It’s been quite a while since I’ve read it, so this may not be a fair assessment. But, I fucking hated The Catcher in the Rye. I wasn’t even required to read it for school or anything, I just did. Perhaps I just found Holden to be insufferable. I think that was the point, but it did not make it a particularly enjoyable or insightful read at all, save for the overwhelming supertext of DO NOT BE LIKE THIS GUY. The part where he hires a prostitute and just cries in front of her really stuck in my mind. That was when it really sunk in for me that someone read this book and decided that Holden’s views were so accurate that he had to go shoot John Lennon with a gun for being phony. Almost unbelievable.

Mein Kampf. I read it when i was still a succdem, expecting some genius rant that converted people en masse to nazism. Instead it was barely coherent disgusting racist drivel. I guess this book didn’t make anyone into nazi, it just given nazis what they would like to read. This and the fact nazi state bought huge amounts of it to distribute, making Hitler richest writer in Germany.

50 Shades… terrible writing and the sex was boring AF. The books were recommended to me. I couldn’t get through the first one. Time I’ll never get back.

There are books I started and did not finish that I do not remember. However, there a few that I finished but hated. The worst was:

Reverie - this was a lgbt book club thing in Libby. The protagonist was a whiny incapable teen that never redeemed themself. I kept thinking it would get better and it never did. Things resolved because magic, so poor/lazy writing.

The Alchemist, I had to read it for a community college class. It’s probably the most predictable book I’ve ever read, but not in an entertaining way. Just painfully boring.

I read Siddhartha for highschool a couple years before, I would say that the books are almost identical, except I liked Siddhartha more.

You want a book with similar themes but actually amazing? The wizard of Earthsea.

I know the books aren’t literally the same. But the vibes feel very similar. I want to say they have very similar structure, but my memory doesn’t work that great.

I’ve read so many it’s hard to say but recently the Star Wars book about Phasma stands out (most of the books since Disney took over are not great). Also a series someone on Reddit recommended that turned out to be basically a guy writing down a game of Stellaris. I don’t remember the name of it but it was awful.

An introduction to organic chemistry

I’m sure I’ve read worse but one that stands out as making me question the time I put into reading it is Out of the Dark by David Weber. I go into it expecting a military sci fi, and for the vast majority of the book that’s what you get - aliens invade Earth and plucky humans resist etc etc. The aliens however have more reserves and air superiority so are slowly winning as the end of the book approaches, at which point you expect the main characters to pull a rabbit out of the hat and do something different. Except that’s not what happens.

I was definitely not satisfied with this ending, even if there was some foreshadowing earlier in the book that made sense after knowing this was a possibility in this universe.

I haven’t read a whole lot, but so far: Madame Bovary. We had to read it in high school, because it was culturally significant and because it caused a large amount of controversy when it came out due to its subject matter. When I was reading it though, it felt like I was reading a literary version of every TV soap opera ever. It was a slog to get through and I was bored and annoyed throughout.

Probably Don Quixote. It started off really well, but it devolved towards the end into this long-unending self-referential rant full of name-drops and exposition, and I could barely follow any of it and pushing through that was a huge chore.

I later learned I had read a bad translation, and that there is one good translation out there I should try, but the whole thing has left a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t want to go anywhere near that book again.

that’s an easy one, Atlas Shrugged

I don’t even remember the title, but it was written by Clive Cussler.

It was the dullest, most stereotypical adventure book with the bog standard protagonist and plot, with no interesting twist or unexpected event at all.

“The Cat Who Walked through Walls” by Robert Heinlein…

Now Heinlein is usually kind of obnoxiously sexist so having a book that opens with what appears to be an actual female character with not just more personality than a playboy magazine centerfold, but what seems like big dick energy action heroesque swagger felt FRESH. Strong start as you get this hyper competent husband and wife team quiping their way through adventures in the backwoods hillbilly country of Earth’s moon with their pet bonsai tree to stop a nefarious plot with some promised dimensional McGuffin.

Book stalls out in the middle as they end up in like… A swinger commune. They introduce a huge number of characters all at once alongside this whole poly romantic political dynamic and start mulling over the planning stage of what seems like a complicated heist plot. Feels a lot like a sex party version of the Council of Elrond with each of these characters having complex individual dramas they are in the middle of resolving…

Aaaand smash cut. None of those characters mattered. We are with the protagonist, the heist plan failed spectacularly off stage and we are now in his final dying moments where we realized that cool wife / super spy set him up to fail like a chump at this very moment for… reasons? I dunno, Bitches amirite?

First time I ever finished a book and threw it angrily into the nearest wall.

The first 5 or so of Trump’s books. No meaningful lessons in business to be had. Just him bragging about people he knew, people he’d screwed over, how good he thought he was at pretty much everything. How he got back at anyone who crossed him. Insufferable. I knew he was one of the worst people ever before he even mentioned getting into politics.

And in those 5 books, he probably name-dropped every New York socialite he ever met. It’s consistent with his whole image of self-worth and needing to look and feel important. You know who he didn’t mention? Someone we’ve seen him with in several photos? Who he definitely would have mentioned if there wasn’t a reason not to? Jeffrey Epstein.