Asklemmy

I haven't read a whole lot, but so far: Madame Bovary. We had to read it in high school, because it was culturally significant and because it caused a large amount of controversy when it came out due to its subject matter. When I was reading it though, it felt like I was reading a literary version of every TV soap opera ever. It was a slog to get through and I was bored and annoyed throughout.

that's an easy one, Atlas Shrugged

Probably Don Quixote. It started off really well, but it devolved towards the end into this long-unending self-referential rant full of name-drops and exposition, and I could barely follow any of it and pushing through that was a huge chore.

I later learned I had read a bad translation, and that there is one good translation out there I should try, but the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't want to go anywhere near that book again.

I've read so many it's hard to say but recently the Star Wars book about Phasma stands out (most of the books since Disney took over are not great). Also a series someone on Reddit recommended that turned out to be basically a guy writing down a game of Stellaris. I don't remember the name of it but it was awful.

"The Cat Who Walked through Walls" by Robert Heinlein...

Now Heinlein is usually kind of obnoxiously sexist so having a book that opens with what appears to be an actual female character with not just more personality than a playboy magazine centerfold, but what seems like big dick energy action heroesque swagger felt FRESH. Strong start as you get this hyper competent husband and wife team quiping their way through adventures in the backwoods hillbilly country of Earth's moon with their pet bonsai tree to stop a nefarious plot with some promised dimensional McGuffin.

Book stalls out in the middle as they end up in like... A swinger commune. They introduce a huge number of characters all at once alongside this whole poly romantic political dynamic and start mulling over the planning stage of what seems like a complicated heist plot. Feels a lot like a sex party version of the Council of Elrond with each of these characters having complex individual dramas they are in the middle of resolving...

Aaaand smash cut. None of those characters mattered. We are with the protagonist, the heist plan failed spectacularly off stage and we are now in his final dying moments where we realized that cool wife / super spy set him up to fail like a chump at this very moment for... reasons? I dunno, Bitches amirite?

First time I ever finished a book and threw it angrily into the nearest wall.

I don't even remember the title, but it was written by Clive Cussler.

It was the dullest, most stereotypical adventure book with the bog standard protagonist and plot, with no interesting twist or unexpected event at all.

The first 5 or so of Trump's books. No meaningful lessons in business to be had. Just him bragging about people he knew, people he'd screwed over, how good he thought he was at pretty much everything. How he got back at anyone who crossed him. Insufferable. I knew he was one of the worst people ever before he even mentioned getting into politics.

And in those 5 books, he probably name-dropped every New York socialite he ever met. It's consistent with his whole image of self-worth and needing to look and feel important. You know who he didn't mention? Someone we've seen him with in several photos? Who he definitely would have mentioned if there wasn't a reason not to? Jeffrey Epstein.

I am not sure about 'ever' (I am old and have been reading for over 4 decades now), but a book I hate-read recently was Foucault's pendulum by Umberto Eco. It is meant to be a satire on conspiracy theories and as such it is still a relevant book after 35 years or so. However, the point of satire is to get to the point eventually, preferably within 500 pages. It was pompously written and sometimes felt like a showcase of 'look how much I know!'.

the Piers Anthony novelization of the movie Total Recall. it's very bad!

The bible. Inconsistent, unethical, and immoral.

I don't know if this counts, but when I was about 13I was very excited to find an enormous book in my favorite genre at the time, Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard.

It was the first book I ever put down in disgust without finishing. In the almost half-century since then, there are under a dozen that I haven't finished. Shows you just how bad it is.

Canonical answer is The Homecoming Saga by Orson Scott Card, since it turns out that if the good guys have a mind controlling god computer that's always right on their side it gets really hard to have meaningful conflict.

The Bible

I was assigned Ethan Frome in a high school lit class and to this day I think it is one of the worst books to assign to emotional, angsty, experience-limited teens.

I also don't understand why Romeo and Juliet is the go-to Shakespeare work that we default to.

How do we handle complex romantic relationships? Suicide / attempted suicide, of course! Just what every teen needs to hear /s

Left Behind. I'm probably a huge idiot for not realizing for the entire thing without knowing before hand what the context was, but I read it with the idea that it was some kind of apocalyptic sci-fi, and then only in the very last few pages of the book did it finally hit me in the face that it was religious doomsday bullshit. I do have to compliment it for the storytelling and world setting, but holy shit was I disappointed with the end direction 🤦

I was far too young to read Animal Farm. I thought it was going to be like Charlotte's Web. I did not have any of the historical or political context for the metaphor. It just made me angry.

The Silmarillion.
Probably the only book I excitedly pushed myself to read, but just couldn't.