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Out of all the books you've read in your life, is there one (or ones) that made you wish you could go back in time and never start reading it at all, so you could get back the hours you wasted on it? Was it because it was forced on you in school and you found it deadly boring? Was it the ending that disappointed you or made you so angry you wanted to throw it across the room? Was it simply so badly written that it hurt your very soul to read it? I'm sure we've all been there at least once!

Everything I had to read in school save for the Odyssey, Crónica de una muerte anunciada and some Cortazar stories I had to read. Cocorí, La Hoja de aire, Limón Blues, Don Quixote (I didn't even finish it, I just read about enough to pass the test), La boragine, etc...

Hmm. The only book that I persevered with that I didn't enjoy was the Great Gatsby, but ultimately I'm glad I did stick with it, if only for the fact that I can say that I've read it

Whatever we mention is sure to be loved by someone but...

The one that comes to mind as still bothering me the most is Rendezvous with Rama, because I'm going to wonder for the rest of my life what other people read that I didn't. There are all sorts of ways to enjoy a book, but I couldn't find plot, interesting characters, or deeper meaning. I've never heard anyone say they liked the writing or found humor in it. What did I miss? My best guess so far is that people enjoyed a scientifically accurate imagining of an alien spacecraft. That doesn't sound like a novel to me. (And I'm eagerly waiting for a Greg Egan book, in which I fully expect characters to spontaneously break out in conversations about physics. But I'm expecting a story to go with that.)

I would love to go back in time and not read anything they made me read in school cuz I didn't like any of the books they made me read except for the Outsiders and the hobbit. couldn't stand Shakespeare or Great Gatsby.

The Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, The Alchemist and An Inheritance of Loss.

Riding the Iron Rooster

The author is so arrogant and pertentious that I finally just had to give up on this book.

Maybe I Am Number Four... to be honest, I'm struggling to think of any (I'm sure there were plenty through uni though)

Robinson Crusoe. I hate that douchebag.

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Usually I can find some benefit to a book, even if I didn't like it...but I can't with this book. I'm desperately bitter about how much time I wasted reading that book. It took me forever to get through and at the time, I wasn't able to read multiple books at once so I missed out on reading a bunch more because of it. Very upsetting.

Weirdly enough I have never experienced that (mainly because I have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to books I'm not enjoying - hence the many unfinished Dickens novels). However, I'm currently reading The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell and I can only describe the experience as a SLOG! I can put up with harrowing material, depressing scenes and loathsome main characters, but bad writing, bad translating, and bad editing? Not so much! Why on earth am I persisting with this thing?? Probably because I haven't actually read a novel brave enough to tackle World War Two from the point of view of a Nazi and I think it's a subject which is vital to explore. However, I hope there are similar (and better) books out there because I'm in danger of hitting the bottle with this one!

I didn't care for Catcher in the Rye.

The only one that I totally hated that I read in high school was The Sound and the Fury. It was horrible. The first 50-75 pages is a stream-of-consciousness narrative from the POV of a mentally disabled person. It is utter drivel. I had a college professor tell me that it is criminal to even attempt to teach it to high school students. Personally, I think it's a waste of anyone's time.

Other than that, the only thing that comes to mind that I've read recently is The Historian. 800 pages of searching for a plot - I kept hoping I could find it but alas! it was not to be. A total waste of time.

I can't think of anything like that -- at least nothing that I finished. If I don't / didn't like it, I don't / didn't finish it. School or not - it didn't matter.

Who was it said, "Life's too short to spend it reading a bad book." ?

I cant think of anything either. There have been a few books that I didn't like but I finished them just so I could say that I did.

The first book in The Hunger Games. Completely overated, dull characters and a cliched plot. I hated it. Could not understand what the fuss was about

Even though they are considered classics by many, I hated the books Ulysses and Pride and Prejudice. I had to force myself to finish them and I probably will never read them again.

I studied Gatsby last year, and so I wasted god knows how many hours on it. Don't get me wrong, Fitzgerald is an amazing writer, but I found the book horrendously disappointing.

Oddly, even though I didn't understand half of what Ulysses was actually saying, for me it was an achievement, and I did rather enjoy it, in a weird way.

The first book that ever hit me as hours misspent was The Mill on the Floss, and that was because of the ending. I think I actually threw the book down, which goes against everything I believe in when it comes to the treatment of books, but it just left me so disappointed and rageful.

Also, The Catcher in the Rye. All I knew about this book before I read it was that it's one of the top must-read books in American literature. It didn't give me a very good opinion of American literature, I have to say. I thought it was awful. Every sentence was excruciating, but I forced myself to finish it because I figured the ending would have a twist or something, and I would understand why it's so popular. Nope... nothing. Just a waste of my time.

'Catcher in the Rye' was on my reading list in school but luckily I wasn't tested on it as I gave up within the first pages. I've only ever done this with two books, the second being 'Angelmaker' by Nick Harkaway. I created a special shelf for it on goodreads called 'impossible to carry on'.

I read a book recently called 'Red 123' and I did read it to the end. It was a thriller in which three unconnected women are made aware that they have been chosen to die at the hands of the Big Bad Wolf. I thought this sounded really intriguing, I couldn't be more wrong. I got to the point where I didn't care if the women lived or died and I just prayed each time I started a new chapter that something would happen.

The last book in the Inheritance series by Christopher Paolini. I just got really disenchanted with to story half way through the third book, but I wanted to read the last book... you know, for closure.

