Huffington Post Readers' Picks: 6 Of The Meanest Book Reviews Ever (PHOTOS)

In our article The 5 Meanest Reviews Ever, we asked you for some of your own personal favorite venomous reviews.

You responded, telling us about reviews that refer to books that would be better served in filling gaps. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Read on for some truly mean things ...

We're always open to hearing more: What else is out there?

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"Against The Day" by Thomas Pynchon

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Malcolm Gregory Love said: "My favorite Michiko Kakutani review was 'Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, ‘Against the Day,’ reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes. It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.' Ouch." Read the original review here.

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Malcolm Gregory Love said: "My favorite Michiko Kakutani review was 'Thomas Pynchon’s new novel, ‘Against the Day,’ reads like the sort of imitation of a Thomas Pynchon novel that a dogged but ungainly fan of this author’s might have written on quaaludes. It is a humongous, bloated jigsaw puzzle of a story, pretentious without being provocative, elliptical without being illuminating, complicated without being rewardingly complex.' Ouch."

Read the original review here.

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Total comments: 34 | Post a Comment

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This Review

Rank #2  |  Average: 4

Too Nice Harsh!

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Comments

[Lev Raphael]

05:53 PM on 10/03/2010

This is a classic, from The Boston Globe's review of Melville's "Pierre":

But the amount of utter trash in the volume is almost infinite -- trash of conception, execution, dialogue and sentiment. Whoever buys the book on the strength of Melville's reputation, will be cheating himself of his money, and we believe we shall never see the man who has endured the reading of the whole of it.... Comment upon the [plot] is needless. But even this string of nonsense is equalled by the nonsense that is strung upon it, in the way of crazy sentiment and exaggerated passion. What the book means, we know not. To save it from almost utter worthlessness, it must be called a prose poem, and even then, it might be supposed to emanate from a lunatic hospital rather than from the quiet retreats of Berkshire. We say it with grief -- it is too bad for Mr. Melville to abuse his really fine talents as he does. A hundred times better if he kept them in a napkin all his natural life."

[Philip Martins]

03:47 PM on 10/03/2010

Why the meanest books? What about some good books? Wouldn't this be so much more useful?!!

This is my preferred new book:

“Trump University Commercial Real Estate 101: How Small Investors Can Get Started and Make It Big” by David Lindahl.

http://realpropertycheck.com/latest/2010/09/book-rewiew-how-small-investors-can-get-started-and-make-it-big/

Many successful real estate investors will tell you that now is the best time to buy, buy, buy real estate. This crisis presents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get rich quickly if you know how.

David Lindahl begins by making a bold statement: commercial real estate is not just “for the already rich”–it is also a way to get there.

“The wealth opportunity with commercial real estate is enormous for the very reason that most people think they could never own it.”

This sums it up pretty well. The rest of the book delivers the facts, money-making tips and a wealth of valuable information on anything from finding knowledgeable advisors, attracting deals, valuating properties, getting lender’s approval and/or creative financing, negotiating no-money-down transactions, structuring complex deals, improving the operational bottom line, to knowing when to sell and selling profitably.

[mrapollo]

10:57 AM on 10/03/2010

Kakutani's review of "Against The Day" stands in contrast to her glowing, favorable review of "Mason & Dixon:"

"...a book that testifies to his remarkable powers of invention and his sheer power as a storyteller, a storyteller who in this case demonstrates that he can write a novel that is as moving as it is cerebral, as poignant as it is daring."

Her review of "Against The Day" reads like that of a spurned lover, frustrated that Pynchon has gone back to his old ways.

[KIVPossum]

10:44 AM on 10/03/2010

Twain did a wonderful job listing Cooper's literary sins.

[Michael West]

03:07 AM on 10/03/2010

I like Dr. Johnson's remarks to an aspiring writer:

"Your book is both good and original. Unfortunately the parts that are original are not good and the parts that are good are not original."

And was it Dorthy Parker who wrote this two word review of the film, "I Am a Camera"?

"No Leica."

[tploomis]

02:19 AM on 10/03/2010

Michiko Kakutani rules!

[ghost geezer]

12:55 AM on 10/03/2010

Cyra McFadden's review of Marilyn Quayle's Embrace the Serpent is my
vote for the meanest review ever written. Of course I haven't read every single
review ever written, so how do I know this to be true? It is true. I just know it.
This is meanness a go go, meanness without remedy, terminal megaton meanness.
It is also one of the funniest pages of literature since Mark Twain. I know that too,
and so will you if you ever conjure up this grand slam slam. It appeared in a San Francisco
Bay Area newspaper, either a daily such as the Chronicle, or in a weekly or monthly
such as the East Bay Express or the Bay Guardian. There should be a statue of if placed somewhere where smart people need cheering up. It should be set to music. It should
be scrolled down from the towers of suspension bridges.. It's that good.

[LMPE]

12:21 AM on 10/03/2010

For a class while spending a semester in St. Petersburg, Russia, I once wrote one of the meanest movie reviews ever, calling the horrendously boring "Baryshnya-Krestyanka" "...a big piece of garbage that must have been created by ten monkeys working with ten typewriters for ten days." I then dedicated the review to the recently deceased Bob Denver.

[lifeofthemind]

12:10 AM on 10/03/2010

Thank you for posting this! A very good look that adds some perspective to the first list that you made. I'm enjoying catching up on these others.

[throwcautiontothewind]

11:16 PM on 10/02/2010

For sharpest academic reviews, the winner has to be Noam Chomsky for his panning of B.F. Skinner's book, Verbal Behavior.

William Goldman once wrote a huge tome of a novel that one critic claimed, "A twelve-year old could understand before he could lift it.

[throwcautiontothewind]

11:18 PM on 10/02/2010

Correction (just found the original quote): "a child of NINE....

[Pharmachick]

10:53 PM on 10/02/2010

'Tonstant Weader fwowed up.'

That was too funny. I actually laughed out loud at it.

Bless the writer that can reach across nearly 100 years to do that (even if for all the wrong reasons).

[Graham7720]

09:16 PM on 10/02/2010

I'm afraid I don't like the picture that accompanies this article. Two little girls whispering behind another little girl's back. That is something we're trying to eradicate these days. I know I try to with my kids but maybe I'm just being pedantic or touchy.

[alyseven]

03:01 AM on 10/03/2010

Lol! The only reason I clicked on this was because of the picture and I was curious to see if anyone commented on it. I didn't even read the article!

[kcnewhaven]

07:22 PM on 10/02/2010

The giving tree has always made me very sad.

[anchises868]

05:53 PM on 10/02/2010

Wow, Adler was brutal.

[LeeX]

05:13 PM on 10/02/2010

Well now, someone feels the same way about Rick Moody as I do. Time will never redeem his crappy "books". They will be bummers for eternity.