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Your most painful/difficult reads (or emotionally draining)


Kaminsod

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Steinbeck makes this list twice for me for very different reasons. Grapes of Wrath I found almost intolerably boring in high school. Of Mice and Men I found incredibly sad and I think that fits the OP too.



Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell I could not even finish. It was so boring. I think I could see how some people like it, but it is not for me.



Dorothy Dunnett's Lymond Chronicles is some of the most difficult, as in challenging, stuff I have ever read, but it is really really good.



EDIT:



Matterhorn fits the really emotional but very good category as well.


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*Masochistic

I started reading Catch 22 didn't really like the way it was written and stopped. I struggled through Robin Hobbs Rain Wild chronicles mainly out of love for the previous trilogies, it just dragged and nothing really interesting seemed to happen, and all the characters were insufferable.

But I'd say the main book that fits the bill for me is Wuthering Heights. I've tried two times to read it, and just can't get past the start, everyone tells me it's better once the bell end at the start sods off. I will finish it eventually but not yet.

Catch 22 got very annoying for me because it seemed so much like the same thing over and over.

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Catch-22. It was probably intentional but that book is so damn frustrating and annoying. Still glad I read it but it wasn't pleasurably for the most part.

It's an intentionally fragmented, dissonant novel, but it's funny as hell. The humour alone should be able to get anyone through it.

Edit: God damn, just realised how many people in this thread couldn't read/didn't understand Catch-22. I read it when I was 17 and loved it. Bunch of philistines here, I tells ya.

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It's an intentionally fragmented, dissonant novel, but it's funny as hell. The humour alone should be able to get anyone through it.

Edit: God damn, just realised how many people in this thread couldn't read/didn't understand Catch-22. I read it when I was 17 and loved it. Bunch of philistines here, I tells ya.

I totally saw what the author was trying to do but it still didn't stop me from thinking it was tedious and frustrating in places. It's down to personal sense of humour but I'm not a fan in general of sketches that are intentionally irritating and repetitive - even Python sometimes takes it too far for me.

I guess the parts that were funny did indeed get me through the whole book.

I agree that the Jonathan Strange book is a bit of a slog - especially with all those footnotes that kept dragging me out of the story. I actually look forward to the BBC adaptation as they should be able to cut through a lot of the extra details.

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Painful in a bad way:


- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. UGH. My teacher said my scarcely-veiled contempt for it in my paper made her laugh


- David Copperfield. Dude, I don't care. Boring kid grows into a boring adult, blah.


- The Darkness that Comes Before. It's probably an awesome book but I cannot get into it.



Painful in a good way:


- Firebringer. The last page makes me tear up just thinking about it.


- Black Beauty. Cliche but I'm a horse lover.


- Velveteen Rabbit. *cries like a bitch*


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That reminds me actually:

Soldier Son trilogy by Robin Hobb

Yeah, that was a painful slog. Like pulling teeth getting myself to finish that last one.

I only managed to read the first two ... so you recommend me to to bother buying the third one?

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Deadhouse Gates, the second book in the Malazan series, was emotionally draining. The conclusion to the Chain of Dogs storyline is the most depressing thing I've ever read. I remember reading it in school a couple of years ago and that I couldn't concentrate for the rest of the day because of how tragic and shocking and merciless it was.
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