Which book did you almost give up on but are glad you kept reading?

[cariadlet]

Inspired (or shameless ripping off) another thread (https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/what_were_reading/5568805-which-books-have-you-decided-not-to-finish-and-why?page=1) I started to think about books that I hated when I started reading them, decided to persist for a while and was so glad not to have given up.

For me, the book that best falls into this category is Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre. It has a first person narrator and the protagonist is a teenage boy, growing up in poverty in a small town in the deep South of the US whose friend commits a school shooting.

I struggled so much at first because it's written in dialect. I couldn't get into it because of the language and almost gave up. I decided to give it a couple more chapters and was so glad that I kept reading it because once I'd got into the dialect, I absolutely loved it.

Milkman - felt like I was forcing myself to read it but I still find myself thinking about it often.

Louise Doughty's "Apple Tree Yard". Brilliant multi-layered feminist thriller, which I thought was going to be some sort of chick lit at the start.

Lonesome dove!

Eucalyptus

It really only comes together at the end. I did try reading it again years later and couldn't manage it though.

I hated the first two but ploughed through but was glad when they were over! Apple tree yard was great all the way through. Probably The Road was one

Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. Took so long to get going but was ultimately amazing!

The casual vacancy by JK Rowling

Mine is the Dan Brown book the Secret of secrets. I have mooted some of his books others not so much. This was one where you have to go back and see the clues. It was heavy going about consciousness but enjoyed the ending and glad I pursued.

Totally agree, stayed up all night to finish it but felt I deserved a medal for surviving the first few chapters !

The Portrait of Dorian Grey. Found it a bit boring at first but really enjoyed it once I'd properly got going.

Apple Tree Road, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and the Portrait of Dorian Grey are all books I enjoyed from the beginning.

I gave up on The Milkman. Maybe I should give it another go.

The Road has been on my To Read pile for a few years. I picked it up because it sounded interesting but I have read so many comments about how depressing it is that I've never been able to face it.

I haven't heard of Lonesome Dove or Eucalyptus. Off to Google them

The Young Team by Graeme Armstrong (because of the bad language which I got used to) - ended up really enjoying. Also Flesh by David Szalay. Hated the first two chapters but I couldn't stop reading and I thought about the book a lot after I finished it

+1 for Captain Corelli. Such a terrible first chapter (I think I tried and failed 4 or 5 times) then such a wonderful book

Audible has opened up a new world of books to me; books I would never have picked up because they look to big or I would have judged the cover! Has to be English accent narrator though! Currently immersed in Wolf Hall. The only one I gave up listening too was Wuthering Heights 😬 just couldn’t get into it. Should I try again? Loved Jane Eyre and still think about that story.

Goodness my to & too are totally the wrong way round 😬 sorry about that!

Hamnet. So glad I persevered.

Piranesi - first few chapters utterly confused by what was going on. But so worth persevering!

Use of Weapons by Iain M Banks. I found it really hard going with two intertwined storylines, one in reverse chronological order, and a mix of second- and third-person viewpoints. But when you first of all find out why The Chairmaker got that name and then what happened to him... Wow. It was like a punch in the face.

Banks was so good at writing a story and then doing an amazing rug-pull at the end that changes everything.

Shuggie Bain-didn’t really want to read it, all sounded so grim but it was a book club choice.

However, by about page 50 I couldn’t put it down. Yes, it’s a tough read in places but so well written-i could picture the people, their lives, the places. I thought about it a lot after I’d finished.

The Remains of the Day.

A slow first 50-100 pages and then really got going.

Anything by Umberto Eco.

Hard to start and never get easier. But lots of interesting ideas if you are prepared to gloss over or look up the obscure vocabulary.

Noddy and the Magic Rubber.

There were some bigly words, and some ideas that are difficult for some people to get their head around, but NOT me. When I put my mind to something and make a decision to carry on, I'm like a rat up a drain pipe, a beautiful drain pipe. In fact I'm probably the best rat there is, and I know a lot about drain pipes. More than most rats.

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver- found his childhood so bleak, got very close to giving up at the part when he's on the farm with Creaky. The story picks up at his teenage years though and in the end I found it quite joyful.

Paul Scott The Raj Quartet, the first half of the first book is so slow I did put it down for quite a while. When I picked it up again months later, I whizzed through the whole thing.

The Transit of Venus by Shirley Hazzard. I was catching up with some editions of A Good Read this week and someone had chosen this, the whole panel said they had struggled with it at first but all loved it. That was exactly my experience 30 years ago, and I am about to reread it.

The Double by Jose Saramago. I found it very hard going to start with, but kept at it because it was a book group book. Then it took off and by the end, I couldn't stop thinking about it and its post-modern eeriness.

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis.

Read a lot of it while wincing. But it made sense to me by the end.