Books We Hate

[FrodoFriend]

A Wrinkle in Time . . . I remember when I first read that, the part with all the balls bouncing exactly in time together scared me. I love Poe though!

Don't really like Kurt Vonnegut either. I'm sure his books have many meaningful messages about society & stuff, but they're just weird and confusing to me.

[galadriel88]

Last year, my teacher read us 3 books, all by the same author, about survival. They got on my nerves! One was about a boy who went skiing and got buried in an avalanche. I forgot how long he survived, but his brother found him eventually. Then there was one where a boy was driving in the woods and went off a cliff. His leg got trapped under the dashboard, and after several weeks, he pried it out, climbed up the cliff, and got picked up by a trucker. the last one was about a boy in Scotland a long time ago who went on acargo ship that crashed. He was the only one who survived. He lived on an iceberg for like, 3 years before a passing ship picked him up. They were all very predictable, and I couldn't stand them!

[mirrille]

Yes yes!

That happened to me too. One year, I had to read "Island of the Blue Dolphins" about a girl who gets abandoned on an island when the rest of her villiage flees. The year after it was "The Cay" with the racist whiny brat. Then it was "Banner in the Sky" about some kid who tries to climb a big mountain, so it's all about not freezing to death and not falling down a crevasse. Then it was "Lost in the Barrens" about 2 kids who (surprise surprise!) get lost in the barrens somewhere in Ontario.
And they wonder why kids aren't reading!
I've had it with survival stories.

Another thing. Do not read "Gulliver's Travels". The superior European attitude of the narrator is really too much to take.

[Starr Polish]

Island of the Blue Dolphins is a good book! :P Well, I liked it. I cried when her dog died.

Hoo boy, I don't know how I'm going to get through LOTR without flooding my house!

[mirrille]

Scott O'Dell is actually not a bad children's authour. He has a very simple, clean style of writing, and his historical fiction is typically well researched. I've read lots of his other stuff.
but the solitary survival theme was getting on my nerves.

[Vanimdil]

Well, this may be weird, but I absolutely hated Gone With the Wind. It's interesting and well written but Scarlett O'Hara grated on my nerves like the scream of a Nazgul. Normally I'm a very peace-loving person but about half way through the book I was ready to karate chop her. Three fourths through the book I quit because I just couldn't stand her any longer. She was so deceitful, narcissistic, cruel, manipulative, controlling.....Argh! Hmm, I discovered that I feel very strongly about this. But I mean after all a HEROINE should have at least a few GOOD qualities, right?

[Starr Polish]

I hated it the first time as well.

I've read it, what seven times? It's fun to hate her though. I know I shouldn't, but she is only a book character. The second book kind of 'redeems' her character.

[mirrille]

Really?
I liked her. Not because she had a sweet personality or anything because she didn't, but because she was a tough person who always concentrated on what needed to be done, and went and did it while everyone else just kind of sat there and complained. And then treated her badly because she couldn't keep them fed/alive and be nice at the same time. Her only really annoying feature was her obsession with Ashley Wilkes, which led to some of her only major bad decisions. If it wasn't for him, she would be really cool. I like resilient people. But she is in no way a sweetheart. She's not even nice, but she doesn't deliberately hurt people for fun either. It's kind of like that. I'd say as a heroine, her redeeming quality is in her ability to bounce back after any setback, definitely not in her people-skills, because she's really bad at that.
Trust me, it's even more annoying reading about deceitful, narcissistic, cruel, manipulative, controlling people when they do all that and are still failures (memories of high school english classes )

Sequels written by other people long after the real author is dead as a cheap cash grab are evil evil bad bad bad! They are not what the author intended. I'd put them on the same level as fanfics, only fanfics are not intended to make money, so they're alright. The only way I'd agree with these fake sequels is if I know that they were written from the real creator's notes. i.e. a novel they couldn't finish before they died, but the notes or half-finished story was complete enough for someone else to put it together and be reasonably faithful.

[Starr Polish]

Hmm. Good points you've got there. I hated Sue Ellen more than I hated Scarlett, but Scarlett is a manipulative little girl. I understand that she was set in hard times and such, but some of her choices were horrible. I guess I'd have to say that most of the bad choices were because of Ashley Wilkes, but how could someone be so childish over a man?

Meh, maybe it's because I haven't 'loved' before, but I was infatuated with a friend of mine for nearly three years, and I never resorted to her ways.

