Nominations for the Worst Book of the Year

You know there are a few in even the most well-planned reading lists; books you hated, books that bored you, books that were offensively bad.

List 'em here, with a brief description of what made it a waste of time.

Nonfiction: Burmese Lessons by Karen Connelly. From my review:

I could not finish this book. I absolutely loved The Lizard Cage by this author, a devastatingly honest novel about a Burmese political prisoner. Though quite well written (with some glaring exceptions; e.g. I would have appreciated knowing when this took place. I had to look on the book's jacket to discover her trip was in 1996), this book would be better titled Burmese Lust. I'm sure I learned more about Burma/Myanmar and the atrocities of that government via the fictional Lizard Cage than I could have from this book that read like soft porn. I certainly don't object to some honest writing about sex, but this became obsessive and just too personal and graphic for my tastes. And I felt it took away from the reality of what has happened - and continues to happen - in that country.

I couldn't continue it for another 200 pages.

Fiction: The Girl With No Shadow (aka The Lollipop Shoes) by Joanne Harris My review:

The Girl with No Shadow (aka Lollipop Shoes) is a sequel to the wonderful novel, Chocolat and proves the point that when you have a great thing, don’t try to add to it. Where Chocolat is a rich, dark seductive treat, TGWNS is a waxy, flavorless Tootsie Roll.

Our heroine from Chocolat, Vianne Rocher, has set up a chocolate shop in Montmartre, a village on the outskirts of Paris, with her daughter, Anouk, now 11, and a new addition to the family, Rosette, age 4. There are hints that they left Lansquenet because of some magic gone awry, performed by one of the children, both of whom have obviously acquired their mother’s talents. Vianne has changed her name to Yanne Charbonneau and, in addition to giving up her identity, has lost her passion and flair. She’s settled for a quiet, decidedly un-magical life and deals daily with the stress of keeping in check her daughters’ witchy tendencies.

The antagonist is a self-proclaimed identity thief and witch, who blows into town on an ill wind and worms her way into Yanne’s life. Trouble ensues, good vs. evil, yada yada yada.

It’s impossible not to compare this novel with Chocolat; but it’s almost as though they were written by different authors. Where the magic in Chocolat was subtle, just a hint of it sprinkled here and there, Harris hits us over the head with it in TGWNS, with glamours, charms, cantrips, spells, incantations and herbal potions on every page. It becomes quite tedious. The characters are flattened out. The plot has a couple of nice twists and surprises, but by the time they came around, I really didn’t care about them.

Harris has written some wonderful books in addition to Chocolat – Coastliners and Three Quarters of the Orange were favorites of mine. This one fell short. Way short. Now I’m off to have some good dark chocolate to cleanse my palate.

Geek Mafia by Rick Dakan was really good the first half, about high tech thieves that help a cartoonist -video game designer named Paul Reynolds, but the last half which was the very predictable double cross, was so different in tone it seemed as though it was written by someone else. The whole voice was even different. I finished the book hoping that it would get better but it never did. I doubt that I will bother with the sequel Geek Mafia-Mile Zero.

My winner is Based Upon Availability by Alix Strauss, which featured a large cast of women who were all identically self-involved, self-pitying and boring.

Close seconds were Fault Lines by Nancy Huston, which featured young children who were all utterly unconvincing as children and a lot of blatant national stereotypes and The Scent of Rain and Lightening by Nancy Pickard, which was an acceptable enough standard mystery, but it was heavily marketed as a literary mystery, causing me untold disappointment.

The worst one that I actually finished reading and counted in the challenge was The Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey. Let's just say that the book was definitely mistitled. Even the local setting couldn't redeem it.

I did abandon one book after 50 pages: Bahamarama by Bob Morris. It just wasn't my style, and I didn't count it in the challenge.

Without a doubt my worst book of the year was Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, I believe in the review I called it boring and slighty distateful but luckily very short.

Ooh, ooh, I forgot The Strange Case of the Composer and His Judge by Patricia Duncker, which was a mystery in which every character, male and female, fell madly in love with the judge, instantly. And the mystery part of it sucked. It was an ER book, so I had to finish it.

