I started wondering recently why almost all of my recent reviews are positive. When I started this blog there has been few bad ones, so what happened? Have I finally become a nice person, incapable of saying a bad word about anything?
No. I realized since I started this blog I pick my books more carefully. Earlier I was reading a mix of good and bad things, not by choice but by accident. Blogging and following many amazing book blogs made me think more about the next book I’m going to read. I still avoid reading reviews before I buy a book, but when buying, now I have this internal voice saying ‘are you sure this won’t be a waste of time?’.
I’m not saying everything I read is ambitious literature, but generally I get lucky and read books that I like with few treasures thrown in here and again. Overall I think it’s a good thing, but I must say I miss saying something mean about a book from time to time. In this spirit I took a look at the books I read so far this year to find the one I liked the least and it definitely was The Art Whisperer by Charlotte and Aaron Elkins, but it was so bad that I didn’t even bother to write a review, I started respecting my time more because of blogging.
What was the worst book you ever read?
bookskeptic.com 
I do think you get better at picking out books as you get older, and especially after starting a blog and reading other blogs. Also, I don’t finish books I really don’t like, unless it’s for a book group meeting, and then I try to finish so that I can discuss it. I agree, there are too many books that speak to us to promote through blogging rather than write about one that wasn’t for you.
It’s hard to pick the “worst” book, but one that I just couldn’t stand was We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver. I could only read 120 pages or so. The quality of the writing was good, but the story was just waaaay more disturbing than I could handle.
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I really rarely don’t finish a book, even when it’s awful, I think I DNF maybe less than 10 books in my life.
we Need To Talk About Kevin is still on my list to read. I saw the movie and was left speechless, I totally agree it is disturbing topic. The book I could not finish because it was too disturbing was The End of Alice by A. M. Homes, I just couldn’t…
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‘Cold Mountain’ is a contender, as is ‘The Red Tent’. I’ve also had a bad experience with the first (and last and only) Lionel Shriver I read, but the Title holder for my worst book ever easily goes to ‘The Da Vinci Code’, and it would have to be one godawful book to knock that abomination from the top (bottom) spot!
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I have a contender, but I somehow doubt I’ll convince you to try 😉 same author as your ‘favorite’ book – Inferno. I picked it up when I was in Florence 2 years ago, because I like reading a book based where I’m on vacation, but this was torture. I finished it, but abandoned it in the hotel, definitely in my top 3.
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I reckon I’d pick 1-3 duds a year (books that I give one star to). Of course, I could abandon them but I rarely do! (I push on to either see if it gets better or to see just how bad it can get!). The worst book I’ve read (this year) – Unspeakable Things by Kathleen Spivack (it’s actually a contender for the worst book ever….).
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I feel warned about Unspeakable Things. Thanks for this, because like you when I stat a book I usually keep on pushing in some crazy hope it’ll improve at some point. That’s why I waste so much time, and I’m happy that I have become more lucky with my choices.
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I am always confused whether to write a bad review or just skip the book altogether. Well, I dont know.
I cant remember the last bad book I read. I had some really nice reads recently
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Congratulations! It is so nice to have a streak of nice books, makes me love literature even more.
With bad books sometimes I think I should maybe warn other people, but on the other hand, why waste time for a full blown bad review, so I usually settle on quick mention in my round-up post with a warning to others.
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Usually if a book doesn’t have me by page 50, I put it down. One of the worst books I’ve read is ‘All the Things we Cannot See’ by Anthony Doerr and it was a miserable, long read that I only finished because it was for a book club. I thought I’d enjoy it since most reviews online were positive, but it turned out I couldn’t have been more wrong!
I think it’s good to focus on positive reviews but if I finish a book and did not like it overall, I will post an honest review about it and what exactly it is that I didn’t enjoy; that may be because I like to keep in mind what does and does not work in a book I read, and write reviews that focus on that.
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Ha! Another hated one that I have on my TBR – lailarch mentioned We Need To Talk About Kevin above and now All The Light We Cannot See. I’m really curious what put you off, because I also saw a lot of very positive reviews, before I put it on my TBR.
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Haha I actually enjoyed We Need to Talk About Kevin but can definitely see how others did not, it’s not an easy read to say the least. I think not like All The Light We Cannot See was mainly because it’s not a genre I usually read (or enjoy) so was pretty boring in most parts. It also jumps between characters and time in chapters, although I don’t mind it when it’s done well, the book was very confusing. That being said, you might still be one of the tons of people who like it!
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