[mirrille]

True. She was VERY childish over Ashley Wilkes. I suspect because her troubles started when she was 16, and therefore pretty much a child as far as love was concerned, she was unable to act mature later when it mattered. The war was on and she just didn't have a chance to grow up emotionally. As a businesswoman, she was superb, but the social conventions of the day meant she had to go through less...conventional routes - hence the manipulation.

I think the contrast between Scarlett and Melly was perfect. They complement each other well. They are each something that the other would like to be, because they both have their opposite strengths. But Scarlett reacts to it with envy, Melly with open admiration. In a way, that's the big tragedy of the story.

I love that book, up until the part where Bonnie dies. It's just too sad after that. It's like watching a house that you built so lovingly in the process of tumbling down. Everything can still work out up to that point, and then it all comes apart. It's painful to read.

Suellen was what Scarlett would be if she truly only cared about herself (I think Scarlett cared about her friends and family, she just showed it by trying to look after them because that's what she understood) and was much less mentally tough. She is annoying.

[bropous]

Flowers for Algernon was a fantastic book, Alethes. You should have finished it. I can understand not liking Edgar Allen Poe, though, since his works scared you so much. I found him quite an interesting writer. Stay the heck away from H.P. Lovecraft! But oh, you start slamming Norse myths and you get my Irish up! I absolutely LOVE all the Norse myths, the Aesir are absolutely fascinating. Methinks, if you like LotR, you might give the Norse myths a re-read. As for the tale of the cups from the son's eyeballs, I have yet to run across that one. Sounds more like something from Greek mythology. I love all mythology, even Hindu mythology. I can't understand why someone would like the mythos of Middle-Earth, and not like other mythologies.

I agree, Starr Polish, I despised The Scarlet Letter. I hated it so much that for the thesis paper I had to write I used selective quotes to prove Hester Prynne was involved in lesbian satanic rituals at night in the woods, then playing the innocent victim in court. I also despised my English teacher at the time, and wrote that just to make her squirm. I didn't give two hoots for grades, obviously.

I'm not familiar with the "interrupted sentence" FrodoFriend; is that something like verbum interruptus? Anyways, I agree on Vonnegut, I find him overrated, the only book by him I could read was Slaughterhouse 5.

LOL, galadriel88 and mirrille, sounds to me like your teacher forced you to read True Life stories from Readers Digest!

As for books I really hated, any book forced on me I really despised. So, in the "hated it" category:

"A Light in the Forest"; "Great Expectations"; "The Crucible"; "Moby Dick"; Billy Budd"; "Silas Mariner".

I also despise any works by Shakespeare, 'cause I read his collections in the third grade on my own and hated 'em [yes], any works by Henry Miller, any works by that idiot who wrote "Death of a Salesman", and any works by Tony Morrison. I hated the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen R Donaldson (after I read them), can't stand any Stephen King book [overrated], or any book my elder sister recommends!!!!!!

[Starr Polish]

That's a whole lotta hate, bropous.

I liked Great Expectations when I read it in sixth grade, but having to read it again in ninth grade was incredibly redundant, and since I already knew what was going to happen, I just breezed through the stupid story. I would have to disagree about Shakespeare though, I am quite a fan I especially like " A Midsummer's Night Dream" and hope to play one of the characters in it (the short one...can't remember her name for some reason) in it one day (kind of a 'dream' of my own). Iambic pantameter, indeed!

Some of Poe's work is amazing, and I love it, but "The Fall of the House of Usher" was pretty horribly written, I think. Also, my English teacher put some pretty morbid pictures of the Usher siblings relationships in our innocent (hah!) minds.

[bropous]

I gotta admit, Starr, I didn't care for "Usher" either.

[mirrille]

I have a problem. I have not liked a single one of the Shakespeare plays that i have either read or seen performed. Not one! I'm sitting through class reading Othello thinking "man! this guy is stupid! Iago is the only semi-intelligent character in the story" Through Macbeth, it's "This guy is an idiot. He may be really good in battle, but his mind is so weak." Through "A Merchant of Venice" it was, "I wish Shylock COULD get a pound of flesh from Antonio. The man is an arrogant, despicable prick who thinks he can treat people like dirt. Antonio would deserve it."
Yeah. I was annoyed with all the characters that i was supposed to like, or feel sorry for. As for the comedies, like Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's, and so on, I was just apathetic. Personal taste, but it is unfortunate that Shakespeare is so emphasized, because we don't get much choice to do something else. I just thought through high school that there must be something wrong with me.

[FrodoFriend]

Awww, I like Shakespeare! At least, the dramas, not the romances or comedies so much. Julius Caesar and Hamlet are both great.