My worst were:
You Slay Me by,Katie MacAlister-I am not a big fan of dumb, babbling heroines so this book was a little hard for me to get through. It also was not as funny as I expected it to be. Yes, there were some funny moments but those mostly came from the demon dog and not from Aisling. I didn’t like Aisling that much, yes, I know she didn’t know she was a Guardian and has a lot to learn but does she have to start out dumb as a box of rocks? Ok maybe I’m being too hard on her but she just annoyed me.
There were some things I enjoyed about this book and the biggest one being Jim the demon dog he was the best part of this book. Wait maybe he is the only thing I liked about this book.
Anyway, I won’t be running out to get the second book in this series, this book was just meh
Pompeii by, Robert HarrisThis book was not at all what I was expecting .I expected a story about the people of Pompeii leading up to the eruption but that’s not what this book was. This was more about the Augustus Aqueducts, which honestly bored me. There was a bit of a mystery surrounding the disappearance of the former “Aquarius” but didn’t really care. I guess this book was not my cup of tea.

The Ice Queen by, Alice Hoffman
I liked how this book started out but it seemed to fall apart in the middle with all the sex ,yes I know its supposed be a metaphor for her coming alive again. Her whole relationship with Lazarus was ok but I didn’t care about either of them and for it to work for me I have to care about the characters. You can only listen to her talk about the ice in her veins for so long before you scream Shut Up and Get Over it! Yes, your evil, your wishes come true blah blah.

Deep Dish by, Mary Kay Andrews
This was way more chick lit than southern humor.I didn't like this one near as much as I liked Savannah Breeze.

My 2 Did Not Finish..**No haters** IMHO
Freedom by, Jonathan Franzen pretty much same reason as below but so very boring!
The Elegance of a Hedgehog by, Muriel Barbery-This book is just awful, it’s pretentious over the top philosophical hogwash.

EDT: to add why I didn't like them

My worst challenge book was Daughter of the Stars by Phillis Whitney. I loved the setting, but the story was poorly written and melodramatic.

One I liked even less was a post-challenge read, Malinche by Laura Esquivel. Way too New Age-y for my taste.

I had a very good reading year with just a few books that failed to please.

I did not finish one, The Ring of the Slave Prince by Bjarne Reuter. This may have actually been the fault of a poor translation, but I just couldn't get into this book.

I gave a poor rating to Ladysmith by Giles Foden. A book I thought would be very good but instead the characters were dull and stilted and the story was boring.

I also gave a low rating to A Great And Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. I know many people rave about this book, but I found the characters too modern for the setting, and the story rather long-winded and rambling.

My worst book of the year was Jemina J. The message this book sent about body image was so wrong! When heavy, Jemina gets pushed around, stepped over and can't get a boyfriend. When she starves herself to becomes thin she gets promoted at work, people look up to her and she gets a boyfriend. Not what young women need to hear.

I read only a few books that I didn't like, but this one has to be the worst:

The Gods of Eden by William Bramley
It's conspiracy theory at its worst: positing the theory becomes proof of its existence, no cohesiveness nor logic necessary. And this theory covers it all: ancient astronauts, religion (pretty much all of them, though the Catholic Church comes off pretty well in comparison), secret societies, the international banking system, revolutions, wars, plagues -- all "proof" that humans were created as slaves for some kind or other of superior beings (aliens), who use "the Brotherhood network" to keep us enslaved and prevent our "spiritual recovery."

Next in line are
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick -- a distasteful story of twisted sexual appetites plopped down in 1906 Wisconsin, but without any real sense of time or place;

and
The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory -- a boring account of Mary, Queen of Scots' captivity in England. I don't mind Ms Gregory's literary license -- I've enjoyed other books by her and find her imagination interesting, but not this one.

And there were 3 other books that I really didn't like, but that others have loved and rated highly, so it's undoubtedly a matter of taste:

In the Woods by Tana French -- too much introspection and whining, unlikeable characters, poor mystery and resolution.

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt -- supposedly a memoir, much of it didn't ring true, especially the childish voice, perceptions, and claimed innocence of the teenage McCourt.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel -- I was irritated beyond belief by her silly and poorly done artifice of always referring to Cromwell as "he," even when the antecedent is not Cromwell, so that the reader has to constantly struggle to figure out who "he" is.

Quite possibly the worst book I ever finished. It sounded like it was written by a third grader.

Chicago Sports: A Fifty Year Love Affair by Chris Papas

I really wanted to like this book about the past 50 years in Chicago sports history. His memories are my memories, for the most part, though I think he might be a tad older.

However, this is one instance where sloppiness runs rampant. Errors, typos, and other writing problems appear in virtually every paragraph, totally ruining my reading experience. From wrongly spelled players' names, such as Johnnie Bench and Randy Hundly (and both parts of former Blackhawks' announcer's name as Loyd Petite, and not the correct spelling, Lloyd Pettit), to misplaced phrasings, such as a team doing well "right out of the shoot" to unintelligible phrasings, such as a playoff opponent who was "young and formable" (I'm thinking "formidable"), the list of problems is endless.

