Difficult to pick a book for this one

[Thomas]

I've found this to be the most troublesome category of the challenge, and it's not even close.

I tried to find books that were universally hated. No dice. Then I realized that pretty much any book gets bad reviews, both by professional reviewers as well as by regular people on sites like Goodreads. So I plopped in Oryx and Crake for my book in this category, because hey, there were a few bad reviews for it and I've always wanted to read it. It's considered to be some of the very best in SF writing, but if I could get away with that on a "bad review" book category, that would be just awesome. But I couldn't do it. I even started to read Oryx and Crake. But no.

So now I'm back to picking between Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. Those have gotten good reviews, yes, but they also have LOADS of bad reviews and are generally regarded as "so bad they're good". I figure I can get a good laugh out of Fifty Shades of Grey, because it feels like a copout to read an actual good book for this category.

What do you think?

[Kathy]

Go for it! I agree this is a more difficult category than it seems. Fifty Shades and Twilight would both fit the bill nicely. Bad reviews and you can finally find out what everybody is talking about! You might get a laugh out of Fifty Shades, but you will cringe a few times too!

[Frogli]

Bad reviews? I'm saving up Inferno for this, mainly because I am stubborn enough to want to read it & finish off the Robert Langdon books despite how much I hated The Lost Symbol & also Dan Brown attracts reliably bad reviews, entertainingly bad at times ;)

Twilight is bad but 50 shades makes it look good, if you go for either of those I wish you luck!

[Natália]

Good choices, go for it! Twilight is definitely the best one for this category, and it's less cringe-worthy than 50 Shades. I might use the last book of the 50 Shades Trilogy for this category, since I never finished it (I couldn't stand it), or maybe Inferno, since I like Dan Brown and it's the only one by him that I haven't read yet.

[Maggie]

This category is definitely a difficult one. My plan of attack is to look through all the books I have on my to-read list and find the book with the lowest rating. I think that works? I figure if the rating is low, the reviews are probably bad!

[Thomas]

I tried checking the percentage of 1-votes. I mean, even Fifty Shades has a 3.7 average here. That's just bonkers, but the book obviously has its fans.

But it has more 1-votes than it has 2-votes. 10% of the votes are 1s and that's 114000 votes. Out of the books I checked out a while ago, 10% was a pretty high percentage of 1-votes. I doubt you'll find a lot of books with a higher percentage.

[Tats]

Good point Thomas. Perhaps it would be better to re-name the category into 'controversial book' (in a sense of it's reviews) - so probably as many good as bad reviews.

Another such book I found is 'The Fault in our Stars'. You have such a strong fan following but man, you got people who hate it... I probably would end up in between, not hating it but really not knowing what the big fuss is all about - but it's a quick read (other than Twilight or 50 Shades).

[Vermicious Knids]

I hated Oryx and Crake. Blech! I think it would fit perfectly for this. I may make this catagory one "I" would give bad reviews for.
Or maybe go on Amazon and search for only 1 or 2 star books and see what I come up with.

[Sierra]

nice choice! I've been narrowing down my options for this based on the "most popular/helpful" reviews. if I go to a books page (regardless of star rating) and the page is mostly bad reviews it gets added to my list.
I.e. Wizard's First Rule has 3 or 4 star rating (I forget) but 9 out of 10 of the first reviews are negative.

[Brenda]

I plan on reading Eat, Pray Love for this category. i looked it up on here and many of the reviews are negative and complain about it so I'm going to see if I can make it through the whole book.