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Books you simply Could Not Read


litechick

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The Twilight books - I ONLY attempted to read those books, just so the girlfreind would remain happy, and that it would lead me to a more open mind! Although, I must say It has lead to an open mind for me, mainly on how Meyers writes total crap! These novels nearl threw me off vampire fiction for good, no joke!

Crime & Punishment - This wan't because I hated the novel, if anything I loved it! It was the fact that at the time I read it (Aged 12, bit ambitious i know) it was just too damn complex for me! Though now at a far mature level and age, I will give it another crack, with more success of course!

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I've only gone through the first three pages of this thread, but so far I've seen mentioned:

War and Peace

Crime and Punishment

The Brothers Karamazov

Swann's Way

Don Quixote

The Stranger

Gravity's Rainbow

One Hundred Years of Solitude

Blindness

Shame on you all.

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Clockwork Orange

Thats right, that. Couldn't get past second page. Not for lack of trying or lack of interest either!

It was the constant every-third-word switching to Russian. My brain couldn't keep bouncing between English and Russian and basically shut-down completely by page 2

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I've tried to read Gravity's Rainbow about five times, and each time I get about 50 pages in before being overcome with despair. There's just so many words. I don't know what it is, I can read large books just fine but there's just something about Gravity's Rainbow that puts me off.

Also I got about 150 pages into Atlas Shrugged before deciding that life is too short to spend it reading bad books.

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I read Gravity's Rainbow in my precocious midteens, where standards are lower and brains midway through an epic rewiring. Even then, you have to take the book as seriously as it does itself (not very) and just go with it. So either de-age yourself* or read stoned in prolonged sessions with a selection of peroid 78s and snacks.

*instructions available on request

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Personally, I'm really bored with sex in literature, I have no problems with a romantic story and the journey towards the act, but once it's there, I'd be prefectly happy with "they fucked" and on to the next part of the story. Needless to say, Gravity's Rainbow just was not for me, in spite of its awesome title.

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The Twilight books - I ONLY attempted to read those books, just so the girlfreind would remain happy, and that it would lead me to a more open mind! Although, I must say It has lead to an open mind for me, mainly on how Meyers writes total crap! These novels nearl threw me off vampire fiction for good, no joke!

I read at least 12 pages just so I had a little more credibility when bashing it. After 12 pages there was no way I could read more though.

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Oh, I loved War and Peace and Crime and Punishment. Though honestly, I have yet to complete One Hundred Years of Solitude, and did not pass the first few pages of or Ulysses or Finnegans Wake :(But I am happy to have gotten past The Sound and the Fury, and was surprised a lot of people have trouble with it.

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I need to start reading all this Russian lit. Only thing I read so far is Laughter in the Dark by Nabokov(which was great, btw). I find a lot of the stuff they force you to read in school I end up liking later in life. I'm going through Shakespeare right now.

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the book of all hours series by hal duncan.

it 's a shame. i tried hard to like this but i couldn't get into it, after fifty pages or so i gave up and hid those two books behind other books. i don't like leaving books unfinished, specially if i buy them.

there are many books i haven't finished but i mean to return to those.... maybe, if i have time. ;P

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You just mentioned 3 of my total favorites. Kushiel, Werther (the opera, too), and Anna Karenina!!!

Hahaha, I am sorry. :) I think I could have got to the story in "Kushiel" had there been fewer Sues actually. I'm sure I could appreciate Werther as an opera, just not as a work of fiction since any form of suicide glorification makes me nerd rage. That said, I finished Young Werther, so I can't put it in among the "Could never finish" crowd.

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My 2011 New Year's resolution was to not read bad books--to force myself to stop reading a book if it was poorly written or simply not enjoyable. Before, I would force myself to finish terrible books simply because I felt guilty abawhndoning them. But I succeeded this year in stopping 2 books: a poorly written chick-lit ( un-remembered title), and Don Delillo's White Noise.

snow "new year, same resolve" leo

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I give up on books (and movies) all the time. All the time. I don't obligate myself to finish anything, including meals. And high school; I was a proud drop-out. So I'll just think of the books that I REALLY wanted to love and tried hard to plow through but couldn't.

My personal record is Gone With The Wind. I gave it a page and a half.

Gardens of the Moon or whatever the first Malazan book is called. I read a lot of it. More than I'd usually give a book that wasn't thrilling me. But I could see the whole series was going to be like that so I reluctantly set it down.

Kushiel's Dart. Morally and philosophically at odds with the story and knew I was going to hate all of the characters I was supposed to like.

Book of the New Sun. I may try again but way too dense for me at the time.

The Lions of Al-Rassan. I was really into Kay but at this point I'd had enough.

I actually threw this book across the room.

Woah now, a book you can throw is the best kind! I love hating on a book. The ones I hate I can finish. Last book I hated was Name of the Wind. But that was an e-book so the last one I actually got a chance to physically manhandle was Children of the Mind, the last Ender book. ARGH that book.

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