Hans Christian Anderson wrote scary stuff.
Argh, Little Match Girl.
For the record, I liked Catcher.
The Rainbow Fish. Should be called “The Socialist Fish”.
@GMTplus7 Maybe you should write an Ayn Rand themed children’s book.It could be titled The Things They Won’t Teach You in Kindergarten 
I hated Junie b Jones when the kids were little. That horrible grammar drove me crazy.
I despise books like 50 shades and outlander…torture and mistreating women is no turn on.
I hate that my daughter loves nicholas sparks. Such a set up for unrealistic expectations.
Wow…so much hate for Catcher In The Rye. Poor J.D. Salinger.
I personally enjoyed it, but I can understand why someone who can’t or doesn’t care to get into the mindset or somewhat relate to the main character’s alienation and misdirected and self-destructive traits may dislike it.
Then again, I’m usually able to find something to enjoy in most books/authors I’ve read over the years.
There were a few exceptions, however.
One which comes to mind that I had to read in school was Henry James’ “Turn of The Screw” for a sophomore HS English class. Forced myself to read it, but I couldn’t really relate to the story or liked the writing style. Not too surprisingly, that was a factor in why I got my worst English lit grade in my life.
If the OP posed the title to me in 7th grade, I’d also have said Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The former was because like many 11 year old boys, I didn’t really appreciate romantic themed stories until I was a bit older and the latter was too abstract and confusing at that age. When I re-read them again on my own in late high school, I enjoyed them.
Glad to see that I’m far from the only one afraid to keep creepy books in the house!
@NJTheatreMOM your mention of Jamaica Inn reminded me of another Daphne du Maurier book, My Cousin Rachel. After getting halfway through it (and having high hopes since I’ve loved Rebecca since I was a young teen) I felt just so overwhelmed by the sense of impending doom and disaster that I couldn’t read any further.
Did anyone read Mrs De Winter, a fanfic sequel of Rebecca? Almost a candidate for hated book except that it’s too weak to really inspire hate. There’s a practically robotic Mrs Danvers still going on about how wonderful Rebecca was and how lame the 2nd Mrs De Winter is, and that’s about it.
@Sue22 LOL on your story about the insufferable author and her BF!
A Hundred Years of Solitude- I kept drifting off reading it but my youngest daughter loved it. As for Catcher in the Rye, I didn’t hate until my oldest daughter had to write an essay on it to make up for missing a class. The essay was to be about why the ducks fly south in the book. Neither of us could figure it out (pre internet days) and neither of us really wanted to know why.
Children’s book- Berenstein bears and the Richard Scarry’s Busy Town - hated reading those out loud.
The Scarlet Letter–hated how he kept referring to Pearl as the “elf child” or something like that
Heart of Darkness–wanted to like it, but I’ve read 700 page books faster than those awful 70 pages
Sarah Bishop–read this in 6th grade and always remembered as it as the worst book we ever read in school. This and other historical fiction for kids turned me off the genre for many years–they always seemed like the story and characters were just made up to teach a history lesson. I’m glad I finally picked up some good historical fiction & great historical books as an adult.
Anything by John Green–I picked up Fault in our Stars, did not like it, and for some reason kept trying his books and thought they were all kind of awful. I find his characters really obnoxious and unbelievable, and I hate that the teens in his books smoke cigarettes all the time. But I do wonder if I would have related to the characters and liked them better as a teen.
Excellent Sheep by William Deresciewicz–I picked up this book expecting to dislike it based on his articles, and thought it was even worse than the articles. Overly general and poorly researched–mostly preaching and anecdote with very little research to back his points up.
Now that we are on to children’s picture books, I hated anything Richard Scarry. I read nearly constantly to my kids but would not read those. No story, no plot. How do you read those aloud?
I’d argue that Richard Scarry books aren’t meant to be read aloud. I always loved them around my kindergarten age because of all the little details. I’d put them in the same category as Where’s Waldo books.
Richard Scarry books are meant to go straight to the landfill. I couldn’t even donate them.
I loved Richard Scarry books when I was a little kid, and my daughter loved them too. I agree that they weren’t meant to be read aloud. I used to make my own drawings of little worlds inspired by them when I was a little kid. I’m really surprised that so many people hate them! They seem so charming and inoffensive to me. Can anyone put their finger on what you hate about them?
I didn’t love Richard Scary books, but I didn’t hate them either. You don’t really read them. You discuss the pictures and have a conversation. I had lots of issues with the Bearenstain bears, the preachiness, the gender stereotyping, but most of all I just loathed the illustrations. But I never let my kids even know we had them. They got donated to the library. I don’t like Dr. Seuss’s illustration style either, but I always loved Green Eggs and Ham, it’s the first book I remember owning. I don’t like his later books as much as the earlier ones. The books I found hard to read were The Magic Schoolbus ones. What did you do with the extra text that wasn’t part of the story?
We were fine with Richard Scary, Bernstein Bears, most children’s books. We read a ton and we’re happy to be able to get fresh books often from the library. Can’t think of kids books we hated, just some we liked more or less than others.
Although she didn’t tell me at the time (third grade), D1 was frightened by “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.” She did not need books about death of a child at that age.
When my younger son was in second grade and not a good reader yet, he liked me to read him series for slightly older kids. (Animorphs were a favorite.) Once, I took a stab at reading him one of the very popular Goosebumps books, which the school library had lots of. I could not stand them – too poorly written!
@movemetoo No you’re not. I hated The Great Gatsby too.
Richard Scarry wrote a few books with plots, like the Tinker and Tanker books. We liked those.
Moby Dick. Started it three times, just can’t get through it. Started Catcher, but abandoned that too. And although I didn’t hate it necessarily, I still just don’t get the appeal of Wuthering Heights.