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What book is so awful that it deserves a space on your shelf just for being so awful? (alien.top)

submitted 9 months ago by michelleinbal@alien.top to c/books@metacritics.zone

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For me, it's Jude the Obscure. That book is easily the worst book I have ever read, without a single redeeming quality, other than that it finally ends. I only finished it because Far from the Madding Crowd was so damn good.

But really, Jude is the gold standard of awful books, in my opinion.

What's your so-awful-it-deserves-shelf-space book, if you have one?

Or am I just weird?

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[–] 2leewhohot@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago (4 children)

Let me Introduce you to TOYS by James Patterson and the actual author, Neil McMahon. If you're a struggling writer who thinks their manuscript is just not good enough to ever be published, I encourage you to go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words.

It wants to be hot shit on a silver platter. It's actually a cold turd on a paper plate. It wants to be a futuristic James Bond, but it can't even manage to be Bill Cosby's Leonard, Part Six

Just open a random page, read a couple of paragraphs, and be inspired that some asshole wrote it, some asshole edited it, and some asshole published it.

It is just god-awful. I love it so much.

[–] PhasmaFelis@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

Is that the James Patterson, creator of James Patterson's Bookshots?!?

[–] bitchysquid@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

When I was 11 years old and naive, I loved the Maximum Ride novels. But even at that age I could tell somebody was phoning it in for those novels. I still fantasize about what a competent (or even just attentive) writer could have done with that story! It could have kicked ass

[–] bequietbekind@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

go to your local used bookstore or Goodwill and just randomly open a page to this steaming pile of words

This is the most lowkey spicy burn I've seen in quite some time.

[–] starsn420@alien.top 1 points 9 months ago

I have this book. It doesn't make sense, but I read it about every 3 years, and I love it.