What's the worst book you've ever read?

I don't think there's one female character in that book actually. Except maybe the villagers they come across.

I had to read it in high school too, and I remember it being one of the better books we were forced into. Still, we were studying it as part of a comparative study with Bladerunner so our focus was more on the themes than the execution of the novel. I enjoyed it as much as one can enjoy reading a book 10+ times over a few months.

And the whores in the bar. Maybe you're counting them as villagers, though.

Agree.

Right, forgot about them. So the only women he put in Meridian were whores and the ones who got raped. Jane's right on this one.

yayyyy for the HSC. i did this exact sme comparative study, Kit, and loved it so much. it was so fun working on themes.

i really enjoyed BNW too, but i haven't read it since school, so it would be interesting to see if i still enjoy it.

ahhh, school. those were the days. what year did you finish your HSC? i was done in 2003.

yeah, it was a pretty cool study really, for school.
2001 was it for me.. first year for the 'new' hsc. we were the guinea pigs!

I don't think I can remember reading a book that I've hated, but I do know of a book that I just could not read all the way through to save my life. And that book was and is Trainspotting. Damn cockney accents threw my mind for a loop! Even with the dictionary in the back I still couldn't get through it without getting frustrated.

I know you said that only ones we've read all the way through count but I honestly will not finish a book if I don't like it. Life is too short to spend on things that you don't enjoy.

Also I know that I tend to lose interest in a book if there's too many important characters. It's not that hard to relate to one or two protagonists but when you have like eight or more it gets a bit ridiculous. *looks at you Stephen King*

It's not Cockney, it's Scottish!

lulz

Now I'm picturing Dick van Dyke with his awful Cockney accent going "Maaaaary! Choose loife. Choose uh job. Choose a star'er home. Choose den'al insuuurance..." While he dances around animated penguins and babies.

Scottish / Cockney / tomato / tamato.... let's just say I wanted to read it the but I couldn't understand the damned thing.

Is that supposed to be funny?

I reiterate: lulz

Quite so. Offensive is the word I was thinking.

basically like asking a Canadian if they're American

They are.

Hahaha, technically they are.

But everyone knows that when most people say "American" they mean the US.

you're aptly named aren't you

I didn't mean to cause the stir I'm causing.
I'm beginning to remember what drove me away from boards in the first place. People take themselves way too seriously on these things. I am sorry if I offended anyone and it wasn't my intent. My humor is very dry and abrasive and I suppose I tend to find myself forgetting that I'm not in the company of like minded close friends but in an open forum full of people with real feelings and sensibilities.
I am a firm believer in not taking my world around me seriously. Because if I did the whole time I would not be a sane person at all. I've been through a lot in my life and I find comfort in the fact that I can make a joke out of it. Please take most of my posts with a grain of salt and please do not read into things any further than face value. Sometimes people just say stupid things. And I apparently said something stupid.

I said it before and I'll say it again. I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it.

I wasn't really offended. I just thought it was ridiculous and stupid that anyone would think that a Cockney would sound anything like a Scot.

lulz

I totally agree. It was just depressing really. But I didn't finish it all...the worst book I've read completely would be Finding Alaska. I don't remember who it's by. I just loathe everything about it.

BEE is such a great fucking writer. Even if you did not care about the story or whatever, just he way he writes is amazing. it just flows. how someone could not like any of BEE's books is beyond me but i guess most people would rather buy oprah book club dog shit now anyway.

the only good things i have read lately are BEE and Cormack McCarthy.

I read fight club right after the movie came out and i liked it alot.
now i just listened to it on audio book and maybe it was the annoying reader but i just did not like it.
it was kind of whiny and i think that every change the movie made was for the better. the way he met tyler was better, the way it ended was better. every thing. and "i haven't been fucked like that since grade school" is classic.

Too much Special K?

In a word, I find his writing trite. And maybe incessant brand names etc. in "American Psycho" are supposed to be setting scene or character, but they're still boring as shit to read, much like all those "begats" in the Old Testament.

There is so much about Ellis's writing that I don't like that it's difficult for me to believe he's as revered as he is. I almost think you're all having me on.

I find certain Ellis books entertaining, but I would never call him a great writer.

I hated American Psycho - mostly for the name-dropping, as jane s said. I couldn't get through Glamorama either, for the same reason. The characters are all so vacuous, they bored me. Even the torture scenes in American Psycho bored me, because they were so meaningless...I found myself skimming through it, not because it was grotesque but because it was empty. Totally devoid of substance, unless you count microwaved hooker-brains as substantial.

But when I read Less Than Zero a few years back, I thought it was revolutionary, and I maintain that point of view. The style is just staggering, there's absolutely nothing I can criticise about his style in that book. The plot? Possibly. But this is an example of where the prose makes up for it.

I'd like to see what Imperial Bedrooms is like - maybe it'll be a sort of revival. Any opinions?

The name dropping was pivotal to understanding who the narrator, a man trying to fit in, is. The brand names throughout the novel serves to hold up a mirror to a society that reveres things over human connections, knowing the name of a designer of a suit that to us looks like 1,000 others yet not getting the name of a co-worker (a human being) you see every day right. A society that measures success in things.

The book would have been far less effective without it and we probably would not be discussing its merits or shortcomings--not only on this thread but as a society--a decade and a half later.

The title is apt. American Psycho could be someone we know. Or any one of us.

American Psycho is the kind of literature that you come back to several times to get more out of. It's a ridiculously complex and multi-layered work rich with symbolisms and external meanings, and allusions, and those are easy to miss depending on who is reading it and at what stage of life the reader happens to be in.

