I'll give you ten books (or series) I hate. It's not hard to make a list. Astute readers will notice that even a couple of my favorite writers are not exempt from making the occasional glaring mistake. As Joe Queenan wrote in The New York Times not too long ago, "bad books fall into three broad categories: the stupid, the meta-stupid, and the immoral. Each has its own inimitable charms." So I'm not going to tell you why I dislike the following books; I'll leave you to figure out to which category each belongs.
Just so we're clear, #1 is my least favorite book of all time; the others are slightly less egregious.
Okay. Deep breath. Here goes.
10. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
9. A Great and Terrible Beauty, by Libba Bray
8. The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell
7. His Dark Materials (trilogy), by Philip Pullman (Yes, that includes The Golden Compass)
6. Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth
5. Winter's Heart, by Robert Jordan
4. The Tommyknockers, by Stephen King
3. Earthfall, by Orson Scott Card
2. The What to Expect series, by Murkoff, Eisenberg, and Hathaway
1. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
No protests or arguments, please! Really: you have no idea how Capitol-Hill-Gangish this post is already making me feel.