What books have you started to read but couldnt finished? Or are there books that you had to read (for school for example) or you didnt like and forceed yourself to finish? Books I was forced to read and did not enjoy The Lord of the Flies by William Golding The Spire by William Golding Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson Books I forced myself to finish Cell by Stephen King (even though he is one of my favourite authors, this book I had to force myself to read it to the end) Lost on Mars by Paul Magrs xxx
Started to read but didn't finish. Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy: Used to love Tom Clancy but, imo, he both ran out of ideas and let his ego effect his writing. Red Rabbit I found to be full of snipes at anything and everything non-american. Got about half way through and binned it. Last thing of his I ever read. Forced to read and didnt enjoy. The Handmaids Tale: Had to study it for A Level. Forced myself to finish Executive Orders by Tom Clancy. This is when his work really started to go downhill imo. Clancy used to be known for having great insight in to the military (actualy, this was more attributed to his advsiors but none the less) and I once met a real life spy who recommended reading Red Storm Rising as it was considered a very good approximation of what a NATO Warsaw Pact war would be like. However, in Executive Orders the stuff that he was coming out with was just utterly ludicrous and I face palmed more than once.
Anything by Jane Austen I had to read in high school. That was torture. Some of the Russian classics I just couldn't finish. Overwrought melodrama! And oh yes, Les Miserables! Very well written, but not my cup of tea.
Simply did not finish: The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien. It's basically a religious text for Middle Earth. I don't do religious texts. Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen R. Donaldson. Skeeved me the fuck out. Spoiler: Why I didn't finish Lord Foul's Bane Books I was forced to read and did not enjoy (at the time): Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, The Red Pony, Cannery Row, all by John Steinbeck. So depressing to my 18 year-old self.* These were all on the syllabus for my AP English class, senior year of high school. And as though the Universe were conspiring to remonstrate me for my youthfully myopic perception of things, I graduated high school and (after a few weeks at basic training) attended the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, CA, which is basically Steinbeck Land. Books I forced myself to finish Iron Council by China Miéville. It's the third in his Bas Lag trilogy. The first two books were phenomenal, but this last one took me almost a year to finish. I love you China Miéville. I would be the first man to have a uterus implanted in my body just to have your babies, but this book was like pulling teeth to finish. And, amazingly, the MC was gay, so one would think that I would have been balls deep in this book, but the unmitigated clobberotomy of political polemic in the form of a spectacularly stretched metaphor was just more than I could bear. * Needless to say, my opinion has changed over the course of the 30-odd years since I was made to read those books.
I couldn't agree more on Iron Council, though I wasn't crazy about The Scar either. Too much of here comes threat #1 (Oh-no! We're all gonna die!), threat #2 (Oh-no! We're all gonna die!), threat #3 (Oh-no! We're all gonna die!), etc.... By about the seventh or eighth threat I had trouble taking any of the conflict seriously. I couldn't stand Bellis. The only thing I could root for was her death and found myself disappointed every time I turned a page and she was still alive. Books that I've tried to complete multiple times but never could: Sophie's Choice (ungodly long paragraphs filled with minutia), the second Game of Thrones (barf-o-rama), From a Buick 8 by Stephen King (What. Was. That???), Tess of the D'ubervilles (not sure what happened with that one... think I lost my attention span for 19th Century classics), and something by Ken Follet... can't remember what it was or why but my mom always tells the story of how I called her up and launched into a 20 minute diatribe about why it was the worst thing I'd ever tried to read... I have no memory of any of this... I was maybe 19 at the time.
Started to read, couldn't finish: I remember some book called Sanibel Flats, I can't even be arsed to look up the author now, but it was some dime-store thriller/crime/mystery type book that was just awful. The MC was just a total Marty Stu who did everything perfectly, the story was a flimsy vehicle for gratuitous sex and violence. I only got about 20 pages into it before giving up. Started to read, shouldn't have finished but did because it was so-bad-it's-good and I couldn't tear my eyes away: Anything by Dan Brown falls into this category for me. Also a book called The Art of Racing in the Rain, which was really popular a few years ago. They're terrible books, I know how terrible they are, and yet their terribleness is such that it ends up being strangely compelling in a rage-inducing sort of way. Forced to finish: Brothers Karamazov I made myself finish, I didn't think it was bad really, I just think at that age (16 or so) it was way over my head. I was forced to read The Castle for class, I do love Kafka immensely but man that was a slog. There's a scene in that book where the MC has some really important information revealed to him but during the long, winding speech he's listening to he ends up falling asleep. I myself fell asleep while reading that passage, some sort of meta-commentary in there somewhere. Didn't finish, but should have: Foucault's Pendulum, it's really terrific if somewhat dense, I'm really ashamed I never had the time to finish it. One of these days I will, then maybe the insomnia will finally leave me...
