the worst book EVER!!!

[miss fortune]

I was bored at work earlier and pondering what could possibly be the absolute worst book anyone could possibly write and concluded that I'd come up with one of the possible worst books that could be written (and people would read it )

A paranormal romance turned thriller about a suicidal woman who falls in love with death over the course of meeting him multiple times in her suicide attempts... eventually death is won over and they date for a while and do all kinds of delightful things like go meet dead celebrities in death's realm and see what they're up to these days and things of that sort... picnics in the moonlit graveyard and such... eventually the woman grows tired of death's cold embrace, because it's winter and she wants a man who can keep her warm on the long nights, so she breaks up with death!

now death is pissed off, but since he still loves the woman he starts stalking her and killing things in her life... her goldfish die, the flowers in her planter die when he breathes on them while watching her through the window and finally when she decides that she's going to marry her human beau, death decides to turn on her! will the woman survive and live the rest of her happy life or will death get his vengeance?

yeah... sounds TERRIBLE!

what's the worst possible plot for a novel that you can think of that someone might actually read?

 

[sprinkles]

I dunno, Mercedes Lackey novels seemed like a contrived excuse for homosexual characters to get wounded in magical combat and then have healing sex with each other.

Ok, it's probably not exactly that but that's what I remember.

 

[kelric]

Well, this is from a book that was actually published. I can't give the name of the book or author, as it's been a number of years and I can't remember the specifics -- it's the only book I've ever bought (and I've bought *way* more than my share) that I've ever gotten rid of.

Basically, I had an appointment to donate platelets - which takes about an hour and a half or so, and I wanted to have a new book to read while I was there. So I went to the bookstore and picked up this book that, at first glance, looked like it might be interesting. It was advertised as a science fiction mystery/thriller, with the protagonist in the outer solar system while a plague threatened humanity. Okay, not fantastic, but I didn't have a lot of time to pick something out, so I gave it a shot.

BAD mistake. The "plot" was actually centered around a man who had been infected with a sexually-transmitted virus that made him a) incredibly horny and b) sexually irresistible. Now, this man was, for some reason I can't recall, on a spaceship in the outer solar system, waiting for his chance to wake the female members of the crew out of hibernation-sleep to... fulfill his potential as a transmitter of said STD. Which, of course, in addition to being highly contagious, also caused sterility, and there was some bit about the destruction of humanity with him being the "patient zero" of a horde of contagious, orgiastic sterility-virus-carrying-spacefarers heading back to earth, which would result in an eventual birth rate of zero and hence, extinction of the human race. If I remember correctly, there was some mumbo-jumbo in there about him realizing that the virus had taken over his mind and yet giving him some sort of macho thrill from "spreading itself" too, but as you can tell, it wasn't particularly well-written, so that was sort of fuzzy.

Needless to say, this was not what I'd signed up for when I took a chance on this book... but I was more or less stuck for an hour and a half, so I bulled my way through 75 pages or so before deciding that staring at the wall was more interesting (and less potentially embarrassing). So I wound up spending most of the rest of my time there doing nothing in particular, hoping that nobody would ask me what I had been reading. When I was done, I dropped the book off in the nearest publicly anonymous trash can. Yes - being caught with it would have proven quite embarrassing. It was *that* bad. I mean, I suppose it's possible that it got better (it couldn't have gotten much worse), but I certainly wasn't going to read enough to find out.

 

[miss fortune]

[MENTION=16071]sprinkles[/MENTION]... I wish I could use sex instead of a doctor!

[MENTION=994]kelric[/MENTION] oh no! that reminds me of when I was spending a good 24 hours in drunk tank and the guards finally gave up and gave me a book after I'd spent 4 hours chipping the paint off of the walls... it was a terrible, terrible book about incestuous witches and it was so DETAILED about all of the sex that they were having... not the thing to read when you feel like you're going to die anyways! I ended up reading the worst parts out loud to my cell mates (a housewife and a nurse) so that we could make fun of it as a group and gag at it's horribleness

sometimes you're better off NOT reading... seriously... space stds?

 

[Pseudo]

Tuesdays with Morrie.



I got into a fight with my ENTiRE freshman health class about this book. It involved a senior football player standing up, bangin his desk and screaming at me. Another girl in hysterics. And me being removed from class.



I just don't like it.

 

[chatoyer]

Pillars of the Earth!!! I can't stand Ken Follett, he looks like a smug squirrel on the book jacket, he gives me the creeps! That book is full of anachronistic errors, cheap thriller aspects and stupid sex. What a waste of time.

 

[Lark]

Ayn Rand. All she wrote. Only books I ever burned.

