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Books you’ve tried to read but just can’t get on with them

213 replies

GonnaGetGoingReturns · 28/04/2023 23:15

I know this is subjective but what books have you read or tried to read but just can’t stomach them?

My recent ones are:-

Brother of the More Famous Jack - what a load of pompous affected twaddle! Can’t seem to see how it’s so lauded, got to page 17 and gave up.

Cold Comfort Farm - managed a bit better with this, about 4 chapters in, but still, affected pompous twaddle. Was told it was similar to the adorable I Capture The Castle but it’s not, at all! Gave it to SIL to read as she got I Cspture The Castle for me and she didn’t like it and when I asked DM if she’d read it when she was younger she said exactly the same about it as me.

Oh and if anyone sees K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary and thinks it looks interesting, it isn’t, it’s just weird!

OP posts:
baddecisions11 · 29/04/2023 20:09

Took me years and many attempts to get through fellowship of the ring. I like the movies but dear lord that was a tediously long and boring read!

midsomermurderess · 29/04/2023 20:10

Iloveabaconbutty · 29/04/2023 20:05

It's few years back now but I just couldn't get on with the Harry Potter novels when everybody else in the world seemed to be reading them. I tried a couple of times but I just couldn't get into them at all.

I felt like the odd one out among my family and friends when everyone else was raving about them.

I was the same. I tried the first and figured, well I’m not its demographic. What did I know?

FaintlyMacabre · 29/04/2023 20:12

I’ve read the Lord of the Rings several times but I skip all the descriptions/poetry/Tom Bombadil and concentrate on the story.

VeronicaBeccabunga · 29/04/2023 20:12

Wuthering Heights. I've attempted to read it several times and failed.

VenusInfers · 29/04/2023 20:13

I agree with pp that Where the Crawdads Sing was beyond stupid. Had to finish it for my Book Club, otherwise there would have been some serious flinging.
Love a bit of Dickens and Hillary Mantell, but would rather gargle vinegar than pick up another Phillipa Gregory novel.

Maireas · 29/04/2023 20:14

I love Wuthering Heights, but it's a strange, Gothic novel. I've no idea why people think it's a romantic story.

SarcasticIntrovert · 29/04/2023 20:14

morelippy · 29/04/2023 19:58

Where The Crawdads Sing

Soooo boring

Oh my!!! I loved that book! Although interestingly (or not!) I listened to the audiobook rather than actually reading it. It's rare for me to listen to fiction books but with that one I think that's what really made it for me. I've no intention of watching the film though!

listsandbudgets · 29/04/2023 20:15

Twitch45 · 29/04/2023 20:07

Oh, and Wolf Hall!

Finally someone else who didnt like it. I'd started to feel like I was some kind if Wolf Hall hating one in a trillion. My mother is incredulous that I don't like it.. said I'd not given it a chance because Ingave up page 152!!

way2serious · 29/04/2023 20:17

It’s LOTR for me too! Read The Hobbit easily and enjoyed but LOTR was a different story 😂

morelippy · 29/04/2023 20:17

VenusInfers · 29/04/2023 20:13

I agree with pp that Where the Crawdads Sing was beyond stupid. Had to finish it for my Book Club, otherwise there would have been some serious flinging.
Love a bit of Dickens and Hillary Mantell, but would rather gargle vinegar than pick up another Phillipa Gregory novel.

I didn't finish it. I completely lost interest. I have a thread in here about being unable to concentrate on books... this was one I tried to get in to but dear me..

mouse70 · 29/04/2023 20:22

Catch 22, Master and Commander, Wuthering Heights Tried to read them at least 3 times never got into them.

RampantIvy · 29/04/2023 20:23

Custardbanana · 29/04/2023 20:03

Thursday murder club.

So boring I don't even care who did it.

I didn't care for it, but the second book is so much better.

I loved Where the Crawdads Sing

I got so bored with The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and The Life of Pi.

I didn't finish either of them.

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 29/04/2023 20:23

would rather gargle vinegar than pick up another Phillipa Gregory novel

I have an enormous book by Norman Davies (over 1,000 pages) which is a panorama of European history from the Ice Age to the Cold War. In it he divides historical novels into three categories - the first he describes as 'the cheap ones pillage the past to provide an exotic backdrop to unrelated fiction' - and I thought immediately of Gregory. And if 'The Other Boleyn Girl' was bad, how the hell 'The Boleyn Inheritance' got published is a mystery.

tsmainsqueeze · 29/04/2023 20:23

I love Cold Comfort Farm.
Gave up on Time Travellers Wife , I love what JKR has done for childrens literature but i cannot get into Harry Potter at all.

FpTr3952fHp · 29/04/2023 20:25

The ministry of utmost happiness
Naked lunch
A portrait of the artist as a young man

JaneJeffer · 29/04/2023 20:27

Gave up on Time Travellers Wife
I stuck it out to the bitter end Angry

JaneJeffer · 29/04/2023 20:28

Cold Comfort Farm is a brilliant parody of a particular type of pompous twaddle.
But what though?

Marchintospring · 29/04/2023 20:28

That Midnight Library one. Great idea but rehashed too many times I didn’t care what happened. Also it read like a story in a weekly magazine rather than a novel and I like crappy easy to read books.

Whereisthesun99 · 29/04/2023 20:30

I loved The last kingdom, but just could not get into the books, so hard going. I managed just under 50% of book 1 and gave up, twice.

Bernadinetta · 29/04/2023 20:30

Hamnet. I so wanted to like it.

I love Wolf Hall 😄

JaneJeffer · 29/04/2023 20:31

I love Wuthering Heights

MrsDanversGlidesAgain · 29/04/2023 20:31

JaneJeffer · 29/04/2023 20:28

Cold Comfort Farm is a brilliant parody of a particular type of pompous twaddle.
But what though?

It's a parody of what were called 'loam and lovechild' novels

https://thekinginyellow.livejournal.com/92253.html

Dotcheck · 29/04/2023 20:33

Wolf Hall
Overstory ( one long lecture)
Wuthering Heights

MyBloodyMaryneedsmoreTabasco · 29/04/2023 20:34

Could not finish Captain Corelli's Mandolin or The Milkman. Finished but should not have bothered with several, but notably Elizabeth is missing and Eleanor Oliphant. Also Hillbilly Elegy, which took a fascinating topic and made it unbelievably tedious.

HewasH2O · 29/04/2023 20:34

LOTR and A Suitable Boy. On the plus side LOTR meant I never wasted time on any other fantasy books. ASB is still waiting on a shelf 20 odd years later with a bookmarked where I gave up.