Books I Loathed discussion
So Loathful I Loved It
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Carol
(last edited Aug 25, 2016 11:48AM)
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Aug 01, 2007 01:45PM
This book is a must read for professional c# developers.
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Akin to the Guilty Pleasures thread, what tremendouly bad books have you secretly -- or proudly -- adored; OR, books you haven't read that you hear are really bad -- but it makes you want to read them even more?
I've already confessed to wanting to read a Left Behind.
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Yeah, I'm really picky about what I read -- I do not force myself to finish ANYTHING, and I don't rack up a lot of complete series, even good ones, because usually after I read the first one I'm like, uh-huh, got the gist, next? I wasn't even one of those teens who pored through VC Andrews and Steven King books for fun. I don't know if I just needed to impress people, but I didn't end up reading much trash. THOUGH: I did read some of the R.L. Stine-type teen murder garbage, and a few of them repeatedly.
I am way more inclined to watch movies that look really bad. As soon as I heard that the new Lindsay Lohan horror movie is the worst dreck ever, I was suddenly super excited to go see it. And I own and regularly watch all three -- yes, there are three!! -- of the Cruel Intentions movies.
Okay...I'll admit to seeing all three Cruel Intentions movies but at least I don't OWN them.
Years ago, when I was acting in a play, my fellow cast members and I found an old Harlequin romance novel "The Sea Nymph" in the dressing room. For several nights, we spent the intermission reading it out loud to each other. It was truly dreadful, complete with insipid heroine, caveman-in-a-silk-shirt hero, laughable sex scenes and descriptions of intimate body parts (e.g. "her mound ofdesire") and a bizarro incest sub-plot, but it was so much fun to read - especially since everyone was an actor and it was almost a competition to give "dramatic life" to the characters. Even though it was a suck-o piece of writing, I will always remember it with fondness, even love.
I grew up in an antique store, and whenever anyone donated a box of books, whatever wasn't worth selling went to me. From this era I have a very guilty pleasure. The ultra cheesy historical romance. Victoria Holt was may very favorite. I must have read The Mask of the Enchantress a dozen times. I even loved the cover art. It was usually a young girl with a billowing dress who went to live in an ancient mansion for some reason or other, and then, intrigue...
I'll admit to a bit of guilty reading with Laurell K. Hamilton. I'm not up-to-date with her stuff, but I do enjoy how awfully mindless they are.
I've said it before and I'll say it again...POP! by Aury Wallington. It's a total teen trash novel about a girl who decides to lose her virginity to her best (guy) friend. And before you ask, yes I did read it for a book club. Now everything about this book is loathful. The writing is horrendous, the story is bad, the characters are flat, unrealistic (teenage boys don't work that way) and uninteresting, the ending was way too tidy(emotions don't work that way!), heck even the names are wacky!
But... Jeremy pines for Marit (no I'm not kidding. That's her name.) and I just melt into a little puddle of sentimental goo whenever there's a pining man around. And then there's a scene where he finds out she's seeing someone else and whoa nelly my inner romantic took complete control of my emotions. Thank you, Ms. Wallington, for a little light trashy reading that made my stomach do backflips.
I suppose my Guilty pleasure reads would be any chick lit. When Im in the mood for it, no matter what the book is, who wrote it, no matter what the topic of the book is, If I'm in the mood, Im loving it while Im reading it. Once its over and done with and Im back into my normal genres, I dont even want those chick lit books on the same shelves touching my regular novels.... Im embarrassed by the thought that someone out there in the world actually SAW ME READING THEM!
I loathe them, but when i need them, I love them!
"The Valley of the Dolls" and "Peyton Place" are my two guilty reads of choice--addiction, fame, incest, small-town secrets . . . Vintage smut.
I love serial killer novels...I can't help it. They scare my pants off and I love to be scared.
I loved The Valley of the Dolls. It was just so trashy. All of the infidelity and upper-class hijinx. It actually still makes me want to spend a couple of weeks and read a bunch of Jackie Collins' novels, which have to have just as much camp but way more catfighting.
me too. my guilty pleasure. i have a friend who finally confessed this sin to me after not telling anyone for 50 years. i guess college english profs can't admit to such things.margo
Vampire porn. I read "Interview with a Vampire" at an all-too-impressionable age, and every now and then I just have read some erotica where you don't have to worry about a"mound of Venus," only the "sharp fang of Dracula."
TK Kenyon
Author of RABID: A Novel
which I hope to never, ever find mentioned in this group.
www.tkkenyon.com
I did enjoy the first two Left Behind books. But, I did finish the series til the end. My main guilty pleasure is Lurial McDaniel.
If you make it through the horrible writing in Left Behind, there is a movie of the book and a board game of the movie of the book. Whether there is a board game actually based on the book, I don't know.Oh yes, and there is also a video game now.
Leaving aside the always-brilliantly-bad short story "The Eye of Argon" (look it up... it's a game at SF conventions to read it aloud until you crack up; we've had one sentence take 5 people), and The Romance Writer's Phrasebook (always a good one for writing performance reviews), I've also hateloved Mister Justice a strange science fiction superhero story with the most unpleasant use of a glass pipette I've ever contemplated.
I haven't made it through any of the Left Behind books, though. My requirement for this kind of book is cluelessness on the part of the author. I have to feel like they're really trying and not cynically milking the audience or counting on a built-in readership because of their connections.
The first three of Jim Butcher's Dresden Files novels are a fabulous source of typos and bad grammar. Clearly the publisher didn't feel they were worth the cost of a copyeditor. After the third (which was probably turned in around when the second hit shelves) they realized they had a hit on their hands and the books get much duller from a grammatical point of view. (Although I do enjoy them.)
Old etiquette, self-help, kid-raising, marriage, and other advice books are great in this kind of way.
If you like this, check out the James Lileks books. In the best one he takes 50's commercial cookbooks (by food manufacturers pitching their products, not ones by chefs) and collects their most entertaining. The one on 60s/70s home decorating books is almost as good. I didn't thing his book of 20s-50s parenting books was as funny, though.
There are TWO characteristic of a Dick Francis novel. the horse you mentioned and a wimpy hero with some kind of affliction like maybe flatulence.Red Evans author On Ice
oh, come on, natalie, the early ones were pretty good for that sort of thing. sure, the charactters were wooden, but the plots were pretty good. i agree they have gone downhill, and the last ones were truly dreadful. i haven't even picked up the last two.
