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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:
PollyannaWhittier · 29/04/2023 23:06

Changingplace · 29/04/2023 22:47

I’m very glad to see so many other people say Wolf Hall, I was sooo lost trying to read it, and I so wanted to love it but I couldn’t figure out wtf was going on or who was saying what.

A little life, dull, interchangeable dull characters for the most part except the main misery porn one, they all hated each other, I gave up.

I read the dramatis personae at the beginning of Wolf Hall and knew immediately that there were far too many people and I would get completely lost so I gave up before I even started 😂

JaneJeffer · 29/04/2023 23:11

Have never understood the fascination with The Catcher in the Rye either.
I know I've read it but I remember nothing about it!

BarbieGirl999 · 29/04/2023 23:12

Didn't really get the big fuss over Crawdads, not All the Light we cannot see.

RedRosie · 29/04/2023 23:13

Love Cold Comfort Farm, super-clever in its own context. Hated Crawdads (total wibble). And A Little Life is possibly, the worst book ever written.

MrsComet · 29/04/2023 23:14

I'm working my way through a 100 top books scratch poster that a friend got me. I listen to most of them on audiobook and I'm sure that's made a difference with seeing some through. I'd have struggled with 100 years of Solitude on my own but ended up loving it.

One's I gave up on:
War and Peace
The Magic Mountain- I thought it was going to be about sinister doctors in isolated convalescence house. Turns out it's just philosophy ramblings.
A Prayer for Owen Meady - stopped at the weird sexual stuff between the cousins 🤢

But I love LotR. All the criticisms are spot on. Its slow. So much walking, random poetry. I don't care. I go back there once a year to slow down and walk with the hobbits.

Fineanddandy8 · 29/04/2023 23:14

Rebecca - I have tried sooo many times and can't get past the first few pages....

Iwannerbeyourslave · 29/04/2023 23:14

RenegadeMrs · 29/04/2023 20:04

Agree with Lord of the Rongs! Love the Hobbit, loved the films of LoTR, can't get on with the books. I hate the structure of them.

Also, Jonathan Stange and Mr Norrell. Despite having enjoyed Piranesi.

I loved LOTR books but tried twice to read Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell. Gave up and donated it to charity.

sproutsandparsnips · 29/04/2023 23:26

I do actually like Jane Austen, and most of the Brontë sisters' books. Also I am a third of the way through Cold Comfort Farm and I am enjoying it so far, though not sure where we're going at the moment.
Cannot stand LOTR or the Hobbit but think JKR is a talented writer - may not be high brow fiction but I enjoyed it.
Dickens is tedious as was Les Miserables.

Crikeyalmighty · 29/04/2023 23:32

I also really didn't like Ian Mcewans - On Chesil Beach and it was absolutely raved about.

SuperFi · 29/04/2023 23:33

Women In Love and Sons & Lovers, I just don’t get DH Lawrence .

TaraRhu · 29/04/2023 23:36

@SuperFi I agree. Written by a man with understanding of women.

tailinthejam · 29/04/2023 23:37

Captain Corelli's mandolin. I tried, I really did, but couldn't even make it through the first chapter.

I've also tried a variety of Dickens, but zero luck there either.

TheMoth · 29/04/2023 23:41

Lotr
The milkman
Ulysses. Although I lied about having read that one, for my tutorial a million years ago.

I used to have to finish I book I'd started, but I've recently given myself permission not to. It's liberating.

I have read middlemarch, but have struggled to read it again. Read a suitable boy, but my god, it went on. When you obit get about 10 minutes a mug to read before you drop off, it's got to be a quick read.

Barbecuebeans · 29/04/2023 23:50

Crikeyalmighty · 29/04/2023 23:32

I also really didn't like Ian Mcewans - On Chesil Beach and it was absolutely raved about.

Awful. All that repression. Yawn.

A blockbuster from yesteryear by Kate Mosse called Labyrinth. Everybody read it at the time and I thought it was third rate. Genuinely seemed like emperor's new clothes.

Anything by Ian Fleming.

Mill on the Floss. Just couldn't like her.

