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.

John Boyne - The Echo Chamber

Loved The Heart’s Invisible Furies but the Echo Chamber is totally different- just mean spirited stereotyped “humour”.

I’m going to try All the Broken Places and see if that’s back to form.

Susanna Clarke - I did manage to finish Jonathan Strange and Piranesi but have to admit I flicked through them. Just so long (well Piranesi is quite short but feels long as it’s so repetitive).

I'm about to give up on Rabbits by Hugo Rifkind. I love his writing for The Times so I was looking forward to it. Unfortunately it feels rather self indulgent and quickly becomes repetitive and boring. Someone described it as 31 parties and a funeral and that's about it.

Oh, I enjoyed The Hare with Amber Eyes, read it about 10 years ago. And I loved The Night Watch.
I gave up on Butter. I just hated the writing style but it could have been a translation problem, I suppose.

Gave up on Money by Martin Amis. I picked it because its supposed to be a classic, but it just didn't seem to get going.

There's a few on this thread that I really love. I'm a huge Terry Pratchett fan. I don't think twee is the right word to describe him as a writer at all. The first couple of books aren't great but once he got into his stride, he was a brilliant writer - funny, satirical, champion of the underdog.
My FB feed is mostly women's rights stuff so I follow a few completely different accounts for a bit of light relief and the Terry Pratchett one is one of my absolute favourites.

Also love the Jackson Brodie books.

I read the first Thursday Murder Club book when it first came out so before there was too much hype so my expectations hadn't been raised too highly which helped. I've read them all now. They're not literally masterpieces and are full of implausibilities but I find them an enjoyable light read.
I lent the first one to my mum and she was moved by the portrait of grief and couldn't believe that someone who hadn't experienced it himself could capture so accurately what she had been through and how she felt.

If there's a classic book that I know is good and that I want to read but am struggling with, then I try an audiobook version instead.

Sometimes, I enjoy it enough to read the book for myself at a later date. Martin Jarvis has narrated a few Charles Dickens books and he really brings them alive.

I would never have got through Middlemarch without Juliet Stevenson.

The Bee Sting became unreadable in the stream of consciousness bit

Ah that's interesting @TonTonMacoute! My hopes were quite high.

Yes I usually decide about 100 pages in @Ellinor. It just seems to end up being about that much.

Same. I actually got a refund from Amazon and sent it back.

Every overhyped debut I’ve read recently has been a disappointment.

I bought “Confessions” by Catherine Airey to read over Passover but I sent that one back too. It was the sort of juvenile rubbish I wrote in my late teens.

Lies Lies Lies by Adele Parks. Boring and dull.

The Thursday Murder Club. Soooo boring 🥱

Try "Snuff". His writing definitely got darker as he got older (and then ill).

I love Donna Tartt but I have given up on The Secret History. I can’t bear any more princes among men ‘lapsing into Greek’

Piranesi is SO good on audiobook.

I think The Insult is his best, that and Dreams of Leaving. I also enjoyed his latest How To Make a Bomb.

Yes the preface/blurb of Never Anyone But You said The Insult was supposedly David Bowie's favourite book so I thought "interesting". But then when I didn't get on with Never Anyone But You I thought "pah! What did David Bowie knows? 😁

I’ve given up on the Outlander series part way through book 3. I think it would have been better all round if things had just ended after the first book. It all gets very predictable.

I haven’t managed to get past the first chapter of Wolf Hall. Maybe I need to persevere a bit longer.

Forced myself to finish this. Was not worth it!

White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Everyone loses their shit over it but it’s set in the 80s (or at least the first pages were) and she writes something so glaringly anachronistic on the first page I just instantly lost all interest. I persevered a chapter in and it was so dull I wrote it off as pretentious bollocks.

I’m considering giving up on The Life Impossible by Matt Haig. I’ve enjoyed some of his other novels but the writing style of this one is doing my head in.

Ha! I am just over halfway through this and would guess I have read at least three books since putting it down. I like the magical realism but I find it incredibly difficult to follow, something to with the pace and tone as well as the issues you mention. This is my second attempt, last one was 2014, so maybe I'll try again in 2036!

I haven't exactly given up on Adam Rutherfrd's A Brief History... but have put it down and am charging cheerfully through another Sherlock Holmes as a treat before I pick it up again. I'm not enormously enjoying reading it because the science is a bit opaque for me, but I do very much want to have read it.

Caledonian Road by Andrew O'Hagan. I just couldn't get into it at all, and overly sympathised with the "baddies". The main character was a total dickhead. Gave up after a few chapters.

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray. Couldn't empathise with any of the characters at all. Three chapters in, dumped.

I'm like this about anachronisms. But then maybe most people are. I can start to obsess about it and it ruins it for me if anything just doesn't sound right even.