Tuesday Thingers: Least Favorite Book

From Wendi at Wendi’s Book Corner:

Questions (yes – there are a bunch – answer one or two . . . or all of them!): What is your least-favorite book(s)? Is your least-favorite book listed in your LT library? If it is listed, do you have anything special in the tags or comments section? How have others rated your least-favorite book?

This is a tricky one.  I have read several books that I despised at the time, but which I suspect I would really enjoy on another reading.  These are books like The Grapes of Wrath, The Scarlet Letter, or Silas Marner, and since I know I have a much greater appreciation for classics now than I did in high school, I’d probably like them.  As such I can’t count any of them as my least favorite book.  I went looking through the lists of books I’ve read in the last 3 or so years and I managed to find one that I think I liked the least.  That book is Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson.  There are several reasons why I dislike this book, not all of which are the book’s fault:

1. I didn’t like it while I was reading it.  It was confusing and while I liked the characters, I couldn’t even figure out what they were supposed to be doing, where they were, or how the magic system worked.  I read it in February 2007 and it took me so long to read that I only read 3 other books that month, which is very unusual for me.
2. Everyone raved about the series so I was absolutely certain I was going to like it when I bought it, especially when they recommended it for fans of George R. R. Martin, one of my favorite authors.
3. I was so convinced that I should like the series that I bought books 2 and 3, forced myself to read book 2, and hated that.  Now I have the third book hanging around and I know I’m never going to read it.
4. Actually, I still think that I *should* love this series, so I’m always tempted to reread the first two to see if they improve on further reading.  I’ve kept them for this very reason.  How stupid is that?

This book is in my LT library, but it’s not tagged as anything special.  It annoys me that the hype made me go back to the series when I should have been done with it, but I don’t seem to have added anything to suggest that to someone looking at my library.  Others have rated this book very highly and labeled it as the best in epic fantasy, which is why it frustrates me so much that I might be missing something, even though I hated the books.

What’s your least favorite book?