TheMoth · 29/04/2023 23:58

Barbecuebeans · 29/04/2023 23:50

Awful. All that repression. Yawn.

A blockbuster from yesteryear by Kate Mosse called Labyrinth. Everybody read it at the time and I thought it was third rate. Genuinely seemed like emperor's new clothes.

Anything by Ian Fleming.

Mill on the Floss. Just couldn't like her.

Show quote history

I read mill on the floss when I was 17. It made me cry.
Tried labyrinth but it just seemed like fluff. And I'd just read Rat Scabies Holy grail thing.
A brief history of 7 killings. I tried and tried, but couldn't hold it all in my head.

SinisterBumFacedCat · 30/04/2023 00:03

If I had a pound for every time I tried to read Cloud Atlas and abandoned it I’d have £3

Itsallthelittlethings · 30/04/2023 00:08

Two books I absolutely could not finish: The Midnight Library and Ullyses. TML what a load of old shite. Same review for Ullyses. Read Joyce at University and genuinely enjoyed all his other works but seriously Ullyses just no! Have to disagree about Hamnet though. Read it all in one traumatic, sobbing, heartbroken evening. Absolutely loved it.

Essexgirlupnorth · 30/04/2023 00:17

Cantsayanything · 29/04/2023 22:09

Les Miserables. I generally enjoy French 19th century literature but can't get on with Victor Hugo.

Something by Luca Veste. I'd read a couple previously and they were ok. The last one though I couldn't finish. I can't even remember the title and that probably explains why it was £2 in the supermarket.

I never saw the point of Lord of the Rings when people got into it at school and I've never tried to read Harry Potter either.

I've tried to read les miserable on several occasions and given up but finally read it last year after joining a online read along and trying a new translation. Was a slog at times to be fair when there is actually plot it is good when it's a chapter about the tactics at Waterloo when the only part relevant to the plot is one paragraph at the end or an essay about the sewers of Paris it is a struggle. Man needed a better editor!1

KnottyKnitting · 30/04/2023 00:20

A prayer for Owen meany- dear god it was booooring and unnecessarily long...

Taxitaxiforever · 30/04/2023 00:21

The girl on a bus …..so depressing! I was on holiday at the time and it was so negative.

grannysmithspips · 30/04/2023 00:41

Sunflower2023123 · 29/04/2023 22:42

Oh and Normal People by Sally Rooney, yawn!

I'm with you in this

Kanaloa · 30/04/2023 01:03

RedRosie · 29/04/2023 23:13

Love Cold Comfort Farm, super-clever in its own context. Hated Crawdads (total wibble). And A Little Life is possibly, the worst book ever written.

I always say that about A Little Life 😂 there are many other books that I personally didn’t get on with but I see why other people like them and appreciate that they’re just not my taste. A Little Life is one of the only books that I think is objectively very very poor, and any time someone recommends it to me it makes me reevaluate them.

Ietthemeatcake · 30/04/2023 07:54

I did manage Shuggie Bain, but it was hard going and so sad. I normally pass books on to my DM or DH to read, but I advised both of them not to read that one.

I failed at Midnight's Children. Tried more than once. Drifted off every time I tried as it was so wordy and nothing seemed to happen in the 100 pages or so I read.

I've been bought a few that have been mentioned in this thread that I haven't got round to yet - Crawdads and A Little Life being 2. I may not be in a rush to start them now!

RampantIvy · 30/04/2023 08:07

grannysmithspips · 30/04/2023 00:41

I'm with you in this

Show quote history

Me too. I had seen the TV adaptation as well, but still thought it was dull.
I also found The Midnight Library dull and uninspiring.

Don't be put off Where the Crawdads Sing letthemeatcake. I loved it. We all have different tastes and it was a best seller for a reason.

OneFrenchEgg · 30/04/2023 08:48

A brief history of 7 killings. I tried and tried, but couldn't hold it all in my head.

Is that Marlon James? I heard him recently on the radio and he sounded so interesting but then said his genre was fantasy and I was a bit disappointed as I really really don't get it.

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