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

Atonement - I thought it self indulgent, yuck

American Psycho - it's the only book I've ever knowingly consigned to the dustbin too - horrible, horrible book!

The Stranger in the Mirror....
supposed to be an exploration of what it 's like to be a middle aged woman -oh misery!

Another vote for The Magus. Had to read it for school. Dreadful.

I really liked The Magus when I was 19 but not sure I would now!

The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver. I still feel resentful and almost angry about the time I wasted on that rubbish. ploughed my way through most of it before abandoning it before the end

Agree with The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Historian and Brick Lane - would also add White Teeth.

I did like Salmon Fishing, Tiger's Wife and Life of Pi though - and Never Let Me Go is definitely worth a read - I liked it a lot.

How Late It Was, How Late. The single most tedious 'novel' I've ever had the misfortune to plough through.

A Suitable Boy bored me to tears.

Thumbwitch it was really the ending of SFITY, it felt rushed and desperate. I won't spoil it for you. I also thought the characters were stereotyped. It just seemed amateurish to me.

It does start quite well....

kweggie very witty.

I would say the Life of Pi but I did give up on it. A load of rambly old supposition about what animals are supposed to think.

I read a Freya North book once - it was all there was in a campsite 'library' (load of paperbacks left behind) in France and I had nothing to read. Gawd I hated it.

Remarkable Creatures - it stated off ok but never really hit the spot. Something or other about the woman who discovered fossils.

I liked Brick Lane but I felt it ran out of steam about 2/3 of the way in and fizzled out.

White Teeth- Zadie Smith, absolute tosh

Chocolate- Don't remember the author

Still thinking of you- Adele Parks, so tedious.

I have a copy of The Lacuna somewhere up in the loft, unread and unloved. Never fancied it....

Read Life of Pi and enjoyed it although rather a quirky read. Looking forward to the film though!

Salmon Fishing In The Yemen was a very easy read and perhaps rather lazily written but so quick to read that I can't imagine anyone not finishing it!

The Lacuna was tedious. Surprisingly so, since I've loved everything else Barbara Kingsolver has written. It was very well researched and historically interesting, but she seemed to have forgotten to write any interesting characters or actual plot.

I adored the Poisonwood bible so when I bought The Lacuna I couldn't wait to get right in. I tried. And tried again. And tried again. Then officially gave up.
Sorry Barbara Kingsolver I think your book is pants. I wanted to like it.

Thought of another one - My Lord John by Georgette Heyer. It's a real shame because that was the book she really wanted to write but oh my goodness, what tedious stuff. She crammed in so many historical facts and detail that the story was completely lost.

Z For Zachariah, by Robert C. O'Brien. Awful book - was made to read it at secondary school. Really creeped me and my friends out...

Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen. There were no positives to this apart from the fact that it ended. Again, I had to read it for school. Twice...

Kill Me Once, by Jon Osborne. Completely unbelieveable plot, nasty, far too graphic scenes of murder, etc. Also had an unconvincing female lead, and the bad guy had way too much in common with the author's own backstory. The message seemed to be that horrible things happen to nice people for no reason and there is no justice...

Perfect People, by Peter James. Started well, then just ran out of steam and the ending was a complete let down! Also, poor guinea pigs...

Oh God, we did Z for Zachariah too! It was horrible. I spent years blanking out the memory of when my Darling Mother made me sit through 'Threads' as a 9yo! only to have it all brought back into focus by that book!

ullena at least Perfect People was a quick read. My DH rarely reads fiction but managed it in 4 hours too. We thoroughly enjoyed ripping the plot flaws to pieces, was it the James Bond style set up a the end or the irritating thickness of the couple you disliked most?

SlightlySuperior - yes! I have a copy of it but it's not one I choose to re-read, unlike all the others bar Penhallow, a terrible book with no sympathetic characters in it at all. Apparently she wrote Penhallow in spite, because her publishers wouldn't let her out of her contract with them. They did after that.
And of course she died before she finished Lord John, so I like to think that she would have gone back over it and made it better if she hadn't died.

Beebaw thanks for that, I'll maybe get it from the library then and that way I won't feel so cheated if it's crap!

I love Philippa Gregory's Tudor novels but Widacre was pure dross - I thought I would like it - I didn't.

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

Sadly I had to finish it as it was part of my GCSE coursework. 20 years later I am still gobsmacked at what a tedious pile of drivel it was.

Far From The Madding Crowd - I am glad I finished it, but it took about 5 months (I'd normally read a book that size in 5 days!). What really got to me was Hardy's long-winded intricate descriptions of the geology, geography, history etc of Wessex - soooo boring. Yet his characters and dialogue when they got going were brilliant. Apparently it was a kind of insecurity thing with him as he wasn't particularly well-educated and so felt the need to prove himself by adding all this superfluous rubbish .

I am now even more in awe of my Dad who left school at 14 with little formal education, and when I was growing up read pretty much everything Hardy had ever produced.