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Books to avoid like a bookworm on a diet

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Comments

  • Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators Posts: 16,287 Mod ✭✭✭✭quickbeam


    Sheridan81 wrote: »
    C.Bronte-Jane Eyre
    Longeurs alert

    Probably still worth reading, but I agree to a certain extent. Charlotte is the most critically acclaimed of the sister, but between Jane Eyre and Villette, the two of hers I'd read, I'd take any of her sisters' books over her - that being Wuthering Heights by Emily or Agney Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne.

    Sheridan81 wrote: »
    Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance
    Zen and the art of complete bollocks.

    Undoubtedly, unequivocally, absolutely, YES!!! Horrible, horrible book.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Sheridan81


    Lorna Byrne-Angels In My Hair

    Head and Shoulders should take care of that.


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 23,934 Mod ✭✭✭✭TICKLE_ME_ELMO


    quickbeam wrote: »
    Probably still worth reading, but I agree to a certain extent. Charlotte is the most critically acclaimed of the sister, but between Jane Eyre and Villette, the two of hers I'd read, I'd take any of her sisters' books over her - that being Wuthering Heights by Emily or Agney Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne.

    Definitely Wuthering Heights is the standout Bronte book, in my opinion. None of the others I have read even come close.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Sheridan81


    Wuthering Heights is brilliant, I agree.

    ????-Go Ask Alice

    On second thoughts, don't.

    Alice Sebold-The Lovely Bones


    I found this book sappy. I've tried it twice.

    B. Easton Ellis-American Psycho

    I surprisingly didn't enjoy this book. I've tried it twice. I don't like the barrage of descriptions of clothes and material possessions. I realize that's part of the main character as he's a shallow, superficial psychopath who cares all about status and things instead of people but I just found it tedious.

    Jane Austen

    “Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”― Mark Twain


  • Moderators, Arts Moderators Posts: 23,934 Mod ✭✭✭✭TICKLE_ME_ELMO


    Sheridan81 wrote: »

    Jane Austen

    “Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”― Mark Twain

    That's an odd quote because it implies he's read it multiple times despite loathing it. The 1800's equivalent of hate watching TV, perhaps.


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  • Moderators, Arts Moderators, Recreation & Hobbies Moderators, Social & Fun Moderators Posts: 77,083 Mod ✭✭✭✭New Home


    Books by Nicholas Sparks - good grief, I probably would have hated them when I was 12, too. If you're someone who persists with reading bad books because you still want to give them a chance or because you feel you've already invested too much time into that specific book, then let me tell you, you'll seriously consider gouging your eyes out to stop yourself from continuing with something so, so, so very bad.

    Also (and I know this is quite controversial), Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. I wanted to cause physical harm to that volume, and this from someone who, as a child, used to put plasters on torn pages.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Sheridan81


    Alan Spence-The Pure Land

    This is a successful book; many readers like it. I only read 40 pages or so. Those 40 pages had cliches and crummy prose.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 3,423 ✭✭✭batgoat


    Open to be corrected on this one, anything by Dean Koontz. Tried the Odd Thomas books and a few others but found them frustrating in terms of being badly written. I'm a huge horror fan and find Koontz to be a poor man's Stephen King.


  • Registered Users Posts: 10,943 ✭✭✭✭the purple tin


    I know it's always held up as a classic but I hated The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. It was just so slow, boring and repetitive, I didn't care if the old git never caught another fish, I actually wanted his boat to sink. Very rare that I don't finish a book but that one was one of them.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,429 ✭✭✭Sheridan81


    I didn't finish that one either. I will give it another go someday. In the meantime, I wonder if there'd be a market for Old Man and the Sea...and Jaws a la Pride and Prejudice And Zombies? I might get to work on it.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 10,943 ✭✭✭✭the purple tin


    Sheridan81 wrote: »
    I didn't finish that one either. I will give it another go someday. In the meantime, I wonder if there'd be a market for Old Man and the Sea...and Jaws a la Pride and Prejudice And Zombies? I might get to work on it.
    Throw in a killer squid and it will sell like hotcakes.


  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 20,070 ✭✭✭✭neris


    Straight to hell by John Lefevre. Absolute rubbish. Ex over paid banker boasting about going on the piss doing drugs and picking up prostitutes in Asia


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 359 ✭✭Thomas_IV


    Boris Johnson 'The Churchill Factor'. Worst book about Churchill I have ever started to read and binned it after a couple of chapters cos I found it unbearable. One thing is clear that this egocentric and egotistical Brexit Clown has literally written it himself cos the writing is exactly the way he's talking.


  • Registered Users Posts: 2 JacekWieczorek


    The Minds of Billy Milligan. I got caught up in the Split & Glass craze and this book was a major disappointment for me. Difficult to follow and overly not engaging.


  • Posts: 0 [Deleted User]


    Martian by Andy Weir. Clearly written with a future movie in mind. Really awful as a piece of literature.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,716 ✭✭✭Day Lewin


    That they may face the Rising Sun by John McGahern.

    Dismal is the only word for it. It is awful.

    Of course, everything by McGahern is drab and morbid; but this one tops the heap. Gold medal for boredom. Ultimate dreariness, in print.

    How it came to be so critically acclaimed is something I will never comprehend.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 154 ✭✭Quiet Achiever


    Finished this a couple of months back and i loved it! Totally understand why others wouldn't, but i wouldn't say avoid it.


    I read that it will be a film this year, which is hard to picture (pin intended)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 816 ✭✭✭scottser


    The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, by Stephen R Donaldson.

    12 books of utter stress and misery and then he gaffa tapes on the ending from The Matrix.



  • Registered Users Posts: 16 notfragile


    The Song of Achilles



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