What's the Name of That Book??? discussion
► Suggest books for me
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Really bad books
Worst books I've read:Castle of Lies - Sloppy writing, miserable characters, literally nothing is ever solved.
The Queen Underneath - Just a hot mess.
Mod
The Ebony Tower
Shadow of the Wolf
The Flight of the Falcon
Winter's Bone
Colors Insulting To Nature
Trouble with Lichen
The worst book, by a "real" author, that I ever finished is Hawkes Harbor by S.E. Hinton. My review says it all. A "fun" bad book (guilty pleasure) is Planet of the Gawfs, complete with a cover picture of a scene that never happened in the book. Someone had obviously reading X-Men comics prior to writing the book (I'm surprised it didn't lead to a copyright violation).
Great topic. I think the worst book I have ever read is Sport Armageddon. It's about an extreme triathlon put on by an evil TV network. Absolutely ridiculous on every conceivable level. The novelization of the movie Face/Off is also very, very bad: Face/Off
You should try Not Another Vampire Book. This one is a parody of badly written PNR vampire books but also has a lot of flaws of it's own. Absolutely ridiculous cover, horrible editing, a few gaping plot holes that don't look like they're a part of parody but just holes in their own right... And the weirdest thing is that it still manages to be a VERY entertaing read. IDK how it's possible.
These are the two worst books ive read. And i guess you could maybe enjoy them if you want the over the top ridiculousness.An over the top, terrible action thriller (which somehow has a decent rating here):Dourado
An eye rolling fantasy: Hidden
Edit; How could i forget? You have to try The Gemini Effect. While an interesting start, the plot starts seguing into less and less likely elements. You know things are going down hill when russian sleeper agents with nerve gas suddenly pop up in what was a fairly contained creature horror book.
Ok, the worst book I have ever read was H.G. Well's War of the Worlds. Just terrible.
The Juvie ThreeThe Winter Horses
Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth
I Wish Daddy Didn't Drink So Much
I've recently found an old blog by webcomic artist Ryan North that humorously reviews a very bad book, the novelization of "Back to the Future"The book it makes fun of: Back to the Future
Here is the blog, very funny: https://btothef.tumblr.com/
The posts were also published as an ebook: B^F: The Novelization Of The Feature Film
It seems like you're particularly interested in campy, pulpy fiction, rather than just any old "bad" book? If so, maybe check out thriller/horror YA series from the 80s/90s, like:Sweet Valley High (I'd especially recommend the Evil Twin plot arc - utterly ridiculous)
R.L. Stine's Fear Street series
The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline B. Cooney
Basically any Point Horror book
The rockabilly werewolf from Mars wrote: "...cats? wrote: "It seems like you're particularly interested in campy, pulpy fiction, rather than just any old "bad" book? If so, maybe check out thriller/horror YA series from the 80s/90s, like:..."
In that case, maybe check out the blog Too Much Horror - it has covered a lot of obscure horror pulp fiction
How about Heroes Wanted by Kyle Crocco? I picked it up to read because it mentioned "...and a battalion of not-too-bright Dude Knights" on the back.
I don't think The Face on the Milk Carton was a bad book. It has no redeeming social value, perhaps, but sometimes that's refreshing.
Rosa wrote: "I don't think The Face on the Milk Carton was a bad book. It has no redeeming social value, perhaps, but sometimes that's refreshing."I don't think it's really that bad either, but it's certainly pulpy, and imo the series does get kind of over-the-top
I think Lois Duncan wrote more satisfying thrillers for teens. They have more depth than Ms. Cooney's.Isn't it interesting that thrillers are considered a more "adult" genre, because they assume that adults aren't interested in a message, only escapism and holding off boredom?
Wretched Writing: A Compendium of Crimes Against the English Language has some hilarious suggestions. (As a bonus, the book is also very badly written itself!) The first hundred or so books mentioned are on this list: "Wretched Writing" BooklistHere are some of the campiest, worst books I've read, focusing on horror, thrillers, and sci-fi:
Finding Daddy
The Trident
The Kidnapping of the President
The Serpent
Jaws (if you've already read this, and actually like it, sorry!)
