Books highly prized you couldn't finish

JadeKnight

I made three attempts to read Ender's Game, but still couldn't get more than halfway. I get the theme, but I find it very depressing, not very entertaining. The protagonist and other characters are too young for me to relate to. They are also rather intelligent for their age, which isn't bad, but they aren't superhuman, jedi or from krypton, so my interest is very short.

I tried reading some of Ann McCafery books, my mother has a bit of collection, but I get get beyond a few chapters. I get lost, the description is weird or trails off to some weird direction. One started off with deep exposition about an enemy attacking, what happened and then goes into a scene of the protagonist eating lunch o_O 3 paragraphs of whatever it was they were eating. WTH! Why not show me the arrival and the panick, rathern then summing it up in boring exposition.

I've read a few of Isac Asimovs books, but there's only so much about robots I can take. In fact, the novels I started were boring, yet some of his short stories I wished he had turned into novels :S
 

alpaca

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Little Women. That one counts, right? Terrible book.
 

WinterDusk14

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Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.

I love the idea, the settings, and the story. But for some reason I just can't go on and finish it.
 

WinterDusk14

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Oh yeah, and Dust of Dreams, the ninth Malazan Book of Fallen. I 'was' a huge fan of the series, I loved everything up until book five, after that, things started becoming shakey, too many characters that does nothing through their over long expositions - it's like Erikson wants a POV for each and every character he has.

After Toll the Hounds, I had about two years of break from the series, and I got a chance to read other books, shorter epics like Peter V Brett's The Warded Man, and other horror books by Clive Barker and Joe Hill. And a few more. After that, coming back to this series feels, daunting.
 

Scribble Orca

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It just happens more times than I want to admit. I'm starting to have an inferiority complex about it.
 

blacbird

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Just a couple of nights ago I decided to give Herman Hesse another go. About six years ago I read Siddhartha, because my son, then a senior in high school, was required in an honors seminar class to read it, and he was having trouble. He hated it.

I hated it.

Worst. Famous. Novel. Ever.

I cannot comprehend why it has become so revered. I did finish it, too, so I guess that doesn't quite qualify for the thread, but . . .

In any case, I'm now giving a go at Magister Ludi, the Glass Bead Game, Hesse's last novel, and by some critics' estimation, his real masterpiece. I'm about twenty pages in, and it's better than Siddhartha, by a bit, but that's like saying liver with onions is better than liver without onions.

I'll read a bit further.

caw
 

Mclesh

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Just a couple of nights ago I decided to give Herman Hesse another go. About six years ago I read Siddhartha, because my son, then a senior in high school, was required in an honors seminar class to read it, and he was having trouble. He hated it.

I hated it.

Worst. Famous. Novel. Ever.

I cannot comprehend why it has become so revered. I did finish it, too, so I guess that doesn't quite qualify for the thread, but . . .

In any case, I'm now giving a go at Magister Ludi, the Glass Bead Game, Hesse's last novel, and by some critics' estimation, his real masterpiece. I'm about twenty pages in, and it's better than Siddhartha, by a bit, but that's like saying liver with onions is better than liver without onions.

I'll read a bit further.

caw

I read Siddhartha back in high school. Loved it.

Couldn't finish Jude the Obscure or Crime and Punishment. Oh, and add Lord Jim to the unfinished list.

Will they take my writer's club member card away?
 

Vito

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Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I enjoy the Western genre, but I've never been able to get past the first 100 pages of Lonesome Dove. Once, twice, I've tried to read it, and I recently gave it another try, figuring that "the third time's the charm". No such luck! I just can't "get into" the story, I don't really like any of the characters, and McMurtry's prose seems trite and long-winded.
 

Timmy V.

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Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. I enjoy the Western genre, but I've never been able to get past the first 100 pages of Lonesome Dove. Once, twice, I've tried to read it, and I recently gave it another try, figuring that "the third time's the charm". No such luck! I just can't "get into" the story, I don't really like any of the characters, and McMurtry's prose seems trite and long-winded.


I read the entire Larry McMurtry "Sin Killer" series so I thought I'd love Lonesome Dove - I couldn't finish it either.

The worst book for me was "Moby Dick" oh my God kill me now. I got through half of it, too much about tying knots and the parts of the ship and oh my god kill me now again.
 

Timmy V.

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Tess of the D'Ubervilles
Crime and Punishment

I might have another go at Crime and Punishment at some point. Tess, I'm never touching that book again.

I forced myself to finish Midnight's Children, but it was a painful experience. I wish I hadn't bothered.

Tess of the D'Ubervilles. I finished the book THE most depressing downer what are you kidding me book ever.
 

