Books you simply Could Not Read

[dog-days]

Earlier, Lyanna Stark asked what was so unreadable about the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. In my case, it's hard to say, since I've read a few Swedish crime novels, and thought they were decent. As with Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, I just felt overcome with indifference to the story and writing. Not knocking people for liking them - I thought I'd like them, which was why I bought them - but they and I, apparently, are never meant to be.

ETA: Though I may watch the Yellow Bird adaptation of GwtDT, since I loved their Wallander series. And I can amuse myself by repeating Swedish loanwords from English in an exaggerated sing-song accent, because 90% of my brain never left infant school.

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

Thanks, Ormond. I might have gone through my life not knowing that, which would have been very sad indeed.

[Stego]

Snow Crash

Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

Should have just stopped, but had to know:

Wheel of Time, Book 1

Name of the Wind

Anyone else think this person has the worst taste in books? :P

[Grack21]

You all have terrible taste and I'm shocked and appalled! :P

[Sis Who Swears]

War and Peace was very hard to get through the first time I read it but imo so, SO worth it.

I read really fast and it still took me about a month to read it, I highly recommend trying it again. The names eventually will make sense!

Anna Karenina was not as difficult, because I read it after W&P and had the name thing down (kinda) but I didn't like it as much either. To be fair though, W&P is now one of my all time favorites so, yeah it's hard to compare the two for me.

No Dickens ever! Just. Can. Not. Do. It.

I love LOTR but have never been able to read The Hobbit (haven't tried since I was little) or The Silmarillion (have tried a few times, nada).

Crime and Punishment... 'Why the HELL am I reading this? I don't care about these people!' and nothing would stick. Barely made 2 chapters.

[Seiche]

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.

Kraken was my first try at Mieville and I lasted about 100 pages. There's actually a piece of dialogue in there spoken to the protagonist, but to me was clearly a entreaty from the author to the reader. "Stop trying to make sense of it and just listen." Once I read that, I was done.

One of the few others I quit early was The Warded Man by Peter Brett. I felt the prose and characterization were both really poor.

[Verboten]

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.

I didn't find it difficult at all.

[Grack21]

Do books you may never start count? I picked up Outlander a bit ago but the, er, more I here about a certain scene the less I want to read it. Plus someone posted an bit from a later book and all I can say is, you people who read that are sickos.

[Sci-2]

I'm enjoying Kraken right now, but it is among my read a few pages every few days/weeks books, so I don't think I am invested enough to be frustrated.

[NewsToTom]

I've forced myself to be the kind of person who gives up on books, just because there are so many books out there I want to read and no way I'll ever be able to read them all. That said, I do try to do most of my filtering on the front-end. I also tend to read quickly, so books like, say, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo or Dan Brown's Lost Symbol, think I found terrible are polished off quickly enough I don't give up on them.

Books I've tried, but simply didn't work, include Guy Gavriel Kay's The Lions of Al-Rassan, anything by Mieville, Dickens' Bleak House (started three times, gotten less far each time), many political biographies and autobiographies, Anna Karenina, the third book of Kate Elliott's Crown of Stars series, and more I'm forgetting. Anna Karenina is the only one of those I'll every try again. If you liked any of these, bully for you.

Books I've seriously tried to read, given up on, and would gladly burn in a fireplace: Potter's Cooking for Geeks and Bobbitt's Shield of Achilles. If you liked these, we probably have nothing whatsoever to discuss.

[hobbleit]

I love LOTR but have never been able to read The Hobbit (haven't tried since I was little) or The Silmarillion (have tried a few times, nada).

I found the Hobbit so much harder to read the LOTR. I do love the Silmarillion though.

I just thought of another book I couldn't finish: The God Delusion. I just found the militant atheism to be just as annoying as militant theism.

[Seli]

...

No Dickens ever! Just. Can. Not. Do. It.

...

Oh yes, this! I tried a handful of his books, the only story I managed to finish was his Christmas Carol.

[Verboten]

I just thought of another book I couldn't finish: The God Delusion. I just found the militant atheism to be just as annoying as militant theism.

