I won't finish I book that's dull, who can stay awake when it's all you can do not to superglue your eyelids open over bad writing? It's hard being a completionist/perfectionist (albeit part-time at the moment LOL) and not finish what you start. Have you ever read a book that made you feel an all consuming hate?

Normally I would insert unfortunately here, but the book that inspired such emotion shocked me at the end and I walked away with a new perspective on life and hailing it as one of my all time favorites. Since the purpose of art is supposed to evoke gut reactions (hopefully not of the lukewarm nature) I shouldn't have been surprised, right?

Damn my delicate sensibilities and aversion to animal cruelty. Once I read past the scene thru a crimson haze, I got over my egocentric need to place things like books and their characters into neat, safe categories. I love books, not just their words, but the actual pages they are written upon. Perhaps that is why I felt so uncomfortable confronting the rage The Wasp Factory created inside me.

Has anyone else read The Wasp Factory or another book that caused you to feel uncomfortable/unsure with yourself? I might never have met this experience if someone hadn't given it to me as a gift...what a gift indeed.

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"I'm nobody's Tonto."

To be quite honest I've never read a book that really bothered me in such a way. I have read some rather boring books in my time, but reading technical non-fiction science/engineering/music theory books tend to give you a certain immunity to even the most extremely lethargic of them. In any event, it must have been a rather nice person to have given you such a nice gift.

As part of a high school project on racial propaganda I had to read "The Leopard's Spots" by (I think) Thomas Dixon. It's the racist, turn-of-the-century crap that "Birth of a Nation" was based off of. I could only get through the first two chapters, it was absolutely disgusting and a disgrace to civilization. I walked away wanting to exhume this Dixon fellow and rip him limb from limb.