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The worst non-fiction I've ever read was The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story Of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer, about Amy Archer-Gilligan, partial inspiration for Arsenic and Old Lace. This was an attempt to be a serious work, but it read like a middle school book review. A huge percentage of the text were quotes. The author talked a lot and spent a lot of pictures on a heat wave that had absolutely no bearing on the story, nor did he attempt to tie them together. He editorialized frequently, wrote about the 1910s in a modern colloquial manner, cited an online dictionary as a source, but the thing that stood out most, though, is that he used "lawyered up." Twice. The Devil's Rooming House was one of the few books I've ever hate read, just to see how bad it got. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible was another, but at least that was competently written and had a good first half.
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Jul 9, 2015 04:05
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As addition to bad book reviews and romance novels, this one of Pregnesia has always stood out to me.
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Jul 12, 2015 23:26
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pookel posted:Yikes, yeah. I didn't even know it was a widely known book. Someone loaned it to me and I thought it was pretty cool. I like it for all the reasons I like Stranger Things, basically. Whoa. Someone else has actually come across Don't Hurt Laurie. I remember reading it in elementary school in the 1980s. It stuck with me, but I didn't remember the ending being that bad. I just remember a friend of hers helped her tell someone after she was shoved down the stairs.
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Aug 31, 2016 13:45
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hackbunny posted:The intent of The Dark Half is making the case that Stephen King is, in fact, a hardened bad rear end. Lots of King novels and stories make this point (especially the Bachman books), but The Dark Half is explicitly about it. Well sorry King, but you never convinced me before and you didn't convince me this time. It was really, really hard to read it to the end, because unlike Running Man, The Mist, Tommyknockers (off the top of my head, stories with a defiant, rugged but intelligent man from Maine who likes beer a little too much), there was nothing else to the story. Like a fridge full of condiments and no food The Dark Half was about the wrong character. It should have been about Alexis Machine. I think it would have been a much better book if he hadn't revealed Stark so early. In essence, what he did with Secret Window, Secret Garden.
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Oct 30, 2016 02:11
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Carbon Thief posted:Not sure what reminded me of these terrible books, but I have to share an author I read a bunch of in high school: Lurlene McDaniel. She specializes in tragic teen romances where the main characters usually have serious illnesses. For example: I had one of those. I'm too lazy to look up a title, but the story centered around a girl who needed a heart transplant. She gets one because a kicker at the University of Michigan drops dead mid-play of a sudden brain aneurysm. She gets the heart transplant and falls for the kicker's younger brother. It ends on a cliffhanger as she's going in for experimental treatment after getting ill.
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May 20, 2017 05:32
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Screaming Idiot posted:I love this picture because I can totally imagine this man writing the infamous "bonding" scene it It. As well as a manifesto and homemade bomb instructions. This was originally printed when he was a student: 
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Sep 27, 2017 14:30
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Powerful Two-Hander posted:Jesus christ reading that article goes from "I get it this guy is a hack and his books sound terrible even through the lens of the 70s" to "his books should be destroyed, probably along with the author", I knew about his reputation from these forums but gently caress, that's nasty. He had already hinted at this life in Dandy in the Underworld. Content: My taste in literature wasn't that squicky in school, but I did rip off a book called "Snot Stew" for a creative writing exercise in fifth grade. I also wrote about pro wrasslin at least once, so that makes up for any high ground I might could claim.
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Jan 8, 2020 18:06
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Pastry of the Year posted:We've discussed this a bit in that thread, but if you don't read it, (a) you're insane and (b) you absolutely must click through that link to see some high-octane wackadoo, especially the children's book. quote:LYING, FALSEHOODS AND DECEPTIONS are sin. They were the first combination of sin that devil delivered to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden which led to the fall of the first Adam and man. This eventually led to God sending Jesus Christ down in the form of human as the second Adam. Lying, Falsehood and Deceptions by Ademola and Christiana Usuanlele was birthed by our book on Forgiveness. If you can get hold of the Forgiveness before you read this book, it will ring a a louder bell in your ears. You can read them in the order convenient to you. The pattern and structure of both books are identical. This book is a Kingdom Advancement Tool using various scriptures in the Bible and the Holy Spirit to portray lying, falsehoods and deceptions as a serious spiritual and physical issue that should be given all the attention it deserves. It explores some of the causes of lying and some of the spiritual and physical problems caused by lying. These problems caused include disunity, lack of prosperity, lack of peace, lack of everlasting joy, lack of love, stagnation of faith, stagnation of spiritual growth and a whole host of other problems. We have as led by the Spirit of God walked through some ways to stop lying, falsehoods and deceptions as directed by Jesus Christ and we have opened the door for those who want salvation and those who want to rededicate their lives to Jesus Christ. Please do not be shy about reading this book. If you truly believe that you do not have problems with lying, you can use the book to guide others to learn how to stop lying, falsehoods and deception or to prevent them from getting themselves entangled in lies/falsehoods and deception which is a Sin. Buy and read a copy today! GOD BLESS YOU. The description of a book surprisingly named Lying, Falsehoods and Deceptions.
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Jan 22, 2020 04:32
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Ugly In The Morning posted:Tommyknockers is half a really good book buried in an entire bad book. It had stuff like the Altair 4 bits or the floating killer coke machine but generally every cool bit was mixed in with a crap bit that dragged the pacing down. King agrees. quote:King wrote The Tommyknockers at a time when substance abuse was a significant part of his life. Metaphors for the stranglehold of addiction can be found throughout the book.[3] In a 2014 interview with Rolling Stone, King acknowledged that the quality of his writing suffered during his period of drug use, saying "The Tommyknockers is an awful book. That was the last one I wrote before I cleaned up my act", adding he believes it could be a good book if it was rewritten to about half its original length.[1] Crazy, The Tommyknockers was six years after Cujo, which he barely remembers writing at all.
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Nov 26, 2020 22:12
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Serephina posted:Currently reading a real bait-n-switch, unsure if I should put it down in disgust halfway through or hate-read it to the end. You guys ever finish a book out of a wrongful sense of pride, refusing to give up despite knowing it's totally rubbish? Three in particular: The Devil's Rooming House: The True Story of America's Deadliest Female Serial Killer. True crime about Amy Archer-Gilligan, who liked to poisonn people. Hate-read it because of how amateur the writing was. The Man from the Train. Bill James' book claiming to solve the Villisca axe murders, claiming it was a nationwide serial kkiller. Hate-read because James' premise was complete and utter bullshit, with cherry-picked "proof" and I wanted to see how beyond ridiculous the reveal was. James is actually a respected baseball writer, but this was garbage enough to make me retroactively hate everything he's ever done. Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible. I don't understand why this is considered a classic. Colonialism is bad, religious colonialism is terrible and still happens but this is so ham-fisted. None of the characters are people, but merely paper-thing archetypes throughout.
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Mar 4, 2024 05:00
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