But, by this time the film of the first book had come out and I realised the worst: I just didn't care about the characters anymore :(

I read Twilight for a class, and although I thought it was silly, it was entertaining in a "how bad could it be" way. Usually if a book is really bad I stop reading it. Monster 1959, The Flame Alphabet, In the Drink and Going Down are four books I read all the way through and still disliked intensely. Flame Alphabet was particularly painful.

it has to be 50 shades of grey - i only read the 1st 7 chapters of 11st book and wish i hadnt bothered

The Girl in the Lighthouse without a doubt. Icky story of rape, incest, abuse with no redeeming quality whatsoever. My mind was blown to find out that there was a sequel! Why?!

I have to say I wish I had never read Donna Tart's The secret History. I found it too long and very boring, I am surprised I even finished it. Also I wish I hadn't of bothered reading 50 shades of grey and Jurassic Park, probably the only book I've read that was worse than the film.

Ruchi wrote: "The Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, The Alchemist and An Inheritance of Loss."

You didn't like The Alchemist? I loved it!

Faye wrote: "Out of all the books you've read in your life, is there one (or ones) that made you wish you could go back in time and never start reading it at all, so you could get back the hours you wasted on i..."

The Island of Dr Moreau . And Robinson Crusoe. same class.

I don't remember any fiction that I disliked to the point that I wish I'd never picked it up. There's usually one thing in there somewhere that I was glad to have read. I've had plenty of textbooks that were useless, though. Usually, because the professor didn't even use them, or didn't organize the test with what we we're reading in the textbook. Mostly, I wish I could get the money back on all the books I didn't love.

I can't think of any, but I am getting very picky. Recently I have abandoned books that didn't grab me by halfway. It would have shocked me some years ago, but nowadays I tend to agree with a "moving on" attitude(there are so many good books on my tbr that's a pity to waste time on the ones that you don't like)

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Volume 1: The Manga: Boukenshin

I felt that the characters were out of character and half the artwork was terrible.

Kassandra wrote: "The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen.

Usually I can find some benefit to a book, even if I didn't like it...but I can't with this book. I'm desperately bitter about how much time I wasted reading ..."

I kept reading this book because I thought it must get better. Sadly I was mistaken. Definitely a waste of time.

I thought Life of Pi may have been the biggest waste of time in my opinion, but I see that it seems to be popular on some lists ,etc ,so maybe it's just me ?

The Vow. Idk what I expected but it was just an extremely boring book to me.

There are plenty of boring or nonsensical books I've read. But the ones I'd go back in time to erase are the ones with nightmare fuel. To prevent Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ/Amazon from using the names to make recommendations and the likes, I'll go anonymous.

I will no longer read anything by Author A because of a story about a dog. Often it feels like the 'kick the dog' or 'kill the dog' tropes are used just for shock value, and that's what it felt like in this case. And it was really worse than killing the dog.

A different author wrote Novel N that traumatized me so bad that I can't talk about it to anyone. I know someone who reads their other works, and I had to make them promise not to read Novel N, and I couldn't tell them why, just that there were horrible images that haunted me still, to this day.

Sometimes the suffering in a story is painful and heart-bruising, but there's redeeming value in the story. Even if the story isn't a happy one. A story can be tragic and still have value. But I don't know how to define where the line is, and when there's no longer any value for the reader besides titillation.

Aitziber wrote: "Robinson Crusoe. I hate that douchebag."

I vote for this one too. I would never have bothered finishing it hadn't it been for end of semester exams at university...
Before reading it, I pictured an exciting adventure book. Instead, I got the boring story of a douchebag who thinks he is better than everyone else and forces his religion down a poor guy's throat. Oh, and he also builds a table. How interesting.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller read this year. I was determined to read because it is in Boxall's 1001 Books.

Doctor Zhivago

Aitziber, we definitely seem to have a lot in common. I hated Robinson Crusoe, too.

But the book I really hated and regretted reading was The Eleven Thousand Rods by Guillaume Apollinaire. To give you an idea in case you don't know it, it's like de Sade, only much worse. Ugh.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer is top of my list of 2! It made me feel physically sick.

The Grapes of Wrath is the other - my distress at the humiliation of one of the characters caused me to down tools and never go back.

Deborah, I'm currently reading Perfume: The Story of a Murderer. So far I find it good, but I'm only on page 100 and I know the worst has yet to come.

Good luck, Marina! ;)

Fallen definitely...

Catch 22 I didn't think it was funny at all. I am glad I got it out of the library.

The entire Twilight Saga..... I wish I could purge my 13-17 year old self's mind from the twilight craze

I have not read those books, but I worked in a middle school as a substitute teacher, often in the library, when there was a real craze for those books. Time will help you forget-I have forgotten a lot of the books I read as a teenager. I was really into gothic romances.

I read Catch-22! Also didn't find it funny. But I chalked it up to not having been in the army. Maybe it would have been funnier if I'd had similar experiences.

Renee wrote: "I read Catch-22! Also didn't find it funny. But I chalked it up to not having been in the army. Maybe it would have been funnier if I'd had similar experiences."
This book wasn't meant to be funny. At least not that I remember. It was about having a good attitude, being afraid & going there anyway. He was afraid. Sometimes you play at being funny when it is scarier than Shit.

Renee wrote: "I read Catch-22! Also didn't find it funny. But I chalked it up to not having been in the army. Maybe it would have been funnier if I'd had similar experiences."

The phrase Catch 22 came from this movie. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. An impossible situation.

He was originally going to call it Catch 18, but Leon Uris released a novel called Mila 18, so the author changed the title to Catch 22. I think it sounds better that way. Thank you for reminding us of the meaning, Lynette. I just remembered the ending of the book.