What was the worst thing you've ever read and why was it so bad?

[Representing_Tromba]

What was the worst thing you've ever read and why was it so bad? Was it fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, biography, or another? What was the genre and why did you attempt to read it in the first place?

 

[GlassRose]

It wasn't necessarily the worst thing I've ever read in terms of, like, writing ability, but, well...

Reincarnated as the God of Shitty Life Counseling for Defective Washed Up Waifus

Don't expect too much from this abomination. As the name of this fiction suggests, the title I go by in heaven is the God of Shitty Life Counseling for Defective Washed Up Waifus. I work as a life counselor for trash waifus in case you were slow and didn't catch...

www.scribblehub.com

One of the things was someone who wanted to a fetus. The advice was somehow worse, I won't get graphic. I think I, for some gods-forsaken reason, didn't even stop reading immediately there. Boredom is a scary thing.

 

[LiteraryWho]

Sometimes a Great Notion. Famous in the right circles (though I'd never heard of it), I'd happened to have gotten a copy at school, and figured I might as well read it.

Not only was the plot boring, the characters inane, and the setting tedious, but also the carriage return on the author's typewriter killed his family, or something, because the dude refused to use paragraph breaks. Instead he favored endless paranthetical asides.

I got about a hundred pages in and realized there was no value in torturing myself for the sake of some chud's war against structure, just to wring out the tedious story of some idiot chick who cheats on her somehow more idiotic and ridiculous logger husband.

 

[NotaNuffian]

Everything that had came out after 2020.

 

[Worthy39]

A world history book. Stupid decision making from all the main characters, very depressing, and the people only got dumber as time went on.

 

[Dawnathon]

Some visual novel called The Masquerade or something similar. About some courtesan guy and the place he works for.

The writing itself wasn't the worst thing ever, but the transitions were. There simply wasn't any. A character would say one line, another character would say a different line, and they are in completely different times and places. The scene has changed and you'll just have to figure it out yourself, because the story doesn't bother to let you know.

I have read far worse amateur writing, but I've never seen a finished commercial product screw up so badly. It felt like some kind of avant garde work about dementia or time jumps, but that clearly wasn't the intention. It just really did not care about giving context. Every single sentence spoken or action given may or may not transport you to a completely different place and time, sometimes back to back. You'll find out when you get hit by it. The fact it's a visual novel is the only thing keeping it comprehensible, since at least the backgrounds and characters present can sometimes clue you in that you've been teleported. It really is a baffling enough storytelling blunder that I'm almost tempted to do it deliberately for some experimental short story.

 

[LiteraryWho]

Some visual novel called The Masquerade or something similar. About some courtesan guy and the place he works for.

The writing itself wasn't the worst thing ever, but the transitions were. There simply wasn't any. A character would say one line, another character would say a different line, and they are in completely different times and places. The scene has changed and you'll just have to figure it out yourself, because the story doesn't bother to let you know.

I have read far worse amateur writing, but I've never seen a finished commercial product screw up so badly. It felt like some kind of avant garde work about dementia or time jumps, but that clearly wasn't the intention. It just really did not care about giving context. Every single sentence spoken or action given may or may not transport you to a completely different place and time, sometimes back to back. You'll find out when you get hit by it. The fact it's a visual novel is the only thing keeping it comprehensible, since at least the backgrounds and characters present can sometimes clue you in that you've been teleported. It really is a baffling enough storytelling blunder that I'm almost tempted to do it deliberately for some experimental short story.

Some people do just be warring against structure.

 

[Representing_Tromba]

It wasn't necessarily the worst thing I've ever read in terms of, like, writing ability, but, well...

Reincarnated as the God of Shitty Life Counseling for Defective Washed Up Waifus

Don't expect too much from this abomination. As the name of this fiction suggests, the title I go by in heaven is the God of Shitty Life Counseling for Defective Washed Up Waifus. I work as a life counselor for trash waifus in case you were slow and didn't catch...

www.scribblehub.com

One of the things was someone who wanted to a fetus. The advice was somehow worse, I won't get graphic. I think I, for some gods-forsaken reason, didn't even stop reading immediately there. Boredom is a scary thing.

I have also read this. I sometimes recommend it to people who ask for a good comedy read.

Sometimes a Great Notion. Famous in the right circles (though I'd never heard of it), I'd happened to have gotten a copy at school, and figured I might as well read it.

Not only was the plot boring, the characters inane, and the setting tedious, but also the carriage return on the author's typewriter killed his family, or something, because the dude refused to use paragraph breaks. Instead he favored endless paranthetical asides.

I got about a hundred pages in and realized there was no value in torturing myself for the sake of some chud's war against structure, just to wring out the tedious story of some idiot chick who cheats on her somehow more idiotic and ridiculous logger husband.

What is it's name?

A world history book. Stupid decision making from all the main characters, very depressing, and the people only got dumber as time went on.

The smarter people become the more potential they have for greater stupidity.

 

[ThaddeusDeVilliers]

What is it's name?

