage and he did it as a favor to a friend. It’s fucking awful. funny thing though, my story is identical to yours. Had no idea until it was too late lol.
I gave up on Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close after one chapter. No wonder neurotypicals think autistics are just insufferable nobs.
Probably not the worst I ever read, but whenever a question such as this comes up my mind immediately goes to one of the Tarot books by Piers Anthony. I don’t remember which one, it was just in a pile of books people left in a dorm one time and I had nothing to read. I finished it, but I can’t tell you anything about it other than the vague recollection that I hated it.
Game of thrones, for me. Made for a good basis for a show. Fucking terribly dull to read.
Yeah I finished the first book and put it down and said fuck this shit.
I enjoyed the suspense of wanting to see what would happen but then I realized that the author is a sadist who only wants the readers to suffer and that was enough to end the entire series for me. I got roped into watching the first episode of the first season and I was like oh it’s the entire first book in one hour fuck this shit and I’ve not watched anymore of it.
The Bible
When I was an undergraduate, a friend of mine wrote a book review of the bible for the student newspaper.
The opening sentence was: “Not since Naked Lunch has such a boring book been saved by the constant barrage of sadomasochistic homosexual pornography.”
Mine is “the catcher in the rye”.
The main character is insufferable and not enough bad things happened to him to make it worth reading the book.
Silas Marner has to be the most boring book I’ve ever attempted to read.
Didn’t help that it was an assignment for school, but it also didn’t help that it’s literally one of the most boringly written books ever.
Profiles in Courage - John F. Kennedy
Should have stuck to being a president… maybe it’d land differently now, but in like 9th grade, it was a total slog.