 

[The Ü™]

I was bored at work earlier and pondering what could possibly be the absolute worst book anyone could possibly write and concluded that I'd come up with one of the possible worst books that could be written (and people would read it )

A paranormal romance turned thriller about a suicidal woman who falls in love with death over the course of meeting him multiple times in her suicide attempts... eventually death is won over and they date for a while and do all kinds of delightful things like go meet dead celebrities in death's realm and see what they're up to these days and things of that sort... picnics in the moonlit graveyard and such... eventually the woman grows tired of death's cold embrace, because it's winter and she wants a man who can keep her warm on the long nights, so she breaks up with death!

now death is pissed off, but since he still loves the woman he starts stalking her and killing things in her life... her goldfish die, the flowers in her planter die when he breathes on them while watching her through the window and finally when she decides that she's going to marry her human beau, death decides to turn on her! will the woman survive and live the rest of her happy life or will death get his vengeance?

yeah... sounds TERRIBLE!

Actually, I might consider adapting this into a screenplay.

 

[miss fortune]

Actually, I might consider adapting this into a screenplay.

I'm considering writing it down into novel form since it's become my intellectual pet over the course of the week... which would probably turn out rather odd since I don't read romance novels OR thrillers!

 

[The Ü™]

I'm considering writing it down into novel form since it's become my intellectual pet over the course of the week... which would probably turn out rather odd since I don't read romance novels OR thrillers!

This is precisely why you may just procure a work of genius.

As for not reading thrillers, you've already created a single paragraph that is more thrilling than anything Stephanie Meyer conjured up.

Perhaps innovation is born when people don't read.

 

[miss fortune]

This is precisely why you may just procure a work of genius.

As for not reading thrillers, you've already created a single paragraph that is more thrilling than anything Stephanie Meyer conjured up.

Perhaps innovation is born when people don't read.

the ability to use one's own imagination and therefore actually come up with something different? interesting concept there

as someone who is unsure how romance novels go at all (other than the fact that they have fabio on the cover, don't they? is fabio old enough to pose as death yet? ) I suppose it might be somewhat easy to avoid some of the usual cliches

and you totally have first dibs on screenplay rights

 

[Domino]

I have piles of books, dragged up by myself and my friends, that are guaranteed to kill brain cells.

A few of the titles: "The Flies of Memory", "Garbage World" (possibly drawing the flies?), "The Space Egg", and "The Port of Peril".

Seriously, how can anyone NOT read those?!

 

[miss fortune]

I have piles of books, dragged up by myself and my friends, that are guaranteed to kill brain cells.

A few of the titles: "The Flies of Memory", "Garbage World" (possibly drawing the flies?), "The Space Egg", and "The Port of Peril".

Seriously, how can anyone NOT read those?!

wow... now I kind of want to check out whether they're available on Kindle... though leaving them sitting on a coffee table to disturb unsuspecting guests would be awesome as well

chapter 1 of the worst novel ever written

Initially, I'd tried to kill myself because life is fucking depressing... you hit 25 and you start to wonder "is this all that there is? have I gotten a quarter of the way through my life and I still haven't accomplished a damned thing worth writing home about?"... those thoughts kind of stuck in my head after I turned 25 and I decided after a night of convincing lecherous old men to buy me drinks to take the easy way out... an overdose of sleeping pills washed down with some rum should work shouldn't it?

it didn't work all of the way, but I think it worked a bit, because I saw Death and Death was HOT. I'm going to assume that you've seen Meet Joe Black, where Death is played by Brad Pitt and you wonder in the back of your mind how many teenage girls tried to off themselves because they wanted Brad Pitt... Death made Brad Pitt look like Mickey Rourke. Unfortunately, dying didn't take and I just ended up waking up in a pool of my own vomit, which is a lot less sexy- not to mention cold and slimy.

I kept thinking about Death though... in a way it sort of gave me something to work towards which I had been lacking. Meeting Death again was more important to me than my dead end chain of jobs, more important than remembering that I was trying to teach myself to play the guitar... Death nearly killed my houseplants without lifting a single sexy, sexy finger! Maybe next time I died for a while I could work up the courage to talk to him... it's not like I could die of embarrassment if I was already dead.

Next time I decided to kill myself I put on some makeup and brushed my hair first... I even put on some clean and wrinkle free clothes which showed some cleavage, which is a sacrifice when you have to dig under the futon and through your car to find enough change for the laundry mat. After all, I wanted to make a good impression and cleavage has always worked on men in the past... shouldn't it work on Death as well?

