Books to avoid like a bookworm on a diet

zaph wrote:

It's already been mentioned, but I'd second the inclusion of American Gods by Neil Gaiman on the list. I read it while I was in hospital and it made my week there feel like three. Annoying characters, a rambling "plot" for want of a better word and about 400 pages too long.

dr.bollocko wrote:

You know I am still trying to work it out. On the whole, the conclusion of the book points that it was all just in his head, the product of a mind over-obsessed with status and narcissism. After reading Psycho first I was convinced that Ellis was a loon masquerading as a fiction writer. His writing style in Psycho is excruciating. I loved the book, but anyone who has read it will know what I am getting at.
The ridiculously long musical descriptions, the huge trips deep inside Patrick Bateman's head. But after realising that this book was still in my head some 5 years after first reading it, I thought that I must have missed a trick with Ellis.

Since then I have gone back and bought the rest of his books. Less than zero, his debut, really reads like a debut novel and TBH is missable unless you are a fan of the author and want to see the storm that he started. Also his first sentence in print ever is one of the most fascinating I have ever read for a debut published sentence. It still bounces around in my head now from time to time and I like to play with its different meanings.
Rules of attraction was a great book. if for the way it finished alone. Also its throw-away philosophy from flawed characters is astounding, the rambling nature of the writing is very relaxing. The fact that it is an eighties book about early eighties college in America really makes you think about how stagnant we have been for 20 years, because it is still a template for university dystopia in the 21st century. If anyone has seen the movie, they will know that the movie was reset in a modern college culture. I think that this was a travesty. Why is it so important for every generation to think that they invented recreational drugs and depression?
I also couldnt stop reading Lunar Park, though as a literary work it is incredibly criticisable, as an exercise in breaking and rewriting most of the rules of 1st person fiction in what could essentially be fluff it is irresistible. Wading from Ellis' own nihilistic tendencies as a post-drugboom post-success depressed author looking for a thrill with nothing new to do, including himself in the novel and then swinging seamlessly to a Stephen king writing style for the bizarre continuation... I just loved the writing style and it really made me begin to see the merit in the author.

I also must hop to the defence of Atomised and Naked Lunch. I loved both these books for their deconstruction of humanity into a lonely machinic existence, one with sex, the other with drugs.

For me, though it has been repeated fairly regularly through this thread, my least appealing books tend to be those penned by Pratchett. I knew he had a huge fan base, I just had no idea that so many other people also didnt like the guy.
**ducks**