I have worked on a book challenge for 2015 for a community group I am a part of. It was more or less simple to pick out some challenge categories for books to read. I put out 20 categories for people to chose from. The whole thing is in Croatian and here is a link.
In my enthusiasm I posted one category that is giving me trouble now. Under number 10 there states:
READ A BOOK THAT WAS GIVEN A BAD REVIEW BY THE CRITICS
I have searched high and low for some kind of a list of books that are BAD.
After having found some wonderful (IMHO) books on these lists I have learned a valuable lesson and decided to write this post. There are some issues I should have taken into account when discussing books that are considered NOT GOOD.
1. Reading is a personal process and as such it can only be valued trough personal experience.
Most of the lists I have found that categorized books as bad were on social networks like Goodreads. These were given tags like: worst books, bad books and some more colorful adjectives to describe the books that generally annoyed the reader. Here is an example of one such list.
2. Books that end up described as bad by one reader are marked as favorites by another reader.
It can be seen in some articles like this one that books that ruffle the most feathers and have “bad” tags also have a strong supporters that love them. This love-hate response is generally often with some bestsellers that have famous movie adaptations or are in some other way connected to mainstream commercial venues.
3. The term BAD BOOK is questioned by the critics.
In my search I have come across many lists that offered “THE BEST BOOKS” summaries by genre, date or some other limitation. Generally, there is an accent on the promotion of positive and “GOOD” what literary world has to offer. I have even come across a few articles like this one that were giving reasons for abandoning the bad reviews altogether.
In conclusion
I am still looking for a book to read that has been reviewed as BAD. What seemed the best way to find it at first was by asking a friend for a book that they thought was bad. I’m also looking on other peoples shelves on Goodreads or Shelfari. If you have a bad book for me to read please comment here or send me a message about it!
I appreciate any book you consider bad that you throw my way!
anastasiaadamov 