What books could you not finish?

[almondfinger]

I am having the most miserable of summer reads.

Do not say we have nothing - FFS, I persevered and it got a bit better and then reverted to tedious. Have way in I had to put it down.

Then I picked up A brief history of 7 killings - Every time I pick it up I fall asleep. The patois is difficult but when it gets to the CIA agents told in English I cant read that either. So far their have been so many killings I have lost count and it's far from brief.

I had to go out yesterday and buy some new books to look forward to. Tell me some of the books you couldn't be arsed with so I can avoid.

@Shampaincharly - New York Trilogy!! What a fucking awful book!
I couldn't get on with My Brilliant Friend either.

@Charley50 , we must have similar taste!

If I wasn't on the 50 Boooks htread, there'd be more books that I would just give up on : agree about Witchfinder's Sister . The only book I haven't finished in the last year is Jesmyn Ward's Salvage The Bones but I also did not like Their Eyes Were Watching God, despite all the worshippers of this book. I found the dialogue in both books too much and the bleakness too intense, despite generally liking misery fests.

One I really thought was a pile of pants was The Summer Of Impossible Things. Stupid, silly, shallow twaddle. But I did finish it. Reluctantly.

On Beauty by Zadie Smith
Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood, and I was very close to the end of the book! Both authors I normally really enjoy.
The Historian (vampire book which was just dull)

Twilight. I was actually the target age when it was popular but reading it made me want to gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon.

I also struggled to finish The Girl On The Train. The characters were all so dull and unbelievable and it was just completley predictible. It just felt like any other generic crime thriller and I still have no idea why it was so hyped up.

Just added Vernon God Little (D.B.C. Pierre) to the 'Did Not Finish' pile. Shame because the synopsis sounded quite interesting, but the main character, Vernon, is basically an even less charismatic Holden Caulfield.

Moby Dick (got 1 page in) and The Hobbit.

I am on the verge of giving up Why Mummy Swears - was described as "hilarious" and "laugh out loud'' - absolute garbage, and not even remotely funny.

Not actually given up on one for a while, so it must be bad!

Gormenghast. I have tried with these but simply can't. The Name of the Rose, ditto. The Goldfinch. All the Light we cannot see. The Essex Serpent. Anything by Elena Ferrante. Anything by Tolkien. Lotsmore I cant recall just now. Also a mental list of large number of books so awful that publication was a miracle. They go straight in recycling to save others from them.

I couldn't finish Gone Girl... but I enjoyed the film!

I'm am yet to finish Ken Follet's war triology, I stopped half way through the third instalment. I have no idea why, it was kind of one dimensional but I got used to that and was using it as a history lesson.

Ooh and lots of others, my kindle is full of 10% read books. Currently reading The Choice by Edith ? Really enjoying that so think I'll go the distance with this one.

Currently Bad News, Edward St Aubyn. Its a bit of a slog. His drug taking is so comprehensive and excessive it's making me feel a bit queasy. It's part 2 of the Patrick Melrose trilogy. Cowardly, am not going to read Part 1 about his traumatic chlidhood and hideous parents. Part 3 will depend.on whether both he and I survive Part 2.

Hard Times and Wuthering Heights. I plan to give them another try as l still have the books.

Did anyone else struggle with Dolly Aldertons 'everything I know about love?'?
I just found it so painfully contrived and self-absorbed though I know it's kind of an autobiography so is, by nature, self absorbed.

I quite like the podcast though sometimes they're a bit too 'woke' for my liking but this book, my god. She comes across as such a knob.
Just me?

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's the one of my Book Club books I've not been able to finish. I binned it.

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves. Shit.

Pride and Prejudice. I've been trying to finish it for 29 years.

There are others, but those are the stand outs for me.

All completely beside ourselves - hated it.

The slap - really divided book club!

But on a "it's great " 7 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle - loved it

Detested On Chesil Beach / made me cross, exasperated and sad

Urgh, so many.
The Catcher in the Rye - Read 3/4 but can't make myself want to read the rest.
Midnight's Children - got stuck halfway through
Tess Of the D'Urburvilles - tried twice but can't get past the rose greenhouse part
Moby Dick - Chapter 6 and still no sign of a boat or a whale.
Any Human Heart - gave up halfway. Just didn't care about Logan.
And many others...

Loved Wolf Hall from page 1, and Wuthering Heights kicks Jane Eyre's arse.

Interesting to see that The Slap has been adapted for TV.

Gosh I loved The Slap and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves.

I abandon books all the time these days - life is too short to persist with rubbish books, I've decided! Some of my recently abandoned reads include:
The Night Circus - could not engage with this at all, found it so boring.
The Five People You Meet in Heaven - total drivel.
Vanity Fair - a little too slow paced and I found myself skipping swathes of text. Such a shame as I was like the sound of Becky Sharp on paper!
A Gentleman in Moscow - possibly the most boring of all; I have no idea how it got such good reviews I bought one the author's other books by mistake (Rules of Civility) and was dismayed when I realised it was the same author. It is also proving to be a dull read.

Most recently, Turning Thirty by Mike Gayle. I know it's an older book, but I found it after enjoying his more recent ones.
I never really cared for any of Gayle's main characters (I get that everyone is flawed, but for most of these you can at least have somewhat of a sense of why they act the way they did). But Matt, the main character in this one, was just really hard to "get". The dynamic between him and his ex-girlfriend Elaine immediately after their breakup was probably meant to be comical, but it was just... weird.

Also, I used to love the Cathy Glass and other related foster carer books a couple years ago, but I'm currently reading one now by a similar author and I'm realising just how unbelievable it is that the biological children are always perfect. Nobody is.

I'm quite robust at keeping going and I loevd a few of these that pp's could not finish (Brief History of 7 Killings, A little Life, Goldfinch)
But I just could not finish Wolf Hall, The Luminaries and most recently Satin Island (utter tripe, no idea how it got a Booker shortlist!)

This is odd because I LOVED Satin Island and was just thinking about it the other day. I imagine I'm in the minority with that one though.

I have never finished The Book Thief, which is so strange for me as once I start a book I have to finish it, however dire it is.

I second The Book Thief. I rarely DNF books, this was an exception but can't put my finger on why.

I can't believe people don't like all the lights we cannot see, one of my all time favourites. Couldn't finish goldfinch or secret history.