I tried my hardest to look sexy as I drank a bottle of 2008 California petite syrah that I'd found on sale at the liquor store to wash down the pills... after all, I'm pretty sure that Death usually sees people at their least attractive and might appreciate a pretty face for once! I ignored the adage about assuming and just assumed that this would work... and as I faded out and saw Death get closer and closer I smiled and tried not to sound lame...

"Who needs 72 virgins when you're the one who greets us?"

I wish... as lame as that is it's still better than the "hey" and blush while staring at my not really solid anymore feet... I even suck at pick up lines when drunk AND dead which kind of makes it a miracle that if I were to permanently die I wouldn't be stuck in a stable of virgins waiting to dote over some dead suicide bomber.

Death acually smiled back and laughed... I don't think that he was used to people trying to hit on him... I'm guessing that they were normally screaming and crying that they didn't WANT to die. Probably the reason that my dad married my mom... she was the first woman to EVER smile at an IRS auditor in the history of all women, so he decided that he'd better take her off the market.

"Hey yourself" Death responded (making me feel a lot better about my icebreaker since his reply was just as lame) "why aren't you afraid of me?"

Dear God... Death sounded exactly like Antonio Banderas... and looked something like if a young Antonio had gotten stuck in one of those matter transporters from The Fly with a younger Pierce Brosnan... I considered swooning... it shouldn't be LEGAL for a man to be this attractive!

"I actually am just stopping by to see you" I replied, hoping that I wasn't slurring my words. "I met you last week and thought that you probably don't get many friendly visitors wherever here is, so I decided to change that a bit!" I flashed him my most charming "buy me a drink" smile in hopes that it would mask how nervous I was feeling. Was I really trying to pick up Death? What the hell is wrong with me?!

"You would be right there" responded Death, sexily "I kind of have to wonder- are you a goth? They are usually the only girls who actually actively try to seek out and woo Death, but you don't really LOOK like one. I'm really confused as to why you would intentionally seek me out after escaping last time."

"Let me explain..." I began, which is possibly the worst way to EVER begin an explanation since it usually involves things like "and that cop was totally unfair!" and ends with "so you see, it's not really my fault." I told Death that he was possibly the most attractive thing I had ever seen and that I really was curious and wanted to get to know him a bit better... which actually managed to be even more awkward than it sounds.

At least it made him smile... and at that point I faded back into the living...

 

[King sns]

I read this one once about teenagers in a satanic cults committing vile acts towards each other and some detective moved down there to like Jamaica or something to find out why her sister died and made a male friend who was also a detective. It was like the most obvious yet depressing story line ever. I don't know why they write trash like that. Now I'm so into reading I basically don't even try to read ones when I realize they are really bad.

Also, "Rant" by Chuck Palanhiuk. It's just a whole bunch of hicks with boring lives rambling about this intolerable murdering main character's boring life. He was supposed to be a "badass" character who liked to get bit by snakes and have sex with women and give people rabies. Seemed like a whole lot of slow moving shock value to me. Stopped halfway through after I read the reviews that said it never got any better.

Fifty Shades of Grey. I skimmed the first few chapters on Amazon to find out what all the fuss was about. Most shallow "glamorous" main character who was just yapping on and sounding creepy. I think people really just like it for the sexual stuff, some say it's true, and others try to stick up for it more.... They aren't fooling me, F for writing style, F for main character, I didn't want to read on to find out what else was getting an F.

 

[Viridian]

I don't quite remember the title, but my mother was once so frustrated with a Maeve Binchy book that she actually threw it into the trash.

 

[Within]

what's the worst possible plot for a novel that you can think of that someone might actually read?

A person in a bathtub travels through time and space having erotic encounters with himself in all conceivable versions, ending up with the singularity of a lone guy tearing his own face off and eating it because he was not a genius level quantum physicist but just a Russian tripping on bathsalts.

 

[miss fortune]

A person in a bathtub travels through time and space having erotic encounters with himself in all conceivable versions, ending up with the singularity of a lone guy tearing his own face off and eating it because he was not a genius level quantum physicist but just a Russian tripping on bathsalts.

YES! what I was looking for! something so amazingly dreadful that high schoolers will probably read it and declare it deep and meaningful!

awesome job

 

[Within]

YES! what I was looking for! something so amazingly dreadful that high schoolers will probably read it and declare it deep and meaningful!

awesome job

That Donnie Darko reference hurt.

 

[miss fortune]

That Donnie Darko reference hurt.

I've found that watching Donnie Darko hurts as well... though not as bad as S Darko

 

[Within]

I've found that watching Donnie Darko hurts as well... though not as bad as S Darko

Let's not go there. Damn my curiosity.