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

[GonnaGetGoingReturns]

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!

Jonathan Livingston Seagull- probably everyone knows it's a wanky allegory that's up its own arse, but I but took it literally and hoped that the annoying lead character got shot.

Loving this thread!❤️

For me it's Captain Corelli's mandolin, bought it around the year 2000 when I was still a student

I really wanted to read it but I just could not get into it!

Beautiful cover though, looked fab on my bookshelf for several years until I donated it to the charity shop!

I quite fancied this but not sure now! I can see how it could make people think badly of a person though. I keep a diary and that’s where I write all my inner thoughts. I don’t tend to sugar coat them because it’s my diary! So I would probably write all the negative things about situations or people in there because that’s how I get it out.

The girl on the train…soo depressing
Where the Crawdads …too wordy

Elinor elephant..dreary

All The Broken Places

Colossal shite. Unbelievable plot. Lazy language use that only an editor besotted with the success of TBITSP could overlook.

Harry Potter series. I read them to my dd when she was little & thought they were very poorly written. I'm not a fan.

I'm not an English lit graduate, so I disagree with you.

@ValentineGreen @RampantIvy I can't comment on the literary merit of Harry Potter as I just couldn't get beyond the first twenty pages of the first book. When the rest of the world (including all my family and friends) was consuming them with great delight I alone was left unmoved by it all. I felt almost the odd one out. I did try a couple of times, but it was no good. I just didn't get the appeal at all.

@RampantIvy I am not an English Lit grad either but I read them aloud to my dd and found them badly written.

I am an English Lit graduate and love the Harry Potter books and think they’re fantastic for what they are 😂 I think part of the issue with the first one is that so many adults read it and recommended it. Then other adults were reading it, with the comparison frame being other adult literary fiction they had read, and thinking what the heck. But you need to read it and compare it not to adult fiction, but to other children’s literature. Compare it to the Darren Shan saga, Enid Blyton boarding school stories, the Percy Jackson series. When compared like for like (rather than saying well I read Midnight’s Children and it was far better written than Harry Potter) I think it’s far easier to see the value of the Potter books.

You're not alone. Harold Bloom (the greatest literary critic of the late 20th-century) thought the prose was awful. He once said "if I had to choose between reading Harry Potter or reading nothing, I'd choose nothing."

Compared to C. S. Lewis' Narnia books, or The Hobbit, or The Wind in the Willows or Alice in Wonderland, they're garbage. Lewis' Narnia books, in particular, are beautifully written. Roald Dahl was also a superb stylist. Art isn't like science or technology. It doesn't get better with each generation.

I totally agree @JaneyGee. They are horrible book to read out loud because of the convoluted, often awkward, sentence construction. And we read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings to her as well as Alice in Wonderland and all the Roald Dahl books.

My personal favourite children's book to read at night to her were by Eva Ibbotson. Beautifully written and fantastic imaginative stories.

Saying you don't like Harry Potter on here is tantamount to saying you kick kittens! It's funny how it really seems to irritate people.