This is, quite possibly. the worst book I've ever read. Not the worst in the past month or the past year but, rather, the worst book, EVER. I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Note that I do feel bad that the author suffered a stroke and this book appears to have been part of his therapy. Nonetheless, it should not be sold to an unsuspecting public.

Ivy - I also did not like In the Woods. And I have heard nothing but good reviews for A Reliable Wife, but now I'm having second thoughts. Maybe I will look through it before I check it out.

My worst book of the year - hmm. There were a bunch I hated so much I didn't finish them. Vienna Prelude was boring. Little, Big was not what I expected and a disappointment. My daughter called Doctor Zhivago an 'emo' book, and she was so right! I got about 1/4 through that one before giving up.

I also hated Appetite for Life, a breathless, gushing sort of biography of Julia Child by an absolute fangirl, if I can borrow that expression, with no filter at all. Mindnumbing detail of every possible aspect of Child's entire life.

Probably the worst two were ones I *almost* read straight through, Turn of the Screw and The Face of the Stranger. The Henry James book was so wordy and convoluted that it was very hard to figure out what exactly was happening. Then it was completely unbelievable. The characters were nothing like actual people.

The mystery by Anne Perry was like the definition of Tell, Don't Show. Talk, talk, talk, but nothing happening! The main character has an excuse of sorts, he has amnesia. But he would randomly have a sort of mental break where he would just sit and daydream for 10-15 minutes, and no one noticed!!!! Just so dumb.

>#13-cmbohn- I wasn't sure what I thought of The Reliable Wife but it stuck with me longer than I thought it would so much so I went out and got Wisconsin death Trip the book the author said gave him as the inspiration for writing his book. Then I read the authors bio
The End of the World as We Know It: Scenes from a Life by Robert Goolrick after reading that I understood the Reliable wife better.Its definetly not a book for everyone though.

I picked up A Reliable Wife at a shop in a bus station. To me it seemed to be missing something, but I had to finish it. 1) because I hate not finishing books and 2) even though I decided not to finish it I couldn't stop thinking about the story. I had it as my "other" book, the one I pick up for a light read even though there are other books I am more into. It was a good story and it ended well, but still, there was something lacking.

A Reliable Wife was an impulse buy at the bookstore. I don't think I'd looked at the LT ratings before now. I must say I'm surprised it is rated so highly by some readers, but there seem to be a lot of low ratings as well.

Like Quembel, I had decided to abandon the book, and then got caught up the plot and had to find out what happened. It was one of those books that makes me angry, because the plot/premise was really interesting and I think it could have been a really good book.

The Economy of Light by Jack Dann. It was published by a small press, but a very prestigious small press (PS Publishing), so I wasn't particularly worried about the book in advance. Thank G-d I got it from the library, because it was basically one big failfest from start to end.

I think it was intended to be a magical-realist rewrite of Conrad's The Heart of Darkness? If that doesn't ring your warning bells, you might want to read it, if it does, steer clear. Nuff said.

*

Close second: Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro. It redefines the term "Mary-Sue". I wrote up a list with TEN bullet points, where one or two would be sufficient to make me cringe. My list has several spoilers so I decided not to post it, I can send it upon request. :)

Also, no background research. Granted, it's a science fiction novel, but it's also a military science fiction novel and the author seems to have no awareness of how militaries are structured, how firearms are handled, etc. etc. I am a civilian so if even I'm bothered by it, then it must be especially egregious.

I almost forgot to mention the really embarrassing neologisms like "heartbender" for "psychiatrist". Heartbender. HEARTBENDER! I can only say "headdesk".

I really, really don't understand how this got published, by a major publisher no less! Maybe it would get a pass as a romance novel, but I'm not in that target group.

The book is available for free in Baen Free SF Library and again I was very happy I did not buy it.

I'd have to say the worst book I read this year was Dog House: A Love Story by Carol Prisant. There were a couple of times I wanted to throw it against the wall. It's supposed to be a memoir about her life and all her many dogs. But she would bring a second dog into the family and, when the two dogs didn't get along, she would find a new home for the first (!) dog. And not just once - over and over again. Got this as an ER book - soooo glad I didn't buy it.

I'd almost forgotten about The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano, a cautionary tale to the dangers of choosing a book based only on the cover and descriptive blurb.