Book Meme - Day 6

What was the last bad book you read? What didn't you like about it?

I don't read a lot of bad books. Which surprises some people because I read so much. But the truth is that the more I read, the more good books I read. It's a sort of self-perpetuating cycle. The more I like what I'm reading, the faster I read. And the more books I read, the more I know what I like. I'm pretty picky about the books that go on my to-read list. I have to have heard about it from several sources and read a review or two before I'll even consider a new author. And I'm still occasionally disappointed, but more because of a mismatch of expectations than because the book was truly bad.

But bad books do sneak in. Mostly as gifts, and mostly because my husband is purposely trolling me. Every year for Christmas he buys me something at the second-hand bookstore based on the cover. Sometimes it ends up being a fantastic book. Sometimes not.

This year it was not. This year he bought me Red Rain, RL Stine's foray into the world of adult fiction. And, man, he should have stuck to kid's fiction. He probably wanted a new challenge, but he's been relying on ghostwriters for so long that it's like he forgot how to write.

The most offensive thing about this book was how incredibly lazy it was. The characters were barely sketched in. They were more like puppets than people, having sex or killing just because it would be exciting but with no true motivation. Everything that happened was "just like in a move", which might have been the book attempting to poke fun at itself. But it was just repetitive and irritating. And lazy. Like the author just wanted to get this written as fast as possible with the minimum amount of effort.