Saw a funny question online, that asked ‘if you had no choice but to burn three books that you have read, which ones would they be?’

The first book that comes to my mind is a fiction novel that I read when I was probably seventeen. The funny part is – I just cannot remember its name. But this is why I love my memory, it forgets horrible things.

  1. Unknown Horrible Book – By Unknown English writer. So this book that I can’t remember was a novel that had been lying around in our house for a while. Not sure who it belongs to. And I remember how the book’s blurb was fantastic. Something about how ‘fate brings a British officer and an Indian girl together’. For some reason, my young mind imagined it would be an amazing romantic tale. It wasn’t. Even though the title has been forgotten, the plot is still fresh in my memory. It followed the story of a poor young girl, perhaps only ten, who was already engaged to somebody, even though she hadn’t even had her first period yet. Her father was a sweeper who cleaned toilets of a British barracks. So it was set in the colonial era India. While 70 per cent of the book focused on the individual lives of this British man and this little Indian girl. In the end, it was about how the girl had to go to the barracks to work one day because her father was sick. Still only 11 or 12 years old then, she goes to the barracks and then is raped by every soldier in the dorm. The other leading man was also present at the scene, and even though he didn’t want to, he is coaxed by his fellow soldiers to rape her. So he takes his turn and was the last person to do so. And she dies in the end, due to the brutalization. And he lives with the guilt. That’s it. That’s the story. I was scarred for a while and extremely disappointed by the story. It’s definitely the worst book I’ve ever read in my life. If you know what book I am talking about, please let me know in the comments.
  2. One Night At The Call Center – Chetan Bhagat. While I remember the title and author, thankfully, I don’t remember much of the plot. Something about an accident? And a call to God. What a load of forgettable crap. Second worst book I have read till date.
  3. Fifty Shades Of Grey – El James. I have a problem – once I start reading a book, I cannot stop. Too bad I didn’t know this was a trilogy. And also, this trilogy made me lose my faith in the ‘New York Times Bestseller’ list. I read the three books in 2012, the year the other two books had just come out. So the frenzy over the books hadn’t been as high and we had no idea what it was about. And I have nothing against the BDSM themes, my problem is with how LOUSILY it is written. A friend of mine read about it and got her hands on the copies of the books and shared them with me. While I read the first book entirely, many pages were skipped in book two and three. It was a nightmare. I would read horrible lines out loud for my hostel roommate and she would shout at me – “STOP TORTURING YOURSELF”. All the three books can be easily compressed into a 200 page novel. But James somehow managed to make it a torturous trilogy.

Can you think of three books that you would burn or get rid of? Maybe you could make a post out of it too. Tag me or link it back to me at the end if you don’t mind, I would love to read it.