Books you've deliberately stopped reading?

[fuzzpig]

(Apologies if I'm repeating a subject here, MN search function not behaving ATM!)

I have unintentionally stopped reading many books over the years, sometimes I've found them too hard to get into and/or just put them down somewhere and forgotten to pick them back up . Any of these, I'd like to think one day I'll start them again and finish them.

But I've only ONCE deliberately closed a book never to open it again. It was Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. I don't think of myself as a prude, but it was just... yuck.

Oh moomin how awful :( not surprised you don't want to finish it. Perhaps one day you will want to (in her honour, IYSWIM) but understandable that you can't now

Thanks for all the replies, what a great range of books! Although I now feel exceedingly non-well-read :o

Little fucking Dorrit.
Still passed English A-Level, wrote an entire essay on the bloody book without finishing it. I loathed it with vehement passion. I reckon if Dickens were writing his sexist pile of repetitive claptrap today, he'd be serialised in the Daily Fail.

Loved Cloud Atlas though!

Oh and DH is far more likely than me to deliberately stop reading something - I downloaded GoT for him but he stopped pretty soon mainly due to the sexual violence in it.

As for the da Vinci code, well he like some others here threw it across the room. He knew he was unlikely to like it - he's a total nerd for the history behind it - but he gave it a go until the many inaccuracies became too much. Good thing it was just an old used copy and not on kindle as it would've been smashed to smithereens :o

(I hope what I wrote above wasn't insensitive BTW moomin. It was meant to be kind but I realised it may have been the wrong thing to say - I apologise if so )

50 shades. Fuck off with your "inner goddess"
Loads of chick lit shite downloaded on kindle. Flat out love was a good example.
The pursuit of happiness
Great expectations / anything by dickens except the Christmas carol. It is liberating to admit you don't like dickens.

Hurrah Humpty - I love Cloud Atlas too, once I got past the third chapter and worked out what was going on. The language just fizzed, specially in the futuristic chapters. However, I did enjoy Little Dorrit too sorry!

Not at all, Fuzzpig

Lord of The Rings - I tried five times and can't get past page three (I think there were all of two incredibly long and convoluted sentences in those three pages, and they were about absolutely NOTHING!)

Sea of Poppies. I was supposed to read it for book group but couldn't actually understand a word of it - the dialect was impossible if you weren't familiar with that way of talking.

Other than those two, I try and pride myself on finishing all books, even Life of Pi, which disturbed me tremendously and I still feel sick when I think of it.

Too many to remember. MIL passes on piles of books to us. If I dont like it then I stop reading it.

Oddly I too have given up on some books listed here and I rarely give up on books but have rejected:

American Psycho - yikes. Someone said it's supposed to be a fantasy and all in his head. Oh so that's ok then?!
The Book Thief - my friend who reads everything gave up as well. I don't even know why I gave up but I did.
50 Shades. So, so, so, so very bad.
All novels by Joseph Conrad apart from Heart of Darkness. I have a mental Conrad block.

I refuse to read Room or We Need to Talk About Kevin so am safe there. Oh, and anything by Cormac McCarthy because the two I did read still make me feel like crying years later.

I def meant On The Road. Jack Keroac (sp?)

I haven't pick up The Road

I think we could start a Dickens Haters thread...
So good to see that I am not alone!

Harry Potter no. 4.

I should have guessed when I saw it was three times bigger than the first ones.

Rowling had got so successful she was able to browbeat her editors into letting her keep page after page of pointless drivel instead of getting on with the story.

Also Wolf Hall.

Has anyone actually finished reading it?

I actually really liked Wolf Hall, but gave up on the sequel.

Mehsmum I tried reading Oliver Twist as a teenager but gave up. I have never been tempted to pick up another dickens- so fusty!

I liked Wolf Hall too. Haven't read the sequel yet though.

Another Dickens hater here . Cannot bear the hideous characters and their stupid names.

There have been others, but they have slipped my mind. Little Women almost joined them in the past week or so, but I managed to plough to the end. God, it was DULL.

I agree. It was dull as dishwater.
The only exciting part was when Beth died.

Titus Groan

The Lost Symbol is possibly the most badly written book I've ever attempted to read.

The Goldfinch (although I suspect I will give it another try as MIL said it was wonderful, but I was on a rather cramped plane having been up since the back of 3 in the morning, so I suspect I wasn't best placed to appreciate it).

I enjoy urban fantasy and it's fair to say that there are quite a few aspiring / self-published authors in the genre. I've given up on a few of those, but the only one that had me wanting to hurl my Kindle across the room was Shades of Desire by LM Pruitt. Worst Mary Sue ever and I've read some of the Anita Blake novels.

I did make it through On the Road but thought it was a pile of self-absorbed mince. DP has a copy of Cloud Atlas kicking about somewhere but having read the blurb I concluded it was not for me.

Another bow who gave up on Shantaram and Wolf Hall! Feel a bit guilty about both, my DH really wanted me to love Shantaram.

I threw Dreamcatcher by Stephen King in the bin. It made me feel physically ill and I'm a super long term King fan.

One not bow, wtf?!
I meant to say I really struggled to get into Cloud atlas but was reading it for a book club I was in and I'm glad I stuck with it.

The Appleyard.

Utter rubbish.

Cloud Atlas and Birdsong of those already mentioned here.

Also War and Peace and The Lord of the Rings. War and Peace I have tried twice, but gave up at about page 100 because I couldn't remember who anyone was. Lord of the Rings, again tried twice, gave up halfway through the second book because they had been trudging through a forest for about 50 pages with no end in sight.

The Curious Incident, too depressing
50 Shades, yawn
Wish I'd given up on One Day

Just finished We are Completely Besides..shouldn't have bothered.

Hannibal. I felt sullied and as though something disgusting had happened to my brain because I had read it - I could suddenly imagine horrible things that hadn't been in there before.

I did go back and finish it later. The damage was done by that point. I've never looked at a pig but with suspicion ever since.

Da Vinci Code - someone bought it for me the same time it appeared to be the one book read on the Tube. I read a chapter and thought it was shite. Angels and Demons is also absolute bollocks but it makes me laugh with it's absurdity.

Gone Girl - don't ask me why, loads of people love it, I didn't.

I haven't read a fiction in a while, sadly - my head is stuck in university books and I long for a good fiction.

The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
Sepulchre - Kate Mosse
The Life of Pi - Yann Martel

I don't usually give up on books but these were just utter tripe - boring, tedious and mostly too long. I keep hearing good things about The Goldfinch but I'd be really pissed off if I gave up time to read it and it was as shit as The Little Friend where literally NOTHING happens for pages and pages and pages.