Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Books you’ve tried to read but just can’t get on with them

213 replies

GonnaGetGoingReturns · 28/04/2023 23:15

I know this is subjective but what books have you read or tried to read but just can’t stomach them?

My recent ones are:-

Brother of the More Famous Jack - what a load of pompous affected twaddle! Can’t seem to see how it’s so lauded, got to page 17 and gave up.

Cold Comfort Farm - managed a bit better with this, about 4 chapters in, but still, affected pompous twaddle. Was told it was similar to the adorable I Capture The Castle but it’s not, at all! Gave it to SIL to read as she got I Cspture The Castle for me and she didn’t like it and when I asked DM if she’d read it when she was younger she said exactly the same about it as me.

Oh and if anyone sees K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary and thinks it looks interesting, it isn’t, it’s just weird!

OP posts:
Namenotnumber · 29/04/2023 21:34

Despite being a life member of the Thomas Hardy Society and a huge fan, couldn't stand The Well Beloved.

ImNotAsThinkAsYouDrunkIAm · 29/04/2023 21:33

Taxitaxiforever · 29/04/2023 20:53

Where the Crawdads sing …too wordy !

I’m so glad you said this. I caused much hilarity once trying to explain to friends why I was struggling with it - all I could come up with is ‘there are just so many words!’

Butterflytown · 29/04/2023 21:30

Also completely didn’t get the hype around shuggie Bain although I did manage to finish it. It was miserable and a slog!!

midsomermurderess · 29/04/2023 21:30

The Hare With Amber Eyes comes to mind too @rhubarb84 .

Butterflytown · 29/04/2023 21:29

For me: The time travellers wife, captain correlli’s mandolin, The Alchemist, cloud Atlas, Harry Potter and most recently Girl, woman, other- just really couldn’t get into it. I also thought one day and the midnight library didn’t live up to the hype although I finished them.

I absolutely loved where the crawdads sing and Eleanor oliphant!! Both are in my top 10 books ever!

rhubarb84 · 29/04/2023 21:28

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 29/04/2023 20:23

would rather gargle vinegar than pick up another Phillipa Gregory novel

I have an enormous book by Norman Davies (over 1,000 pages) which is a panorama of European history from the Ice Age to the Cold War. In it he divides historical novels into three categories - the first he describes as 'the cheap ones pillage the past to provide an exotic backdrop to unrelated fiction' - and I thought immediately of Gregory. And if 'The Other Boleyn Girl' was bad, how the hell 'The Boleyn Inheritance' got published is a mystery.

And there's also a similar category of 'paper thin story as an excuse to show off my historical research', see Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red, Glass Palace (I did learn a lot about mahogany, so it wasn't all loss...)

AgentProvocateur · 29/04/2023 21:23

@Nightynightnight try The Corrections. I hope it will change your mind 😀

rhubarb84 · 29/04/2023 21:20

I did finish Daniel Deronda but never touched it again. Read a great bit of Anthony Trollope where he reviewed all the novelists of his day and said that after Middlemarch she started trying too hard, and he couldn't imagine Daniel Deronda or Felix Holt being read much in the future!

In my younger days I got stung by over hyped novels a few too many times and more or less gave up on modern fiction after that. God of Small Things, Kate Atkinson, Sebastian Faulks etc. All reviewed as if they were the next Tolstoy.

Secondwindplease · 29/04/2023 21:18

VeryQuaintIrene · 29/04/2023 20:07

Shuggie Bain. I've tried about 3 times but I think I'm going to give it to the free library next door.

I’m so relieved I’m not the only one. It’s relentless misery.

Andante57 · 29/04/2023 21:18

Wolf Hall

JaffaCake70 · 29/04/2023 21:16

VeronicaBeccabunga · 29/04/2023 20:12

Wuthering Heights. I've attempted to read it several times and failed.

Same, and I love the Olivier/Oberon movie so much!

Namenotnumber · 29/04/2023 21:10

My next door neighbour is an author. I read one of her novels and didn't get past page 30, and I was being charitable.

Agree on Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit. With both, got so far, then lost patience.

OneFrenchEgg · 29/04/2023 21:05

Loads, but I think social media has ruined my concentration and my weird need to 'connect' makes going offline to read quite stressful.
I'm trying to find epistolary novels - reading Dear Committee Members but it's meh. Tbh I just chuck books I can't get into at the shared library.

PollyannaWhittier · 29/04/2023 21:02

I had to read and review The Thursday Murder Club for a library thing at work (I hate picking books to pieces after I've read them, but they wanted lots of staff to join in to show the kids it's not just English teachers who read), I wasn't a fan. The woman judging it said it was the most brutally honest book review she'd ever read BlushGrin

mum2jakie · 29/04/2023 21:01

Could not get on with The Road. I love dystopian fiction but that was such so bloody depressing I couldn't face picking it back up!

clary · 29/04/2023 21:00

Oh also The Goldfinch (as in I love it!). My fave book from the 21st century.

clary · 29/04/2023 20:59

Some mentioned here are literally in my top ten tho - p and p, wolf hall is amazing, love love Hamnet as well.

It’s good that we like different things tho.

Baldieheid · 29/04/2023 20:58

gertrudemortimer · 29/04/2023 20:39

I agree with so many of these! My standout failures are - Eleanor oliphant, time travellers wife, the passage, Harry quebert affair, I am pilgrim, the goldfinch. and finally the 3rd instalment of the assassins apprentice. I loved the first two but the third one has been so slow and boring I just can't bring myself to pick it up.

Re the third assassins apprentice series, I found it really hard going at first, but it was absolutely worth continuing with (for me, at least). It left me in bits.

Nightynightnight · 29/04/2023 20:57

I don't seem to get on with male, north American authors. There is something too self-conscious about their writing. Obviously I haven't attempted ALL of them so if anyone has any particular favourites they would like to recommend I would like to test my hypothesis.

Also love Richard O, also could get beyond chapter 2 of his first book.

clary · 29/04/2023 20:57

Ah my book group did Shuggie Bain and I couldn’t finish it, just too grim.

Also did not enjoy Lincoln in the Bardo, tho I did finish it.

Surprused myself by enjoying Where the Crawdads sing, esp the first half.

Also not a fan of Richard Osman. Again did finish Th murder Club but wouldn’t recommend it. Great tho that it has got ppl reading.

Kanaloa · 29/04/2023 20:54

Crikeyalmighty · 29/04/2023 20:35

Any Jane Austen (and I live in bath) can't stand it- it's like Georgian chic lit.

Life of Pi

The lovely Bones

I read The Lovely Bones in uni and thought it was so blah. I understood the concept and it was unusual to have it told from the perspective of the dead victim after her death but I thought the actual story was boring, overlong, and dull and the conclusion was a bit pathetic. It just didn’t do it for me at all.

Taxitaxiforever · 29/04/2023 20:53

Where the Crawdads sing …too wordy !

PollyannaWhittier · 29/04/2023 20:52

Mrs Dalloway - I read the first dozen or so pages, didn't have a clue what was going on, read them again in case I was missing something, but I was none the wiser so gave up !

nildesparandum · 29/04/2023 20:51

Wolf Hall.I just could not get into it

midsomermurderess · 29/04/2023 20:48

Shantaram, as mentioned upthread, is unmitigated tosh and so badly written and edited. I can see its appeal to a certain gap yah type though.