Wrod. Totally. (And he probably wouldn't have looked so great if she wasn't ABSOLUTELY FUCKING MISERABLE in the first place.) Answer to AFM should never be a man, right? Uh, I guess I'm not over it yet...maybe I need the lecture about the pining, huh?

I don't think I'm going to be able to resist seeing a movie that stars both Ian McKellen and Audrey Tautou no matter how awful a book it's based on. Maybe I can concentrate on their performances like I did on Morgan Freeman's in that crappy Stephen King movie.

edited to specify Dreamcatcher, as "crappy Stephen King movie" really doesn't narrow the field down much.

I loathe Bridges of Madison County for its content rather than its form,

I have just the opposite reaction to The DaVinci Code. The ideas were interesting, and in the hands of a competent prose wrassler I think it could have been a terrific book. Alas.

How does crap writing like that make the bloody best-seller list? HOW?!?

Because many people care more about the story than about the craft or whatever, and the book is entertaining.

And now I feel the need to check out DaVinci Code to see how it measures up.

Don't. For your own good, really, don't. (To be fair, I only read about a third of it, over DH's shoulder while he was reading it on the train, but I was still cringing in pain at every sentence. I had originally planned to read the whole thing just to see what all the fuss was about, but the glimpses I got convinced me otherwise. Wretched, eye-gougingly bad writing.)

Because many people care more about the story than about the craft or whatever, and the book is entertaining.

See also: James Patterson, current holder of my "world's worst book" title. Like JZ, I read the whole thing, because I couldn't *believe* the writing was that bad the whole way through.

And now I feel the need to check out DaVinci Code to see how it measures up.

TDVC has a lot of bad writing. I have a high tolerance for bad writing if there are enough redeeming features and, with considerable skimming, got through it to see how it would end. On the whole I was glad I'd read it (mostly because my dad wanted to discuss it with me) and it wasn't eye-gougingly bad, ala Night Travels of the Elven Vampire.

After reading PAtterson's flying kids book I didn't think there would be anything worse. But then he wrote a sequel.

After reading PAtterson's flying kids book

YES. That was the book.

t shudder

Damned shame -- I've enjoyed Patterson's work, but the flying kids -- inexcusable. He has written worse, however. They're publishing his old stuff, the stuff he couldn't get published before he got famous.