The Children (found this in Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of '70s and '80s Horror Fiction)
Manhattan (not in your preferred genre, but campy and terrible)
User Unfriendly (This book was almost impossible to read, it was so mean.)
The Committed Men
Rock 'n' Roll Babes From Outer Space (lives up to its title, but depressing)
The House on the Hill (deliberately gross, offensive, and campy, probably not to your taste. Well, not to anyone's taste, actually. Totally tasteless!)
Retribution (TERRIBLE!)
Nightmare Baby (right up your alley!)
The Stepdaughter
Jade Green
Contract on the President (competently written, but morally reprehensible, sensational, and deeply cynical in that '70's way)
Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede (doesn't live up to its title, in my opinion)
Can't forget Ritual!
I feel bad about recommending some of these.
ArtemisI know, The Martian was pretty good. This though.... this is something truly special in how godawful it is. I ended up writing a 2200+ words review of how much I hated it after I finished it out of pure spite.
The rockabilly werewolf from Mars wrote: "Thanks. Incidentally, I recently read a book of this variety: The Flying Eyes, which is literally about the earth being attacked by giant disembodied eyes from outer space. The early..."Haha that looks amazing.
"J. Hunter Holly" wasn't a nom de plume of Mr. Lionel Fanthorpe, by any chance?I like the early '60s. But I think 1966 (when Fanghorn came out) to 1968 was the wildest, most exhilarating time, before the forces of disillusionment and cynicism tried to crush any vestigial idealism and hope (see certain stories in Social Problems Through Science Fiction, especially those by Norman Spinrad and Robert Thurston).
More in this depressing vein: Wild in the Streets.
Of course, this exciting period (1966-68) meant some bad choices were made, like encouraging David Pinner, or publishing a poetry collection by a 19-year-old boy that included poems he'd written when he was 17 (The Boy from the Green Cabaret Tells of his Mother: Poems 1965 to 1968). That collection was part of the New Authors Limited imprint, which published several good books by debut authors, but also multiple bad ones, including The Committed Men.I don't mean to trash teenage writers—after all, there are S.E. Hinton (also published during this fruitful period), Mary Shelley, and Anne Frank, among others. It's just that Barry MacSweeney's earliest poems weren't very good, except for one (which I include in my review).
Yet for some reason I'm still happy he got his big break.
J Hunter Holly was really Joan Carol Holly.
And if you haven't gotten hold of Paperbacks from Hell or Bill Pronzini's 2 books on bad mysteries (Gun in Cheek and Son of Gun in Cheek) or his ode to bad Westerns (Six Gun in Cheek), you should.
On the Road by Jack KerouacFear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson
Anything by Charles Bukowski.
We were liars by E. LockhartI hated that book!!!
Harry Stephen Keeler is another legendary bad author, along with Amanda McKittrick Ros and Mr. Fanthorpe.
The Man with the Wooden Spectacles
The Monocled Monster
The Strange Will
The Mysterious Mr. I
The Case of the 16 Beans
The Trap
The Marceau Case
X. Jones — Of Scotland Yard
The Riddle of the Travelling Skull
One of the worst books I have ever read is The Golden by Lucius Shepard. I read it years ago and still cringe when I think of it. It seems he published several books, so maybe some of the others are better, but I don't think I'll risk it.There was also a horse book that I read once upon a time that I only kept reading because I knew it had to get better in order to get published in the first place. I was wrong. It didn't. Unfortunately, I cannot remember either the author or the title, although I think the title was just the horse's name, so possibly one word. The horse was a stallion, and I remember the author kept running on and on about the horse screaming in fury at whatever it didn't like and biting with his fangs. Apparently, this guy writing a book about horses told from the horse's point of view didn't know much about horses.