Oh thank you god ''m not alone.

[williamjm]

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. For my Higher English exam at school we had to answer questions on two out of three things we had read in class. Since the other two things we read were not as mind-numbingly tedious as this Scottish literary 'classic', I decided that if I answered the questions on those two I didn't need to force myself through Sunset Song. This seemed like a good plan until I had no idea how to answer the main question for one of the alternatives, so I ended up answering the Sunset Song questions based primarily on having watched the TV adaptation (we watched it in class. Twice. I'm not sure how that was meant to be educational). I still got a good grade and never had to read all of Sunset Song, so it all worked out for the best.

The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks. It felt a bit like Dan Brown trying to write Cyberpunk, it seemed to think its ideas were a lot more profound than they actually were and the author had an annoying tendency to RANDOMLY CAPITALISE terms in the book.

Lyonesse by Jack Vance. This was a bit surprising since it's so heavily recommended, but I just didn't care about any of the characters.

Cities In Flight by James Blish. I can understand why this got into the SF Masterworks series since it did have some good ideas in it, and some of them were quite prescient for a novel written in the 1950s. That said, no amount of good ideas can make up for such poor storytelling and characterisation.

Earthsearch by James Follett. I could possibly have read this if I was still 12, but it was just too childish.

The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. It's an interesting idea, but the execution was so dull that I think it's the book I've abandoned in the fewest pages.

[TheDanish]

Gravity's Rainbow would certainly be on this list if it hadn't been required reading for an undergrad course I took some years ago.

Not to be political but Atlas Shrugged was horrendous.

[Shryke]

I didn't find it difficult at all.

Yeah, I can't figure out what the difficulties in Kraken were.

Kraken was my first try at Mieville and I lasted about 100 pages. There's actually a piece of dialogue in there spoken to the protagonist, but to me was clearly a entreaty from the author to the reader. "Stop trying to make sense of it and just listen." Once I read that, I was done.

Huh?

Also, the book does make complete sense. It's just don't expect the magic-elements to be like as rigidly defined as a Sanderson book or something.

[Arbor Gold]

I just gave up on For Whom the Bell Tolls, or, as it should be called, How Many Pages Does it Take to Blow up a Fucking Bridge? I think I'm just not a Hemingway fan. I don't even like his short stories, and those are supposed to be awesome.

[Buckwheat]

Don't worry about it, you aren't the only one. I powered my way through it once just to have done it.

Makes two of us :).

[peterbound]

The Windup Girl. Couldn't even make it through the first couple of chapters

[Raksha the Demon]

How could you not finish the Girl with the Dragon Tatto? It took me like 3 hours to finish up from start to finish. And you don't even need to pay it a huge amount of attention while doing so. (I was breastfeeding at the time, so it was a brilliant no effort needed diversion!).

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.

Kushiel's Dart. Got I think 2/3rds through and just couldn't bear all the super pretty Sues and the "lolol isn't S&M sex just the awesomest you've ever seen? Like really, really awesome, with sugar on top awesome and so daring! and sparkly! and so incredibly hot! and did I mention awesome?"

Also, Anna Karenina since I just wanted the heroine to off herself from the start. Dull and plodding even if it is supposedly the tragimance of all tragimances. I feel sad for mentioning it as I normally feel awful about slagging off classics (unless they are Young Werther).

You gave up on the second Amber novel - The Guns of Avalon? That was the first Amber novel I read and it grabbed me and made me find the first one and wait for the rest. I wasn't as wild about the second Amber series, but I did read it...Of course, I'm a big Zelazny fan.

[Lightning Lord]

I just gave up on For Whom the Bell Tolls, or, as it should be called, How Many Pages Does it Take to Blow up a Fucking Bridge? I think I'm just not a Hemingway fan. I don't even like his short stories, and those are supposed to be awesome.

I enjoyed A Farewell to Arms and The Snows of Kilimanjaro, but haven't had a go at any of his other work. Your endorsement here doesn't make me salivate to read more of his stuff, though.