My Top 5 Least Favourite Books

Yeah, yeah, I know! But I have to be honest: for a classic story of pirates and treasure, I found it pretty underwhelming. Maybe my expectations were too high – or just completely off. I guess I was expecting more of an all-out battle for the treasure. But instead, once they reach the island, the two sides hardly ever see each other. In any case, I just found the story slow and clunky. It's not bad for what it is – it does have its moments – but it's just not tight enough to hold my interest. So this was a pretty lacklustre read.

Now, the Mr Majeika books are obviously intended for young children, but I still enjoy reading them; most of the stories are solid. But this particular one is garbage! Being who I am, I just can't help getting picky about some glaring inaccuracies that are presented on how computers work. But I doubt I would have been drawn in even if it had got that stuff right. Rather than a retread of Gulliver's Travels, I would have preferred if the actual world of the internet had been personified in the same vein as TRON, by making programs, websites and even hardware visual and metaphorical.

I can't exactly remember why I didn't like this book, but throughout most of it, I was really just bored off of my ass. Maybe I didn't care about any of the characters, or maybe the writing style was too dreary, or maybe the book was too repetitive – I don't know. It just never wowed me at all, not even when the ghost starts doing progressively terrible things. I just remember I read it on someone else's recommendation, and I put Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on hold to read it (which, coincidentally, was also rather disappointing, as I'd seen the film first).

It was actually hard to choose whether I disliked this or The Ghost of Thomas Kempe more. I decided to go with Little Foxes because I know Michael Morpurgo is more than capable of stories that genuinely tug on your heartstrings – that's what he's good at. But this one, for some reason, just doesn't work, though it tries to. I don't mind depressing stories, but they have to be intentionally so. When a movie or book fails at what it's trying to do, that actually depresses me more than a deliberately depressing story! In any event, there's just no joy in this one.

Oh, God! Hate this one! All the other books on this list just kind of underwhelmed me, but this is the only one that made me genuinely angry! Now, don't get me wrong: I can see why it's so popular; since the whole thing's written in the first person, I too commend Mark Haddon for staying so consistent with the character's dialect. But that's also where my whole problem with the book stems from. I hate this character with a fucking passion! I don't begrudge him simply for being autistic (I'm on the spectrum myself), but he still annoyed the shit out of me. I just couldn't stand his juvenile approach to everything. If I met this guy in real life, he'd be lucky if he got ten minutes in my company before I made my excuses and left, let alone spend a whole novel with him! Maybe I'm being too impatient with him, but I don't care! Purely because of him, this was, hands down, the single worst read of my entire life.