How about some racist anti-white filth.Why I'm no longer talking to crackers about race, by Reni Eddo-Lodge
White Fragility, by Robin diAngelo
I don't know if purposefully bad counts, but I'm going to toss a suggestion your way anyway Atlanta Nights
It was written by a group of famous authors who wanted to mock the sleaziness and snobbishness of a famous publisher who was revealed to be a vainty publisher. Originally they claimed they only accepted about 5% of all manuscripts sent in, and they turned down sci-fi and fantasy on sight. Wanting to test that, some sci-fi and fantasy authors got together and wrote this, a purposefully horrible book with stuff like a chapter that's flat-out missing, a chapter written entirely by a text-to-speech program, two chapters that are exact copies of each other, and not to mention all the other plot nonsense. I can't remember if they genuinely did publish it or withdrew it after the company exposed themselves, but it's an interesting and noteworthy read anyway I might imagine. Some have even compared it to The Eye of Argon
Alternatively, I don't remember if he was mentioned here before or not but you could look into some works by William Ashbless. He's a fake author created by two authors who wanted to satirize the terrible 'free poetry' craze of the seventies especially among college students. Needless to say, they wrote horrible poetry under a pen-name on purpose
I haven't personally read it but it is a joke here at the Library. We are keeping it purely for the conversational shock value.Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend
by Alan Cumyn
"Prepare to be blown away—or rather, carried away on huge muscular wings—by this blissfully outlandish, bracingly-smart, tour de force about a teen who has to come to terms with relinquishing control for the first time as she falls for the hot new…pterodactyl…at school."
josie wrote: "We were liars by E. LockhartI hated that book!!!"
I heard a scream and a thump come from my daughters room after she read it. She threw the book at the wall. She liked it but she hated it too. I read it to see why she felt as she did. I don't feel comfortable recommending it to people at the library. It was anger inducing for sure :)
Haunting Adeline by H D Carlton...and personally about eighty percent of most BookTok romance novels. ESPECIALLY the romantasies.
Wait. Astra, you've read haunting adeline? And also the book "Can you see me?" Is the worst book ever. I was forced to read it in grade six and I wanted to burn it the whole time.
Artimes wrote: "Wait. Astra, you've read haunting adeline? And also the book "Can you see me?" Is the worst book ever. I was forced to read it in grade six and I wanted to burn it the whole time."
OKAY IN MY DEFENSE
I didn't know how bad it was at the time I knew it was like "BookTok romance" stereotype
but um
I have learned the err of my ways
And curiosity killed the cat so...😅
And do you mean "Can you see me" by Libby Scott or Lynne Lee?
Riptide by Donald Cheatham - a Jaws ripoff about a giant tiger shark menacing the central west coast of FloridaThe Crash of ‘79 by Paul Erdman - plodding financial “thriller” about high-stakes global economics. A promising idea, but not written for the layman, and features a loutish, sexist main character.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca YarrosEverything in the book is just so meh and kinda predictable at times
Astra wrote: "Artimes wrote: "Wait. Astra, you've read haunting adeline? And also the book "Can you see me?" Is the worst book ever. I was forced to read it in grade six and I wanted to burn it the whole time...."
By libby scott
Astra wrote: "Fourth Wing by Rebecca YarrosEverything in the book is just so meh and kinda predictable at times"
Wait seriously?
What's the Name of That Book???
Books mentioned in this topic
Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen [Parody] (other topics)Something Wicked (other topics)
Out for Blood (other topics)
My Summer on Earth (other topics)
Hot Pterodactyl Boyfriend (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
William Ashbless (other topics)Harry Stephen Keeler (other topics)
Amanda McKittrick Ros (other topics)
Lionel Fanthorpe (other topics)
David Pinner (other topics)
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Penelope Fletcher has a series... bk3 has never eventuated. Think she might be Indi tho.
Bk1 has some issues, but the ideas good. I can’t remember all of it cause it’s been a while.
...bk2... Burn...
Hmm, bk1 sets all sorts of world rules, and bk 2 just forgets them. Bk1 clearly sets characters, and bk2 brings in completely different actors.
From memory, they shift from our world to another, and there is a huge time difference. In the few hours the H is gone from our world, around 4 mths have passed in his. In bk2, I think the h has only been gone a week or two when her bff shows up screaming bloody murder about how worried she was when her friend just disappeared and ra ra rah! Going by the initial time difference, the h would have only been gone less than an hour or so and the bff probably still would have been in bed.
And the h is a kickass loyal ra ra rah... who just accepts that the H lied to her adopted son that she didn’t want him anymore and sent to him away into clear danger and gets on with her life. 6-7 years later she thinks, you know? Maybe I should follow up with my missing son who’s been in danger all this time and might even be dead, ya think?