| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
SusiB
Joined: 11 Jan 2009
Posts: 108
Location: Germany
|
 Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:13 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| It's hard to pick just one! For me it's either Total Surrender by Cheryl Holt (literally TSTL heroine who almost starves at one point of the book because she's too stupid and apathetic to help herself, paired with a TSTL whiny egotistical hero who is apparently scarred for life and hates all women because he caught his parents having sex) or Nobody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Philips (heroine is supposed to be super intelligent but acts as if she wants to out-stupid all TSTL heroines out there and catch a few STDs and maybe AIDS while she's at it). |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Tee
Joined: 22 Mar 2007
Posts: 4062
Location: Detroit Metro
|
| Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 8:51 am Post subject: |
|
|
| SusiB wrote: | | ...or Nobody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Philips (heroine is supposed to be super intelligent but acts as if she wants to out-stupid all TSTL heroines out there and catch a few STDs and maybe AIDS while she's at it). |
And, there you go. It's all a matter of opinion; I loved that book. But we all know best-and-worst lists are just personal preferences and by no means indicate that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's always fun, though, to see which stories set jaws on edge and which ones bring on the smiles. Sometimes, they're one and the same.  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
goldberry
Joined: 26 Dec 2011
Posts: 31
|
| Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 8:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Am brand spankin' new here but I must say...
| Quote: | | Nobody's Baby But Mine |
Will never think of Lucky Charms the same way!
(I had a discussion with my 91 year old father about reading romances the other night. I said I like happily-ever-after type books and he said they are just fairy tales and I said I enjoyed that sort of fantasy book too. LOL) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
shelf
Joined: 31 Jan 2010
Posts: 99
|
| Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 10:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Another terrible book that got rave reviews in Amazon which made it all the more disappointing : The Warprize by Elizabeth Vaughan. I would barely call it a romance for one and the hero is supposed to be some savage warlord but his physical description meant I couldn't picture it - nor his actions. And most of the plot was about the heroine using her medicine skills on any and everyone she could come across, that was clearly the main focus. One of the boring and mundane books I've read in a while. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jaime
Joined: 23 Sep 2011
Posts: 360
|
| Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2012 8:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Tee wrote: | | SusiB wrote: | | ...or Nobody's Baby But Mine by Susan Elizabeth Philips (heroine is supposed to be super intelligent but acts as if she wants to out-stupid all TSTL heroines out there and catch a few STDs and maybe AIDS while she's at it). |
And, there you go. It's all a matter of opinion; I loved that book. But we all know best-and-worst lists are just personal preferences and by no means indicate that the rest of the world agrees with us. It's always fun, though, to see which stories set jaws on edge and which ones bring on the smiles. Sometimes, they're one and the same. |
I love Nobody's Baby and also "Ain't She Sweet" by the same author which also seems to be controversial. I laughed pretty hard when the hero calls the heroine a "cereal killer". The heroine is a bit of a special snowflake but I liked her. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
JamieMF
Joined: 05 Jan 2012
Posts: 17
Location: CO, United States
|
| Posted: Sat Jan 07, 2012 4:39 pm Post subject: |
|
|
Just goes to show how much opinions can vary on the same books; I thoroughly enjoyed all three of the Susan Elizabeth Phillips mentioned here, though I can certainly see the alternate interpretations, and I thought the Kristen Wiggs book was pretty cute too. However, I have definitely read a lot of royal stinkers, most of them Old Skool. The absolute worst that I haven't banished from my mind was Norah Hess's Raven: full of the purplest prose and having the most unlikable protagonists (I refuse to call them hero and heroine) and stupidest quasi-amnesia plot I have ever read. A close second is Johanna Lindsey's Keeper of The Heart. Lindsey is usually pretty solid, but that book was AWFUL-it was quasi-sci-fi written by someone who obviously had never written or read science fiction in her life, with stilted characterizations, tissue-thin worldbuilding that was about as consistent as Stephenie Meyer's, egregious abuse of the common apostrophe under the premise that a sci-fi name is a regular name with a bunch of apostrophes thrown in, and characters that were so incredibly flat I kept forgetting about them as I read them. And apparently there are TWO MORE in the series! The HORROR!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
jaime
Joined: 23 Sep 2011
Posts: 360
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 1:19 am Post subject: |
|
|
Lisa Valdez' PASSION was an amazingly bad reading experience for me. Everything was just so overblown. The hero with his gigantic penis going spelunking in the heroine's eager vagina. I was rolling my eyes all the way through the book.
Also bad, bad, bad - Anna Campbell's CLAIMING THE COURTESAN. Crazy obsessed guy kidnaps a courtesan after she dumps him. He rapes her repeatedly and she -of course! - falls in love with him. This book made it clear to me that I wouldn't have done very well with those eighties rapemances. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kathy
Joined: 31 Mar 2009
Posts: 46
Location: Southeast U.S.
|
| Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2012 8:46 am Post subject: |
|
|
| jaime wrote: | Lisa Valdez' PASSION was an amazingly bad reading experience for me. Everything was just so overblown. The hero with his gigantic penis going spelunking in the heroine's eager vagina. I was rolling my eyes all the way through the book.