The list of books I haven't finished is almost as long as the list of books I HAVE finished! And with a few exceptions, I'm still planning to finish them.
I normally force myself to finish any book that I start, even if they're absolute rubbish, or really boring. But one book that I've been reading for three years now (it's been gathering dust on my table and I haven't picked it up in at least two years) is The Iliad. I just cannot get through it. It's one long poem. Sentences never seem to end. Half of the words don't mean anything to me. When I'm halfway through a page, which is only one sentence sometimes, I've already forgotten what happened at the beginning of the page. I really do not like it. But since it's still on my table, I am still reading it. So I haven't given up on it yet.
Moby Dick. I've talked to 4 others who have also started and not finished this book. I thought it was garbage.
In school, if they forced me to read something I couldn't get into...I usually just failed those tests. Great Gatsby always comes to mind, My Brother Sam is Dead is another. I actually sort books like this on my Goodreads shelves haha. Here are the ones that are of note (in my opinion), either because of the popularity of the book, or the reason I set it down. -Summer Tree. Introduced too many characters at once, and once I got a hold of the premise, I just wasn't interested. -Shadow of The Torturer had a very interesting start but it devolved into meandering nonsense. Most books I'll put down pretty early but this is one of the few where I read more than half before I was done. -Echoes of Honor/Ashes of Honor. I tried with this series. I really did. Epic space war is going on, with pivotal battles that the readers aren't privy to seeing, but let's talk about teaching cats sign language instead. -Tower Lord. I thought Blood Song was a fine book, but this sequel was *mindbogglingly* boring. -Seveneves was another book with an interesting premise that held me on for a while (about half of the very...very long book), but there was toooo much detail and scientific explanation and when I'm skimming clumps of pages at a time to get to plot, I'm done reading your book. I try to be fair. I also have a special shelf for books that lost me partway through but I recognize it may have been my state of mind at the time that made me set them down (stress at day job, difficult break up, or just having read multiple far better books).
I couldn't bring myself to finish Needful Things, by Stephen King. I felt that it was a far cry from his other works; I found it boring, predictable and far from enjoyable compared to pieces like Pet Sematary or Christine. Maybe it was just me... I don't think I ever finished I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings in high school... mainly 'cause I didn't have time. That had nothing to do with the quality of the book.
It gets worse - according to wikipedia in the second book the illearth war he Spoiler returns to 'the land' and meets Elena, his daughter by the rape of Lena.... she bears him no ill will and they become good friends (eeuuuww) .... this just the wiki summary and I feel skeeved out - and the end his daughter gets killed but hes able to save himself by magic and returns to the mortal realm ... jesus christ enough already there are no less than 10 books featuring the nasty little shit who we are supposed to accept as a reluctant hero despite Spoiler his being a scumbag rapist, and no he doesn't die horribly at the end of book 10)
Book I chose on my own and could not finish: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott. I'm sorry. I just couldn't take it anymore. Books I chose on my own and forced myself to finish: The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson. For the same reasons as Ivanhoe, but this was immediately following the failed Ivanhoe experience and I didn't want to quit two books in a row. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I loved loved 1984 so why did I hate this book? I honestly don't know. Book I was forced to read: As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner. Torture. A Heartbreaking Work of a Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. A few funny moments, but otherwise mostly torture and by the end I felt like I was on a drug trip.
Books I started but couldn't force myself finish: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I have never regretted opening a book more in my life. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Allegiant by Veronica Roth. I made it through the first two but couldn't stomach the third. Inheritance by Christopher Paolini. I had been waiting so long for this book at that point I just read the last few chapters to see how it ended. The Hobbit by JRRT Books I have a love/ hate relationship with: The whole Lord of the Rings trilogy by JRRT The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. This entire book was depressing. Jason (the son) is the only character who saved it for me. I can appreciate a good asshole protagonist.
