Magic Bellybutton has a post up on books that she thoroughly dis-recommends to anyone. I was going to post about my most hated book in the comments but it turned into a rant. Here goes:
Tully, by Paullina Simons.
It's not often that I'll find even a good book memorable enough to remember the name of its author (or sometimes even the title, which can be a problem), but I read this piece of crap in boarding school. It belonged to one of the girls in my dorm. They'd all read it and, I think, liked it. I had never not finished a book prior to that point in my life, not even books that I didn't think were very good. I'm a fast reader and so never considered a bad book much of a waste of time. That changed with Tully. I don't know at what point I came to realise that I thoroughly detested each and every one of the characters, and particularly the main character, but it came well before the end of the book. Actually, I think I may have found the autistic girl somewhat sympathetic but then she committed suicide and was out of the picture- don't quote me on that, though, it was almost a decade ago and I barely remember the plot. I persevered, just wanting to get the damn thing over and done with. Like I said, it never occurred to me not to finish it. But it was like wading through treacle. Treacle mixed with dog crap. 8 pages from the end, however, I realised that I resented ever having wasted a single second of my time reading the damn thing. I counted how many pages I had left, and realised that even that slim remaining fraction of the overall number of pages couldn't induce me to care enough about the characters to finish reading. I simply didn't give a shit- honestly, the book should never have been written, let alone published. Considering how much sex and 'adult content' it had I'm surprised I didn't at least find it interesting for that. Piece. Of. Crap.
9 comments:
LOL. I would have stuck it out for the last 8 pages just for a sense of some value from having completed it. Even if I hated it.
What was it about?
Tully is one of those books I've seen people reading on trains for years now, too many people. Like The Da Vinci Code.
It sounds like my mild book snobbery has served me well in keeping me way from Tully.
*small voice* I actually recall liking it.
*runs away, has asthma attack, collapses*
The shame, MB, the shame! You probably just liked it for the dirty bits, in which case I'll forgive you :P
There were dirty bits? I can't remember!
Obviously I've, um, encountered so many naughty bits since then they've gone from my mind!
I read an except.
You know what? It made me feel better about my own writing.
Hehe that's about right.
Hooray!
I also really friggin' hated this book. It was leant to me with a flatmate with the encouraging endorsement of; "Here K, you like to read - here's a book."
The thing that bugged me most was that the protagonist was dull, whiny, self-indulgent, and apparently trailer trash and for some indistinguishable reason two major male characters were OBSESSED with her! I also got about three-quarters of the way through before deciding I didn't give a fat rat's bum if the whole lot of them just died and went to hell.
Ahh there we go- KM has summed up the characters and what annoyed me most about the book in a mere 62 words. You've been warned, everyone!
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