AP is far from my favorite novel, but it's a book with a lot to say. While I won't claim to understand everything Ellis was trying to accomplish, most of the things the novel's many detractors complain about are the very things Ellis shows us to make his points.

Bravo, Mr. Knight.

I would also add that, in my experience anyway, the constant barrage of materialistic minutiae and social ephemera serves to suffocate you in the protagonist's banal existence. Your eyes glaze over, and you yearn for a release from the monotony. And then it happens. And you cheer. And you realize in horror that you've found your relief in blood.

Much like Haneke's Funny Games, American Psycho makes you an accomplice, and then saddles you with the guilt of your own complicity.

Or maybe I'm just crazy--PSYCHO, even...

Alfa: You found your relief in blood? Wow.
I think that's different for everybody... I found relief when the book was over just because I was sick and tired of the gore.

Tyler Knight, I agree with everything you said, and I'm sure that there are dozens of interpretations that I haven't even considered. I spent a great deal of time thinking about it after I finished trying to figure out what all the fuss was about, and while I think that AP has cultural relevence and interest, in terms of great writing, it was lacking decent structure and depth. I couldn't stand the way that it meandered all over the place - from morning routines, to nonchalant descriptions of dog-killing, to pop music reviews. It seemed to have no direction at all.

Yes, it's supposed to show us a very disturbed individual, but frankly, I didn't need to read the book to understand that. While it might be an accurate portrait of an American psycho, that's all it is. And if the reader doesn't like the character nor find him particularly interesting, why bother reading it?

Maybe it's a love-or-hate thing, but I really don't rate it as highly as some other readers do. I just couldn't get involved in it.

I didn't want to become an accomplice, I didn't even want to see him punished. I just didn't care. Maybe it's a generational thing, and younger readers tend to be more apathetic - immune to violence and blatant critiques of capitalism, because we see and experience them on a daily basis (although I don't know how old either of you are).

But again, that's the character. He is apathetic. To him, everything is valuable/everything is worthless; and he no longer has the ability to make any kind of meaningful distinctions in his pursuits. He only pursues.

Pursues, and never reaches. Yes, I get the point. I'm just not sure it makes for a good novel.

Then again, maybe I should ask myself how many books I've read recently where the characters actually get some satisfaction in the end. Apart from the beach trash I like to pretend I don't read.

I'm pretty sure you did need to actually read the book to understand that. The title alone is not enough to gauge the depth of the character of Patrick Bateman

Let me correct myself: I didn't need to read the entire book.
What I meant was that there are so many reviews around that it's impossible to swing a dead cat without finding some twisted 14-year-old who thinks Pat Bateman is a god. Maybe I was biased because I'd already read around before I picked up the book, but I tried to keep an open mind.

There are always going to be people who take a book like that too seriously. They do tend to ruin it for the rest of us who are slightly more balanced. A look around The Cult will turn up a tonne of threads written by people who treat Fight Club the same way - kids who did the chemical burn with lye, people asking if there's a fight club in their town, etc. It's easy enough to dismiss something for these reasons; but I think you have to also consider the fact that the people who act like Bateman is a god, or that Fight Club is a doctrine for living are really making the most simplistic possible reading of the stories, and haven't even begun to grasp the concept of satire or understand the multitude of layers of meaning involved.

You're absolutely right, and that's what attracted me to Fight Club in the first place - the fact that so many people could read it or watch the film and not understand that they themselves are the targets. But with AP, I'm not entirely sure what the message is. Consumerism is bad? Yes. Agreed. I just don't know whether it's supposed to be a warning, a deterrent - does it even have an ethical message? Could we see Pat Bateman as a tragic hero? I'm just lost when it comes to BEE's intentions. Possibly only shock value?

You know what? You and Tyler are probably completely right about the effect, and its purpose. But it doesn't make it any less of a drag to read.

I'm going to have to say "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" written by Stephanie Meyer. I think her valiant attempt at stuffing her stoutly Mormon mind into that of a supposed darker character was a total and complete disaster. Though admittedly I did like it in the sense that in so few pages, it taught me how not to write.

On another note! I understand when people don't care for Snuff, Pygmy and Tell-All, coming after his other powerful works, but if you think about the versatility, thought, and extensive research showcased between all of his leading characters, its easy to view each of these books as being written by entirely different people (aside from the obvious embedded Palahniuk themes). In that sense, it keeps things interesting. But it does mean that the audience is going to shift from book to book.

That being said... I hated Tell-All.
Appreciate it, but hate it.
I'm much more hopeful about the upcoming Damned though! Huzzah!

It certainly isn't enjoyable, no. In the same way Funny Games isn't enjoyable. But, as art, I can appreciate it for its sheer craftsmanship.

I mean, hell, I only read American Psycho once, and that was ten years ago. The fact that it has stuck so vividly in my mind since is testament to its standing as an indelible literary landmark, for good or ill.

(Or maybe it means I ought to read more...)

I'd love to say that I am shocked/surprised at this, but alas... Oh Stephanie Meyer, you fabulous idiot.

Catcher In The Rye. I hated it so much. If I didn't have to complete it for school then I would have stopped reading it. I was expecting this fantastic book and then I read it and I was so disappointed.

The same goes for me with Everything is Illuminated. That was bloody rubbish. I had to read it for uni and I still couldn't finish it. Awful.

I didn't care for that book either. Probably in my top five of hate books. But Catcher In The Rye, terrible. And my teacher was like this will probably be your favorite book to read in this class. The character is so easy to relate to. Teenagers always love it. He was a whiny little tosser and I hated every single word of that book.

how offensive for teachers to tell us we will love Holden because we can relate to him! they're just subtly ripping us off for being whinging little emo wankers.