Ever regret reading a book?

[Tapewolf]

I'm just not interested in stories about idiots who get into situations I never would, because I'm too smart to get into such situations.

In that case, you don't want to read 'Age of the Pussyfoot' by Fred Pohl.  It's not a bad book - reminds me of System Shock in some ways because the character keeps dying and getting resurrected again.  Pohl was also playing with a late 60s' email system at the time it was written, so he made some quite astute predictions.  But the one gaping flaw in the book - which my father warned me about and I agree wholeheartedly - is that you end up screaming at the character not to be such a f___ing moron.

[superluser]

The only real-life situation stories I like are ones in which the characters get in trouble through no fault of their own.

Those are sort of interesting.  It's a sort of Platonic dance in which the dancers move to their appointed time and place.  I know it's contradicting what I said in the Marvel vs DC thread, but the plot is interesting, even if the characters aren't.

Oh!  You said real-life stories?  Pass.

[Tipod]

I was lent a copy of that a few years ago.  IIRC, the first half of it was extremely boring, but it picked up about halfway through.

The last half was fairly decent (compared to the first, anyway), but I just wasn't feeling that certain something; that oomph, if you will.
Adding in to books that picked up nicely near the end, The Scarlet Letter. The final five or so chapters were worth slogging through Hawthorne's prose.

[Jer-oh-me]

I regret that I spent money on 'The DaVinci Code' instead of another book that I later learned was more to my tastes. I know that the Code is really popular, hell my dad liked it, but I thought it wasn't all that interesting except for the drive through the disturbing park. And a cult based around sex? What? I'm sorry but it was just a little, eh to me.

[Brunhidden]

to me it seemed the davinchi code was very popular among people who dont normally read books or people who only read books that people on TV tell them to.... not saying good things about it then is it?

[Tezkat]

Virtual Light... upon finishing that book, I mourned the hours spent reading that I'll never get back. The book completely failed to engage me. Odd, really, since I like a lot of Gibson's work, including other books in that series.

These days, being a writer myself allows me to detach somewhat from "bad" writing and treat it as a learning experience. The Da Vinci Code, for instance, illustrates how attention to pacing can save laughably bad prose. Its strengths enabled it to sell zillions of copies despite all of its shortcomings.

I probably wouldn't make it past the first chapter of an irredeemably bad book.