50 Shades was just bad writing. My kid read about 1/3 and said don’t even bother, but I tried. Nope. Put it away. The subject did not bother me at all, but reading the first few pages was like chewing gum that lost all its flavor.
As mentioned in the nightstand thread, I hated Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Substance of All Things. However, I liked Eat, Pray, Love. Particularly the part about Italy. One I didn’t put on the nightstand thread that I’ve had going for at least 18 months is Walter Issacson’s The Innovators. I really loved Steve Jobs, but just can’t get into The Innovators and it keeps living on my coffee table. I won’t say I hate this one, but I certainly don’t love it.
I do not really have truly hated books (I usually put away quickly anything I do not like), but speaking of the classics, Crime and Punishment was just depressing.
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. Had trouble finishing it. Please don’t throw rocks at me.
I haven’t read Grey so I can’t comment, but I read the first in Ann Rices “Beauty” series and just wasn’t interested enough to continue. I didn’t hate it though. I think I read “Story of O” but maybe I just saw the movie. Again, it’s not for me, but I didn’t have particularly strong feelings about it one way or another. If I was younger, I’d read Grey to see what all the fuss is about. But I don’t care enough.
I found A Separate Peace really dull. I’m not sure I finished it and I certainly don’t remember much. Really disliked The Red Badge if Courage.
“Don Quixote.”
Oh, just thought of one that everyone loved but I hated:
11/22/63 by Stephen King.
Also could never see the appeal of Three Men in a Boat.
I read The Giver each time it was assigned to one of my kids. Nope, 3x was not the charm. I just don’t like it.
I know I’m in the minority but as a middle school student I truly couldn’t read Tom Sawyer. And the last book that I put down was Go Set a Watchman – it just was blowing up too many happy thoughts of TKAM for me to continue.
Couldn’t get through Moby Dick, and I disliked The Scarlet Letter and Heart of Darkness.
Can I toss in a children’s book? I hated the book Love You Forever—very creepy. Given to my kids by a grandmother, so I couldn’t toss it, but I kind of hid it sometimes so the kids wouldn’t request it!
Franzen’s Freedom and Purity. (Loved The Corrections.)
A friend at work raved about The Left Behind series; I found it appallingly bad, didn’t get past first half of first volume.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo books were terribly written- never got beyond the 2nd book (loved the movie versions.)
The late Henry James, whom I find unreadable.
The later books by Mark Helprin (loved the earlier ones.)
Most of Dostoyevsky.
Thomas Mann is a struggle.
Love You Forever?! In our house we called it “The Stalker Mom”!
Hemingway
all of it
In the non-fiction category - What to Expect while you’re Expecting. Something just struck a nerve, that book was so preachy!
I enjoyed the first Harry Potter book because at the time it was different. The series represented some of the happiest memories of my girls’ childhoods, being the midnight madness book releases and sharing the books together. But I could take or leave all the rest of the books as far as being reading material.
The single book that I have hated most in my life is the Giving Tree. I hate that book so much that I would like to do violence to it.
Have you ever hated a book, not because it wasn’t well written or a good story, but because it was so disturbing to you? We Need to Talk about Kevin was that book for me.
Agree with you about Freedom @katliamom. Where the heck was the editor on that one? Didn’t even try Purity.
Tim O’Brien…Things They Carried; Faulkner…As I Lay Dying
Love in the Time of Cholera
David Copperfield
The Giving Tree
@zoosermom - as a mother of twins I find books about twins disturbing when there’s one that is evil or mad or whatever. I think one of the early “Oprah books” was like this, and certainly some of Stephen King’s books. I just won’t read them, they offend me.