Also bad, bad, bad - Anna Campbell's CLAIMING THE COURTESAN. Crazy obsessed guy kidnaps a courtesan after she dumps him. He rapes her repeatedly and she -of course! - falls in love with him. This book made it clear to me that I wouldn't have done very well with those eighties rapemances. |
Imagine: coffee all over my screen. I really DID laugh out loud! Hear, hear, Jaime!!  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Kathy
Joined: 31 Mar 2009
Posts: 46
Location: Southeast U.S.
|
| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 11:24 am Post subject: Bumping up |
|
|
Just bumping up to let Lea AAR (and anyone else interested) know a continuation of the "worst romance ever" was started.
Keep 'em coming. I've enjoyed reading all the different opinions and being surprised by some of the books mentioned. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
mirole
Joined: 06 Aug 2010
Posts: 257
Location: Toronto, Ontario
|
| Posted: Fri May 11, 2012 12:32 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| jaime wrote: | Lisa Valdez' PASSION was an amazingly bad reading experience for me. Everything was just so overblown. The hero with his gigantic penis going spelunking in the heroine's eager vagina. I was rolling my eyes all the way through the book.
Also bad, bad, bad - Anna Campbell's CLAIMING THE COURTESAN. Crazy obsessed guy kidnaps a courtesan after she dumps him. He rapes her repeatedly and she -of course! - falls in love with him. This book made it clear to me that I wouldn't have done very well with those eighties rapemances. |
Again, different strokes for different folks. Passion is in my top 10 romance of all times. I love it to bits and have already reread it. What you wrote is true but eveything worked for me in this book. The moment when the hero realizes that he loves Passion is one of the most powerful and beautifully written moments in romance that I've encountered (of course, it's just my opinion).
I have high tolerance to rape in romance so I quite recently read CTC by A. Campbell specifically because it's so controversial. At first I liked the author's writing style and the heroine and the hero separately and was interested in the story but gradually I got disappointed and for me this author is no better than lots of other historical romance writers. So I would rate this book as C+. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Laurie Ann
Joined: 27 May 2009
Posts: 57
|
| Posted: Fri May 18, 2012 6:46 pm Post subject: |
|
|
The worst I ever read was the very first one I ever picked up. My girlfriend gave me "The Flame and the Flower" by Kathleen Woodiwiss. Mind you I was a teenager but the purple prose and also the rape disguised as romance just made me ill. She thought it was wildly romantic. I didn't pick up another romance for years. Luckily, by then I discovered romance writers had come a long way.
A close second would be "A Lady of the West" by Linda Howard. So disappointing because she is a favorite of mine. The doormat heroine and jerk hero were two of the worst characters I have ever read - truly, when I think about it now, they kind of deserved each other. I think it was not only the first book I ever threw against the wall but also the first I actually BURNED in protest.  Didn't want to give it away because I didn't want anyone else subjected to such garbage. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
halcyon
Joined: 16 Aug 2007
Posts: 15
|
| Posted: Sat May 26, 2012 6:04 pm Post subject: |
|
|
My choice is Infamous by Virginia Henley
It has to be the most boring book I have ever read.
I never read another by her after reading Infamous.
It was billed as a romance but I found that there was very little if any romance in the book. The two main characters rarely spent any time in each other's presence and when they did, there was no spark at all.
The majority of the book was taken up with pointless conversations between friends and discussions of the war that really didn't add anything to the over all plot.
It really was horrible... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
limagal
Joined: 17 Jul 2010
Posts: 88
Location: lima, peru
|
| Posted: Mon May 28, 2012 10:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I agree with "The Flame and the Flower" as terrible, awful, yet there are lots of people who love it. I was turned off in the eighties by that sort of book and didn't get into romance until 2001 or so.
On the other hand, I do like Lindsey's sci fi triology - the men are a little too alpha male, but it's supposed to be a primitive world and I generally like any sci-fi romance that is set in some other world where they do things differently. I love Susan Grant's books for that reason and Anne McCaffrey. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Monika
Joined: 03 Apr 2012
Posts: 44
|
| Posted: Thu May 31, 2012 3:52 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Separate beds by Lavyrle spencer....hated the hero so much...wanted him to die for the things he had done to the heroine... |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dreaming of You
Joined: 20 Jun 2012
Posts: 24
|
| Posted: Thu Jun 21, 2012 3:00 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| PWNN wrote: | | SEP's THIS HEART OF MINE. Man forced to marry his pregnant rapist after being punched in the face and having his career threatened by her family. Rapist plays the woe is me victim to her family, the public and to herself. Rape victim then has to coddle her to make her feel better then bizarrely not only falls in love with this bunny writing sad sack nut job (who should be in jail) but insult to numerous injury has to apologize for not loving her sooner and then woo her and prove he's good enough for her by sacrificing his NFL career. |
This exactly! This one drives me totally nuts especially since so many other people seem to love it. If the situation were reversed and a man did this to a woman everyone would be up in arms but somehow it's totally cool for a woman to rape a man. SEP's Nobody's Baby But Mine drives me crazy for a similar reason-I couldn't get over the heroine tricking the hero into getting her pregnant.
I've read plenty of terrible books but the one's that really stick out to me are the one's like the SEP books that everyone loves that I think are just terrible. Another one that comes to mind is Sea Swept by Nora Roberts. This seems to be a huge favorite for a lot of people but I just couldn't get past the huge inaccuracies (even worse than what you typically see in Romance novels) in dealing with the legal system and child welfare system, not to mention the huge ethical violations committed by the heroine that should not only get her fired but barred from ever practicing social work again. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