Bropous - Must agree on Great Expectations and Billy Budd!! Seems like Dickens and Melville just had a "who can use the most words to say the least" contest there!

Speaking of interrupted sentences, we had to write one in english for some reason; as I recall, it was at the beginning of the year, at the time when cross country was still going on, and I was extremely busy trying to get situated in Honors English III; the class being full of people older than me was a bit unnerving, especially since my friend dropped out the first week, plus band was grating on my nerves as it has been doing all year; and a hot guy sat next to me in class; i had a crush on him, but he never looked at me twice, which is all right because he turned out to be rather a jerk, and his interrupted sentence wasn't half as good as this one!

LOL, Nathaniel Hawthorne would be proud of me.
Speaking of, I rather liked the Scarlet Letter, especially the ending.

[Starr Polish]

I don't know, I may have liked the ending if Dimmesdale wasn't such a jerk. He got on my nerves from the start. I just couldn't shake off how much I hated him. I think I hated him more than Chillingworth!

[galadriel88]

Well, bropus, the first book she read to us was kind of interesting. But after that, they were all basically the same story line - probably b/c they were all by the same author. but I kinda like the True Life stories in Reader's Digest - they aren't predictable, really, and tend to keep me on the edge of my seat!

I found Much Ado About Nothing in my history teacher's classroom, and started trying to read it, but it got too confusing. I'm so not used to 17th century England language...

[sun-star]

The most fun thing about Shakespeare is decoding it, when you go "yes! I actually understood what that meant!". It makes me feel all clever.

Anything where the author uses twenty words where two would do irritates me. Actually, the last book I really hated was Women in Love. Everyone else seems to like it but it drove me crazy. It had no character development, in my opinion. Perhaps I just didn't understand all the long words

I also don't like Margaret Atwood, or any of those books they make you read at primary school about issues. When I was that age I just wanted a story.

[Alethes]

Originally posted by bropous
Flowers for Algernon was a fantastic book, Alethes. You should have finished it. I can understand not liking Edgar Allen Poe, though, since his works scared you so much. I found him quite an interesting writer. Stay the heck away from H.P. Lovecraft! But oh, you start slamming Norse myths and you get my Irish up! I absolutely LOVE all the Norse myths, the Aesir are absolutely fascinating. Methinks, if you like LotR, you might give the Norse myths a re-read. As for the tale of the cups from the son's eyeballs, I have yet to run across that one. Sounds more like something from Greek mythology. I love all mythology, even Hindu mythology. I can't understand why someone would like the mythos of Middle-Earth, and not like other mythologies...

"A Light in the Forest"; "Great Expectations"; "The Crucible"; "Moby Dick"; Billy Budd"; "Silas Mariner"...

I also despise any works by Shakespeare, 'cause I read his collections in the third grade on my own and hated 'em [yes]

Some of the Norse myths weren't bad, like the one about Thor's stolen hammer. I just got sick of the horrible punishments given to people. I'm pretty sure the "cups from the son's eyeballs" story was Norse; I think it was called "Nidud the Cruel". I can't remember the name of the book with the story in it; it was something generic like "Myths and Legends" and it had a lot of myths from different cultures. I love most Greek mythology, although even that sometimes has stories I don't like, such as the one with the man who was turned into a stag and killed by his own hunting dogs because he saw Artemis bathing.

Does H.P. Lovecraft write books that resemble Poe's books? I've heard of him, but I don't know what he writes.

Is "A Light in the Forest" a story about King Arthur and his knights? I think I read a book by that name that was about the search for the Holy Grail, and I was wondering if it's the same book.

I've never read a real Shakespeare play in full, but I have read "modern-day" versions with the real text on the left page and the modern translation on the right. Some I didn't like -- I couldn't even get through King Lear -- but others I really enjoyed, namely Midsummer Night's Dream and Macbeth. I don't know why on earth I like Macbeth, since everyone dies, but oh well. Othello has always sounded interesting, but I've never read it.

Starr Polish, I think the name of the short character in Midsummer Night's Dream is Hermia. I like her character, but I'd rather play the other girl, Helena . We read that play (the easy version) in English last year, and we got to read parts of the play out loud in class. I got to play Helena during the scene where Lysander and Demetrius were both in love with her. It was quite fun.

[Starr Polish]

Well, I'm short, so I'd be more likely to get Hermia (thanks for giving me the name!)...And I love her line "For once I have not a thing to say!" Bwhaha...so me.