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.

OP 7 killings is one that I couldn't finish either, in fact I barely got started. Hugely disappointed as it was strongly recommended to me.

I also couldn't finish The Power recently, I ploughed on and on and on and gave up about 3/4 of the way through.

Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries, which I've begun at least three times. Part of is its sheer hugeness, admittedly. Holding it up in hardback is a chore and I kept feeling ‘You need to be working harder than this to keep my attention.’ And I am a finisher, who’s read Finnegans Wake and Proust.

OMG they keep coming up Wuthering Heights, tried it twice and just had to say no. I'm embarassed now at how many I've given up in, most of these are in the past 2 years.

A Fine Balance - One of the best books I have ever read, I was engrossed from start to finish and DH polished it off afterwards on my recommendation.

I got through The Luninaries but there was just so much to it and it was a bit of a struggle that I felt like I almost needed to go back and read it again straight away to 'get' the finer nuances of the book. Then I copped on to myself

heymammy glad I'm not alone. I love going to bed with a good book but have dreaded seeing that bloody book on the bedside table. I took it away on holidays as my only book as I was going to devote myself to it. (I refuse to have a kindle, I love the feel of a book). It was a running joke on holiday how many pages I managed before it put me to sleep.

American Psycho. It wasn't that I 'couldn't'; more that putting it down was the only way I could deny that what the author was saying about me was true.

I first picked up Ulysses nearly thirty years ago. I haven't finished it.... yet.

I still haven’t forgiven Jonathan Frantzen for Purity I was looking forward to it for months after loving his other work but it was absolute tosh.

The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson. I think it was the 4 page description of a shopping trip to IKEA - just could be bothered after that

Cloud Atlas.
The Goldfinch.
The Hobbit. Which is surprising as I've read LOTR multiple times. But The Hobbit is shite.

Also came on here to say Wolf Hall. Have tried three times and every time have just given up after about 50 pages.

The Famished Road - I couldn't manage more than a few pages.

Catch 22 - I could sort of see what it was about, but (barring the premise of the story being a neat idea) just didn't find it funny.

Three Men in a Boat - similarly - just didn't find it funny.

But I've never had any qualms at all about not finishing a book. I read for pleasure - so if a book's not giving me pleasure, I don't see the point in soldiering through it out of a sense of duty.

Enjoyed I Don't Know How She Does It but couldn't get past the first couple of chapters of How Hard Can It Be?. The age gap between Kate's kids differs in the two books as does her husband's body shape (skinny in first book, then she makes out he's always been a bit chubby at the start of the second book. This lack of attention to detail just pissed me off and I gave up.

Books I found a real slog but DID eventually manage to finish...

To Kill A Mockingbird
Wolf Hall
The Lovely Bones
Tess of the D'Urbevilles
Brideshead Revisited

The Catcher in the Rye- what a load of old shit. I gave it a good go because it's a classic but gave up, it was so tedious!
Lolita- there was a thread about this on here recently that I meant to comment on but didn't. I obviously knew the general idea before I read it but I was surprised that I hated him. The narrator, I only managed a couple of chapters but I hated him. I saw through him and he made me sick. Which is weird for me because I read a lot of real life very bad stuff involving children at work and I can do that without it affecting me really. Maybe it's because I work with the 'good guys' which makes it necessary. Trying to hear it from the 'bad guy''s point of view just made me angry in a way nothing has before.

Nostromo - deadly dull, simply couldn't get into it.
Midnight's Children - couldn't get on with the style of writing, it seemed as if it was trying too hard to be literary.
The Tea Rose - rubbishy, implausible. Put it down halfway through the first chapter.
50 Shades of Grey - appallingly badly written. I gave up after 20 pages, it felt like I was reading something written during playtime by two 12 year old boys sniggering behind the school bike shed!

So many:

Sense and Sensibility
Affinity (despite being a big Sarah Waters fan)
The Little Friend (tried twice to read this and I'm surprised I couldn't read on as I adored The Secret History and The Goldfinch)
My Absolute Darling
The Time Traveller's Wife
If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Lord of the Rings
The Slap

Catch 22.

Given a copy of it by my ex some 40 years ago & given a copy of it by my DH some 2 years ago & I can not get past page 3 or so, just hate the style.

But am not losing any sleep over it - so many other great books to read, so little time...............

A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
Cloud Atlas
Alias Grace (and generally I love Atwood)
Lord of the Rings

Quite a few of late. The fault is probably mine, too tired to concentrate etc.

Love in the time of Cholera - mysoginistic, stalker, creepy main character. No idea how anyone finds it romantic.

We are all completely beside ourselves - no idea why it was hyped so much, it was awful.

I did actually finish Gone Girl but I wish I hadn't! I kept expecting it to get better but it just...didn't.

The two that come to mind and The Power, and H is for Hawk.

I persevered with H is for Hawk, I picked it back up again after a few none starts and managed to finish it - really glad I did!

The Power though, I just don't get it. It's boring.

The Slap - Every single character was awful
Catch 22 - Too repetitive
Shantaram - The author clearly fancied himself as a philosopher, when in fact he was just a smug git.
The Road - Life's too short for a book that bleak
Ruth - Should be renamed 'Mary-Sue'

Cloud Atlas - not my sort of thing.
A Little Life - well I did finish it but I wished I hadn't bothered as it was rubbish (in my opinion).
Can't remember the name of it but Sophie Hannah books - the blurb always draws me in, but I find them unreadable.

The Slap couldn’t ageee more ABC. As you say, not a single sympathetic character in the whole book. His misogyny steamed off the pages.

H is for Hawk also. Gave up pretty quickly on that one. Sorry but dull, dill, dull.

Small Island. Just uninteresting.

Wolf Hall, The Goldfinch and Brideshead Revisited are some of my favourite books of all time.