Books you’ve given up on this recently, and why

[Phase2]

Thought it might be good to share, also maybe some encouragement to pick them up again!

Just ditched Bewilderment by Richard Powers. It was so dull and nothing happened. Got half way though, read the end and it’s in the charity pile.

starting the hare with amber eyes next.

This doesn’t bode well, I started Richard Powers’ The Overstory, but I stupidly put it down and am not reaching for it… it is very overwritten but I’m determined to stick it out.

If you’re looking for antidotes, I hoovered up Hotel Milano by Tim parks and loved “The Leavers” by Lisa Ko, I couldn’t put it down this week.

'Where the crawdads sing' - I gave up part way in. What a boring book. I didn't understand the hype!

Piglet by Lottie Hazell.

If all of the characters had died in a terrible accident in the next chapter I honestly wouldn’t have cared. They were all self obsessed, vacuous and bigoted. Read a few reviews after I gave up on it and they didn’t make me regret reading a different book instead.

I’m about halfway through The Hare With Amber Eyes, and enjoying it, OP. It’s pretty seldom I don’t finish things, but I recently didn’t finish Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other. Not that I wasn’t enjoying it, quite, I just found it easy to put down. I think some writers’ sensibility just doesn’t work for me, however good they are.

Have recently much enjoyed Fiona McFarlane’s The Sun Walks Down. Set in the 1880s in outback Australia, about a week in the life of a remote community, settler and Aborigine, after a child goes missing. Full of sharp takes on various colonial myths, and responses to the landscape.

oh these are good recommendations thank you, much more interesting than the usual I find in Tesco.

Joel Dicker, The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer. There is something very unsettling about it, and it’s very obsessive.

Recommendation or didn’t finish?

The last one I gave up on was Bleak House. Too many characters for me to keep track of.

I’ll go back to it at some point. It took me years to beat Great Expectations into submission.

I've never managed to finish a Terry Pratchett.
Just very twee and not that funny

Butter…..a friend bought it for me then gave me permission to give up just like she had!

The Thursday murder club. DH bought it for me as I like murder mysteries but now I realise i want murder mysteries with a bit of sexual tension (strike, Ruth galloway mysteries) not a load of boring bollocks about lemon drizzle cake.

I really enjoyed The Overstory.....

Am reading YA witchytype stuff currently as dd's asked me my opinion of them as gifts for non-reading friends. Quite enjoying them all - of a simplicity which would be helpful when I'm not well enough to read real books.

I gave up on Psychosis by Tony Marturano. DH passed it on to me, but I can't remember whether he gave upon it or loved it. Ithink he loved it. I found the guy such an objectionable character I didn't want him in my consciousness. Also the book itself was incrediblyhevy and being disabledI simply couldn't manage itand was certainly not willing to spend money for a Kindle edition.

Tbf Tesco possibly not the best place to look for good books!

I'm desperate not to give up on The Mirror and the Light but I bought the hardback version 5 years ago and have barely covered 3 chapters. I love her writing but the damn thing is so big I can't take it anywhere with me to read it..

I just gave up on "Did ye hear Mammy died" which I feel bad about but some sections were so incredibly long (four pages on the first morning back at school) I couldn't do it.

A non-twee Terry Pratchett is Night Watch, essentially a cop story.

I gave up half way through One Hundred Years of Solitude. Everyone had the same name, or variations of the same name, and it was difficult to follow. Ended up searching online for the family tree to try and figure it out. Lots of incest, death and generally strange goings on. I know it's magical realism and it took me an age to get half way through but I found a lot of it unpalatable and couldn't finish it.

Oh I might try Night Watch, I also have guiltily ditched TP before as I found it too much.

Heather Morris, Sisters under the Rising Sun. I read a lot of WW2 fiction/history but found this awful. I didn’t like the characters and the whole thing seemed very superficial to me. I persevered to page 125 and haven’t returned to it.

Didn’t finish. I wasn’t interested enough to overcome my lethargy.

The fraud by Zadie Smith, it’s beautifully written, Dickensian in style but it’s too clever for me in a way and too slow. I persisted but eventually gave up. I absolutely loved on beauty and her other books so I was disappointed in myself!
just started butter after racing through David Nicholls’ us and sweet sorry and a few murder mysteries

I would gladly have given up The Ladies Midnight Swimming Club, I only persevered because it was for my book club. It is the worst book I have ever read to the end.

I'm struggling with Un Nos Ola Leuad. I think its voted the most favourite Welsh language book ever, but I'm not getting it. It's a story about a little boy's childhood and his observations of the people in his village. There is so much horrible stuff going on around him, incest, domestic abuse, mental illness, poverty, etc. Although he tells it all in an unconcerned way, I am finding it quite grim.

Persuasion by Jane Austen is the only book I didn't finish last year.

Have you read any other Heather Morris?
I thought the Tattooist of Auschwitz was great, but was irritated by Cilkas Journey. I think it's because the first was based on extensive interviews with the actual man, and felt more rounded (bearing in mind his rose-tinted version of himself). While the basic facts in Cilkas book were true, her character was entirely from Heather Morris and like you, I found her shallow.

@DuckCootLoon yes I have read The Tattooist of Auschwitz sone some time ago and it was fine. I don’t think I will read any more by her. I was particularly annoyed by Sisters under the Sun as I had used a precious book token to buy it and I felt slightly short changed given there was so much to choose from. Bit irrational I know!

The Thursday Murder Club - so overhyped. I like RO but his novels aren't for me.Got about a chapter in and gave up. So boring and twee.

The Silence Factory - I was so looking forward to this, I ordered it in Hardback. Really disappointing read, i need to try again because I got a few chapters in. It just made for really bizarre reading.

Hate giving up on books and only do it normally, very occasionally.

A book by Phil Rickman called Night After Night. I actually got through about two thirds of the way but it was so boring, and I realised I just didn't care any more. I really like his Merrily Watkins books, but the series about an American journalist called Grayle someone are nowhere near as good.

Im enjoying a book called The Artist at the moment, set in France in the 20s about a young woman who is looking after her uncle, a famous artist.