The Worst of 2010

There has to be a flip side, right?

Books I abandoned without finishing not included. These things I actually polluted my brain with in their entirety. An author gets at least one star for my making it through their crap.

Naked in Death (J.D. Robb) - the first in an apparently wildly successful series that is part cop thriller, part romance, part sci-fi and all suck. Overwrought. Needlessly hysterical. Preposterous. Nonsensical. Unoriginal. Bad sex scenes that just went on and on and on and on. Eve is a joke, right? The "leading man" is a controlling asshole who needs to be on a leash. Stereotypes and caricatures abound. Everything is black and white; gray does not exist. Vomit-inducing, eye-rolling stupidity. (1-star)

Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf) - I decided to read one of her books because she’s an important author (authoress?) I’d never read before. Unfortunately I’ll never read her again. The most boring book I've ever read. I know it's supposed to be beautiful and like a novelized impressionist painting, but it was dull, dull...god it was dull. I'd glaze over for minutes at a time, hearing the narrator in my ears, but not really listening. It didn't matter. The same old trivialities were brought up, discussed, picked over and studied. To what avail, I don't know. The madman had some potential, but he was made boring as well. No wonder Woolf did herself in if this was her life and how she viewed it. (1 1/2 stars)

Lost Boys (Orson Scott Card) - another author much lauded and unread by me. Never again. Good premise, but it should have stayed a short story. And, hello! Haven't we all seen The Sixth Sense by now? Tedious, slow-moving and dull. Also unfortunately, I now know WAY more about Mormons than I ever wanted to, right down to their magic underwear. (2 stars)

Medium Raw - reading this right after Kitchen Confidential was a mistake. Anthony Bourdain loves being Anthony Bourdain and he really, really wants you to know it. Yawn. Remember when Metallica wrote really great songs, played hard and kicked a lot of ass? They were young, lean, hungry and desperate and it resulted in great work. Now they are fat, happy, art-collecting yuppies and it results in flabby crap (and Bob Seger covers?!). Well guess what, it's not just for metal bands anymore. (2 stars)

The Strange Case of the Composer and his Judge (Patricia Duncker) - I should have known by the title alone that this woman liked to use a lot of words to convey even the tiniest morsel of information. Problem is that many times she used the wrong ones. This author needs a copy of Lynn Truss's Eats, Shoots and Leaves and the OED, stat! And then there was the stilted dialog, uneven prose, constant harping on the apparent midget stature of the heroine and the go nowhere, do nothing ending. Oh man.

A Dishonorable Mention goes to Legacy (Andrew McGinn) - a comic book (oh, excuse me, a graphic novel) screed about a boy who can't grow up and leave his teen-aged angst behind. Determined at twenty-something to out-cool his parents at any cost he sabotages his father's life's work in search of his own identity only to realize money is really the most important thing in life and decides not to slaughter the cash cow after all. (2 stars)

Well there you go. Don't say you weren't warned.