Books you simply Could Not Read

[Lummel]

Lyanna, you gave your baby a three hour feed? What was it, a bear cub?

I know there have been a few books that I haven't been able to start / continue with / finish but the only one I can remember off the top of my head is english passengers by matthew kneale (?), the first POV with the unsucessful manx smuggler captain just didn't ring true for me, or maybe the whole thing was too didactic as though he hadn't digested his facts and ideas long enough to produce a nice smooth narrative. Dunno.

[Horza]

Madame Bovary is great. Helps if you've got some idea what 1840s France was like but even then it's a perfect takedown of the entire romance genre.

Sitting forlorn on my bookshelf:

The Illuminatus Trilogy my friend managed to read this despite not having touched drugs, so what's my excuse? Too many 60s injokes I guess.

Lyonesse what is this book. It has no plot. Stuff just happens and makes no sense.

The Trial I'm depressed enough already, thanks Franz.

Don Quixote I get it, but it drags in places, need to power through to the pomo stuff. Visiting Spain would probably help.

The Good Solder Svejk again, good but drags and I'm not turn-of-the-century Mitteleuropean so stuff keeps whizzing over my head.

[Eponine]

I can't remember any books that I couldn't read to the end (although sometimes with a lot of scanning, skipping over entire paragraphs), but the two series I simply haven't been able to finish are WoT and Mordant's need.

I love Dostoevsky.

I haven't finished War and Peace or Paradise Lost, but have every intention of continuing.

[LuisDantas]

What have I not manage to finish:

The second Amber novel. The first one sucked and the second one made me just feel totally uninspired, but I tried cos I got this huge volume of several Amber volumes. Think it got donated to charity eventually. Long may the Salvation Army enjoy it.

Amber? Roger Zelazny's Amber? So that book would be "The Guns of Avalon", right?

[Lightning Lord]

Remembered another:

Robinson Crusoe. I lost interest when he started doing little else but reading the Bible. Or trying to remember the Bible. Or whatever it was, I stopped caring.

[Gypsy]

Thought of another one that I could NOT finish....Last of the Mohicans. Come on. No one ever actually spoke like that. The dialogue was enough to make me toss it aside.

I love love love Kingkiller Chronicles.

I have the Gormenghast novels (in one big book). I'll get to it after I finish dragging myself thru Brisingr and Inheritance. But if Ken Follet has the sequel to Fall of Giants out by then, or if Edward Rutherford has anything new out, then Gormenghast will have to wait.

[Whitestripe]

I may have been the only person in my lit class that actually enjoyed that book. Still have not found many who agree with me that it is worth reading.

I liked it, too. :)

[JGP]

I'm really struggling with Cry of the Newborn. Oddly enough, and somewhat related, I have a couple weeks to come up with a novel date. If it's not bobsledding, it might be skeet shooting. Guess what's first up...

[Winter's Lady]

I definitely had a severe case of *high-expectations-syndrome* when I read Ken Follett's World without End. I loved and devoured Pillars of the Earth but after that, the sequel was missing something.

I still can´t put my finger on what it was that made me stop reading, but I lost interst halfway through.

Having said that, I am really looking forward to the tv-adaptation of it. The one for Pillars was great! Maybe this will convince me to finish the book...

[Yana]

A Sundial in a Grave: 1610 by Mary Gentle - I started on this recently and had to give it up after 100 pages or so. It's such a pity, since the story seemed really interesting and it could've been so much better, but the author seemed interested only in sexual relationship of her two main characters, that after a while it became ridiculous.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl - this book was all over the place and the narrative so chaotic I couldn't keep up. However, it does have great reviews and I'd be sorry to miss on it, so one day I'll give it another try.

And I also gave up on Wheel of Time series, after third book, not because I couldn't read it anymore, but because I discovered more interesting books in the meantime, like ASOIAF :)

[Hereward]

Lyonesse

The Good Solder Svejk

And I thought we could be friends.

Anyway, I have given up on countless series after the first book, but I usually plough through the first one. Exceptions include:

Gormenghast

Gardens of the Moon

Chronicles of the Black Company

Stormcaller

[Seli]

There are so many books I never finished, but for almost all I don't know whether it is my mood or the book itself that prevented my finishing it.

Most recently I returned Finch by Jeff Vandermeer to the library half read, since I really did not care about world or people.

[Ormond]

Like, totally. Does the author think he's God or something?

Unlike the Koran, the Bible is an anthology with multiple authors.

[Rorshach]

I definitely had a severe case of *high-expectations-syndrome* when I read Ken Follett's World without End. I loved and devoured Pillars of the Earth but after that, the sequel was missing something.

I still can´t put my finger on what it was that made me stop reading, but I lost interst halfway through.

Having said that, I am really looking forward to the tv-adapation of it. The one for Pillars was great! Maybe this will convince me to finish the book...

I remember I enjoyed Pillars when I read it - what? - 15 years ago or something. When I read Wold Without End, I hated it - because it was a blueprint copy, where Follett had re-read his scenes and muttered to himself "no, last time I did this and this. So in this version, I can't do that. Must change this paragraph to that." - he basically did what Dan Brown does and copies himself - badly.

Personally, I know there is a book or two I've given up on, but I can't for the life of me remember which ones it was. I tend to forget them (if I see the cover, I'll recognize them, so no danger of putting down the same book twice.. :wideeyed: ).

I have struggled mightily through a couple, not liking to quit before I'm done. Sometimes I'm happy I did it (really enjoyed the second half of C&P), sometimes not (The Desert Spear springs to mind)

[PaulineMRoss]

Kraken by China Mieville. I really, really tried with it, got more than half way through before deciding I just don't have the right receptors in my brain for that kind of bizarre. Or the right drugs, maybe.

Gardens of the Moon by Stephen Erikson. I plodded on until I read a comment somewhere that the series really gets going somewhere around the third book, at which point I lost the will to live.

[Spring Bass]

Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson was one big example for me, not least because I tried twice to get into it, and couldn't. I would get about 200 pages into the book, then realize that I really just didn't care about any of the characters, where the story was headed, and the setting (I've never been fond of the Malazan setting). At that point, other good potential reads had come along, so I abandoned Midnight Tides and the entire Malazan series in the process.

[Shryke]

Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson was one big example for me, not least because I tried twice to get into it, and couldn't. I would get about 200 pages into the book, then realize that I really just didn't care about any of the characters, where the story was headed, and the setting (I've never been fond of the Malazan setting). At that point, other good potential reads had come along, so I abandoned Midnight Tides and the entire Malazan series in the process.

I abandoned Malazan after Toll The Hounds when I finally realised Erikson didn't care about the setting either. Or about coherent ... anything.

[Arthmail]

Kraken by China Mieville. I really, really tried with it, got more than half way through before deciding I just don't have the right receptors in my brain for that kind of bizarre. Or the right drugs, maybe.

I actually threw this book across the room. I have never done that with any book, but i've tried to like Mieville and i simply can't. Pretentious bullshit on every level.

[SkynJay]

May not be fair, but I recently dropped Mistborn 2 (Well of Ascension) because I just stopped caring. Usually in series I will try again at a latter date, but not sure its going to happen on this one.

[Contrarius]

I'll mention that it took me three tries to get more than 50 pages into The Hobbit. The first two times I was bored to tears by the beginning. Finally I forced myself to get past the setup -- and I ended up being very glad I did. :)