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For me, two books that I hated come to mind. It's been so long ago now that I can't remember now why it was I didn't like them. Whatever it was, I disliked them so that I have no desire still to read them.
First one was The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kinsolving. A friend whose taste I trusted recommended it. From the first damned page it sucked canal water. I remember thinking as I read, Damn, this sounds like Molly Ivins talking; every paragraph ends with a little zipper that I think was supposed to make me think the author was witty. No thumbs up for this book. I'd just cut my thumbs off first.
The other book I just hated was Eudora Welty's Losing Battles. This was a time when I decided I was going to quit reading "trash" and read something "serious." I chose Welty because I'm a good Mississippian; I thought it'd be a good place to start while showing fidelity to my heritage. I labored on for I don't know how many interminable pages like a husband laboring through a bad marriage. It was boring, boring, boring, boring, boring, and then it stayed boring until I quietly put it down and went and got something, Book of Lists, I think.
I'm lucky my first foray into "serious" books didn't ruin me for life.
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