Books you wish you'd never bothered to finish?

[FuntimeFuschia]

Hello, hope its ok me posting on here, I very rarely post. Had a chat with a friend today which has made me think - have you ever finished a book and then thought what a phenomenal waste of my time that was? I recently read 'The Haunting of James Hastings', which I wanted to bin about halfway through, but persevered and regretted it.

I read a lot, many different genres and have never actually thought anything I read was a waste of time before this book. I would be very interested to hear what books anyone actually resents giving the time to and if anyone can tell me what the hell actually happened at the end of the above mentioned novel I'd be very grateful

Norwegian Wood
Mother's Milk

Both total dross.

P.S. I Love you ( I wasn't in my right mind obviously)
The Dan Brown books - holiday reads, the local Tesco had nothing else and was before the days of my kindle.
50 shades all of them - read out of nosiness just to see what everyone was talking about.

I think you and I are probably in the minority with Before I Go To Sleep, Jilted :) I hated it too.

I liked When God Was a Rabbit, monal. I know it was a slow moving story but I rather liked it, and it was quite humorous in places - appealed to my sense of humour anyway!

I'm struggling with the book I'm reading at the moment - Jubilee by Shelley Harris. It's well written, but I just don't like any of the characters, and the story is dreary.

LOTR
Da Vinci Code

Life is too short to wade through unenjoyable bks

To The Lighthouse

I felt like an uneducated nyaff for hating it and I forced myself to finish it and then I wondered about the stew and I asked for another helping of soup and I found myself endlessly wittering on and on and on about inconsequential crap until I found I had to to come back to MN

On the whole, I'd rather have been in Philadelphia

A Suitable Boy I found a really excellent read

Salbertina read some V Woolf non-fiction if you haven't tried that - A Room of Ones Own, Three Guineas, etc - much more readable & entertaining than her novels and very thought-provoking.

The Riddle of the Sands . So dull it reminded me of the review on the back of 1066 And All That..."we look forward eagerly to their last publication"....

Like that review, fester!
Marshmallows- thanks, vaguely think I bay have tried Room of One's own but if so a good 2.5 decades ago so nay have another read.

Paulo Coelho's Witch of Portobello. You just know you should give up when you don't give a tinker's curse what happens to ANY of the characters they are so wooden.
I read Da Vinci code on the beach and I embarrassed the family by screaming, as I'd promised I would, if I had to read that they 'gunned' the car up or down another sodding street once more AAAAArgh
Primo Levi's Periodic Tables-a reasonable idea stretched to mind-numbing transparency and yawn-inducing boredom......

snigger----
on the whole I'd rather be eating 'Philadelphia'
a whole one
in a field
(WC optional)

Cloud Atlas

fester well that quote applied to the Riddle of the Sands came true...the author got caught up in the Irish struggle for independence (ie after the Easter Rising) & ended up in front of a British firing squad.

My dad is a fan of the book, or at least talks enthusiastically about it, but I think it's the film or TV adaptation he actually remembers...

My sister lent me Cloud Atlas to read when I was on maternity leave, despite numerous attempts I still havent got past the first chapter and my DTs are 8.
Perhaps I shouldn't bother now!

Midnights Children by Salman Rushdie - dont know what all the fuss was about with him, his books are far too dull to ever be read!!

Ooh wow, loads of responses! I am slightly ashamed to admit I have read quite a few of the rejected books, and even enjoyed some of them but also heartily agree with others...I am plodding through Wolf Hall at the moment, oof, it's a toughie.

now i quite enjoyed Cloud Atlas, and One Day, and i managed to get through Labrinth, but i have tried to read the Historian twice and i just cant get into it - same with The Lovely Bones....

i quite fancy reading Never Let Me Go but i saw the film the other week and it left me feeling so sad, im not sure i could manage it.....

i really must make some time to read again - when i commuted to work by train it was great - i could read for an hour a day....now i find it hard to find the time to do it!

It is a shame that Wolf Hall is mentioned as a book that is being plodded through. I read it over 2 days and was gripped, as was my DH and he never usually reads fiction.

I persevered with Midnight's Children and thought the end was rewarding, but as mentioned earlier I hate magical realism, so would not seek it out again. It felt like I'd ticked a big gun off my serious author list.

The latest Sophie Hannah one. Can't even remember what it was called now but was utter shite.

Last of the Mohicans, and every other book by James Fenimore Cooper. The film was bearable, but the books were atrocious. Wish I'd never bothered.

I know this much is true- by Wally Lamb, I really enjoyed 95% of it but the ending was just awful.
Loved Wolf Hall. Loved Midnights Children too. But I do rather like magic realism.

Salmon fishing in the Yemen - awful awful awful. Also East of Eden seemed never-ending.

I like a lot of the rejected ones though, the book thief, never let me go, Norwegian wood, a suitable boy, the boy in the striped pyjamas - all good for me!

Ha, just came on this thread to say that godawful Wally Lamb book, then saw someone else had nominated it. Absolute self-indulgent tosh.

Also, 'Perfume'. It was a book club choice so I had to read it, but good grief...appalling.

Sadly I've wasted far too much of my life ploughing through terrible books. These days I discard without guilt if I'm not enjoying them; there's too much that I do want to read.

What was bad about Salmon fishing in the Yemen? I quite fancied reading that - is it just interminably dull?

I'm going to start a new thread-
Books I'm too embarrassed to say I've never read........