SJNew

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Gormeghast. I tried reading it about five years ago and got so bored with it that I couldn't even make it past the first chapter! Now, I'm normally a really persistent reading and try to give a book at least the first 50-100 pages (length of book depending) before I decide enough's enough, but I just could not get into this one, and I've always felt kinda bad for that, like it's the type of book that I should like, but I just...couldn't. :Shrug:
 

HeavilyMedicated

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The Great Gatsby
The Stand

Catcher in the Rye - I know, I know....it's supposedly a 'classic'.....but I tried and tried, and, for the life of me...I just don't get it.........it's poorly written, and just.....stupid.....

Over the years I've fallen out of love with that book.
 

oooooh

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Gormeghast. I tried reading it about five years ago and got so bored with it that I couldn't even make it past the first chapter! Now, I'm normally a really persistent reading and try to give a book at least the first 50-100 pages (length of book depending) before I decide enough's enough, but I just could not get into this one, and I've always felt kinda bad for that, like it's the type of book that I should like, but I just...couldn't. :Shrug:

I'd urge you to give Gormenghast another go. Yes, it's wordy, and lengthy, but it's one of my favourite series of books and Mervyn Peake is so very good at the craft of writing. And the characters are unlike any I've ever encountered. Honestly, I could just go on and on singing its praises, but there's just nothing quite like Gormenghast in any of the fantasy I've read.

As far as books I couldn't finish, I've tried reading Absalom, Absalom! three times but I had to put it down. It just felt like reading chinese, and put me off Faulkner. But I'm going to re-attempt again because I love Southern Gothic. Also Moby Dick, maybe I was too young for it, but who knows.
 

Emermouse

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I tried Gormenghast. Made it through the first two completed books but gave up a few pages into the third because I was having hemorrages trying to understand how it fit with the previous books, plus all the remotely interesting characters were gone. I understand Peake was still working on that book when he died; it really shows.
 

Dragoro

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Oh yeah, and Dust of Dreams, the ninth Malazan Book of Fallen. I 'was' a huge fan of the series, I loved everything up until book five, after that, things started becoming shakey, too many characters that does nothing through their over long expositions - it's like Erikson wants a POV for each and every character he has.

After Toll the Hounds, I had about two years of break from the series, and I got a chance to read other books, shorter epics like Peter V Brett's The Warded Man, and other horror books by Clive Barker and Joe Hill. And a few more. After that, coming back to this series feels, daunting.

I loved the Malazan books of the fallen. I still get random bouts of sadness when I think about the story ending.
 

GiantRampagingPencil

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Ender's Game --if you like laser freeze tag and psychopathy, this book's for you

Crime and Punishment -- 2x's, just couldn't
The Three Musketeers
The Wheel of Time series -- glacial plot
The Darkness that Came Before -- heavy, heavy, pompous prose
Twilight -- made it to page 17 after two attempts, bad writing
The Game of Thrones --Eddard was just so dumb
Stephen King
Carrion Comfort and The Terror by Dan Simmons --overlong and meandering, didn't sympathize with any of the character's over much
 

strictlytopsecret

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - I tried. I really did.

~STS~
 

Chris P

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Oh, I am so going to look like a philistine. I could not finish:

Brave New World - Huxley
Moby Dick - Melville
Things Fall Apart - Achebe
On the Road - Keroac
Look Homeward Angel - Wolfe
The Host - Stephanie Meyer (okay, not finishing that one probably redeems me)
 

Escape Artist

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The Great Gatsby
The Stand



Over the years I've fallen out of love with that book.

Ugh... The Great Gatsby. I know, I know, I've got the Fitzgerald quote in my sig, but I just like the quote. Hated Great Gatsby. What was so great about him, anyway?

Oh, and is My Antonia by Willa Cather considered a classic? If so, it was the one book growing up that I could not finish. I always made myself finish books in those days, and that was the one book that tarnished my record. Snoozer.

I tried out Brave New World as well, and couldn't understand what was supposed to be so great about it, either.

Ditto for A Clockwork Orange, whose language was just too damned off-putting for me. It made my head hurt trying to figure out what the heck he was talking about.
 

Escape Artist

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Oh, I am so going to look like a philistine. I could not finish:

Brave New World - Huxley
Moby Dick - Melville
Things Fall Apart - Achebe
On the Road - Keroac
Look Homeward Angel - Wolfe
The Host - Stephanie Meyer (okay, not finishing that one probably redeems me)

I'm with you on The Host, as well. Too bad as it was a Christmas present from my kids, but I just couldn't get through it. Started out interesting and then flatlined...

ETA: Oooh - forgot one. Wuthering Heights was a DNF for me...