'Sometimes a Great Notion' by Ken Kesey

 

[toapat]

Dungeon of Knowledge

Aliandra Amariel loved magic, dedicating her academic years to the study of runes and spells, pushing the boundaries of mana's infinite possibilities. Like most Fae, her destiny seemed clear until that fateful day of her Class Trial, when the Blind Lich unleashed an undead apocalypse on her...

www.scribblehub.com

this story started off well, which is honestly worse then just being bad. Because if it was always bad, i wouldnt have gotten invested, and because i wouldnt have gotten invested, i wouldnt have cared to rip into the shear number of ways this novel turns into the LitRPG contradicting the text on page, the characters being "Smart" while utterly fucking incompetent, myriad character assassinations.

like i pointed out to the author they named a side character Coria in a Dungeon Core litRPG, asked them when she was going to turn evil in the name of vengeance, and their response was "I never noticed i made this reference". WTF Sir. you fucking wrote the literary equivalent of Building, Arming, and preparing Chekhov's Gun-type Thermonuclear Device, and not using it was "i never noticed" while posting on 3 sites which allow chapter by chapter responses.

 

[Anemic_Vampire]

What was the worst thing you've ever read and why was it so bad?

Vampire Hunter D. Mostly because of how it portrays and treats a certain young girl.

Might not be the worst, but it wasn't what I was looking forward to for the most part.

Was it fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, biography, or another?

Fiction.

What was the genre and why did you attempt to read it in the first place?

I think it's adventure? I wanted to read it because I like vampires and it seemed like an exciting concept, a vampire hunting other vampires in a post-apocalyptic world. Plus, I also like odd gothic-esque books, and this one gave that vibe. Especially the cover was cool looking.

 

[TheKillingAlice]

One of the things was someone who wanted to a fetus.

You literally left out the most important word. To WHAT a fetus? To eat? To fuck? To punch? The possibilities are endless.

And I guess the worst thing I ever read... I don't know. I recently ranted here about an author who's like "yeah, the beginning of the story is shit, but it's totally getting better later" and didn't want to actually revise anything. That person was the literal Hack of all Trades; I checked four of her stories, with four vastly different genres, but all of them sucked ass.
Now, obviously, the question is one story, but here's the thing: no matter the genre or the characters, they were all the same. They had all the same issues; genre was something that existed only on paper, because the main storyline was neither fleshed out nor thought through to the end, and the main point was always the two MCs and their love story. Sadly, those had no personality either and acted the same as every other character in the story, additional to the fact that they would act as if they were in love at the very first moment, but at the same time, the author built a narrative of them only getting to know each other, sometimes even intially "hating" one another. It was absurd.
Oh, and absolutely everything in any of her novels that could be held to any factual standard - things that should simply be portrayed with some semblance of realism and logic, because they are ground, real things people deal with - was logically fucked to hell and back. People getting stabbed through their torso with a 30 cm "knife", so far up it cracks a rib, but no organs were harmed. Just one example from the one disguising itself as a "Thriller".
But even when you took away everything inside the stories, you were left with shitty writing; almost everything was reiterated, barely any actual dialogue was on screen, and there were virtually no line breaks. The whole thing was an absolute train wreck in every shape or form.
But it's not English, so I can't really link it. Still, it's mindboggling to this day.

 

[Kenjona]

What was the worst thing you've ever read and why was it so bad? Was it fiction, nonfiction, fantasy, biography, or another? What was the genre and why did you attempt to read it in the first place?

Gor:
It is the most misogynistic (an argument could be stated it was also misandrist) pile of cr@p I have ever seen written. Fan Fictions and online novels at least have an excuse of, well its the internet of all things. This was a publicly published series back in the late 60's into the 70's. They finally stopped publishing it in the 80's due to backlash.

The series follows Earth professor Tarl Cabot, who is transported to Gor, a habitable planet hiding behind the Sun in the same orbit as Earth. Also known as "Counter-Earth," this fictional world combines ancient civilizations (like Romans and Vikings) with brutal alien Priest-Kings and sword-and-planet pulp tropes.

Maybe a cool story start right? Well, for back then. Right up until all the women are very much "naturally" born slaves, just need to be trained right and how dare a man think they should be equal or treat them as such. Because then he is a loser and such types will always fail, unless they grow up and become a "real" man.

 

[LiteraryWho]

As an aside, missed opportunity here with the title, imo, could have gone with, "What is the worst thing you ever read and why is it X?" (With X working both as a stand in variable and a social media platform, lol)

 

[JordanIda]

Knots, by R.D. Laing.

Supposedly poetry. But no. Oh, no. Think, AI Slop. Written four decades before AI. Trash, transported by time machine from a trash-choked future.

 

[toapat]

Knots, by R.D. Laing.

Supposedly poetry. But no. Oh, no. Think, AI Slop. Written four decades before AI. Trash, transported by time machine from a trash-choked future.

sounds like a poem you encountered during standardized testing. at least personally, i remember all of those ephemerally, not as actual textual lumps of poop.

not that those arent bad, but i personally consider Worst as something more distinct from just bad. Worst requires initial quality, initial investment, and then it goes rancid.

take this upvote

 

[Jerynboe]

Mein Kampf. Not just for the reasons you’d think, that it’s evil and was part of a downward spiral that lead to the deaths of millions. It’s also just kinda a shit book and idk how it caught on with the Nazis.

That or the time that I experimentally had the AI I use to sanity/grammar/spell check my story to write a big fight scene in my style. Dear lord. It was so bad.

Depends on what you mean by “worst” I guess.

 

[Ellie_in_Pink]

My own first book.

In what way? In EVERY way!

 

[Representing_Tromba]

'Sometimes a Great Notion' by Ken Kesey

My bad.

 

[AliceMoonvale]

I'd list ones I thought were complete ass and or nonsensical for various reasons,
but the large majority of my picks are stories from people on the forum.
Everyone will come after me with a pitchfork or 1 star bomb my own story.