So many of you are so much better read than me! I'm struck, though, by how many books that I've loved are on the "not finished" or "hated" lists of others including The Hobbit, The Grapes of Wrath, The Red Pony, Cannery Row, and Lord of the Flies--loved all of those (although I concur in disliking Jane Austen, Stephen King, and Brave New World). I used to feel an obligation to finish a book that I started (like finishing what was on my plate because of the starving children). No more. Most recently (1 1/2'years ago) I hated Purity by Jonathan Franzen and kept reading expecting (hoping) it to get better. It didn't, and I bailed about a third of the way through--horrible!
Please do not take this as snarky/ sarcastic because I am genuinely interested in what you enjoyed about The Grapes of Wrath. I know the historical context is appealing to some but those I've spoken to who were like "Woo Grapes of Wrath!" are few and far between.
Well, I didn't finish reading through the epilogue, which is apparently necessary, so I guess I technically didn't finish it? Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None. I do bite my thumb, sir, at anyone who can say to me with a straight face that this is Agatha Christie's masterpiece. Not only did Miss Christie's "masterpiece" boast a horribly dull cast of characters and the most painfully redundant plot sequencing I've ever seen, but it also spit in the face of everything that makes a murder mystery fun for me. A murder mystery, to me, is a veritable game between author and reader. Clues are presented with any degree of subtly or blatancy that is needed as they are discovered by our sleuth and we are allowed to know what our protagonist knows to see if we can deduce what our protagonist deduces. But without a proper POV character to even so much as attempt to act as an amateur sleuth and the nearly complete and utter lack of actual "clues" to speak of, I am hesitant to call And Then There Were None a murder mystery rather than a mystery thriller that just entirely skimped out on the mystery.
Read it in college, so a long, long time ago. Remember loving Steinbeck, admiring his writing, the richness of his prose, descriptiveness, the sheer power of his words. Maybe if I read it now (40 years later) I wouldn't like it. These days I lean more towards "grit lit" than literary.
BTW, another thought on this, it occurs to me that what books we love/hate or don't finish might have a lot to do with what age/life stage we are at when we read a particular book. I was the age of the boys in The Lord of The Flies when I read that book, a young adult hitchhiking across Canada while reading Tolkien's Hobbitt and trilogy.
Until I was say 50 I always finished a book that I had started reading. But then, life is too short to have fix ideas. Five months ago I decided I should write something. To practice I will write short stories, and I will to cover most genres in the workshop. If I am going to do any YA, I will have to read such stuff. So I have been at library, I mailed and got a name and time to meet one of the librarians that specialize in youth literature. The last two months I have read about 1000 pages of swedish YA and 2500 pages of English YA. For the first time in my life I actually feel I am not reading them, I am studying them. Sometimes the story is good enough that I finish them, sometimes (usually) I stop after one book (of 3,4,5) sometimes I stop after half the book. But I stop when I think I have enough. I read maybe half of the first book of "UGLY" (I think the English title is, I read it in Swedish). It wasn't bad, I just got enough. Just now I am reading "The red queen", I think it's a series but I will not read more than the first book. -- I didn't really understand the librarian when she sort of warned me that some of these books are hard to read if you are an adult. Now I understand why. But I have had great fun. Maybe you shouldn't see it is a failure not finishing a book, the real failure is not starting to read it.
I almost always finish. The last book I read, which I won't mention by name, was a shovel full of $#!, but I got through it. What I did is switch to editing mode and tried to learn from its mistakes. You can learn a lot by studying others. The most painful lessons are best learned through someone else. For this book, I would have made a couple thousand sentence- and phrase-level edits (not an exaggeration). I feel bad about it though. It was a translation, so I think something was lost in coming to English (as in, everything). The translator had NO voice. None. Every rookie mistake was in there. It was like reading a stack of middle school essays. Still, I finished it. In the last decade or so, I can only remember two books that I couldn't get through. I don't remember their names . . . One kept making political jabs, and I hate that sort of thing. They were completely out of place with no bearing on the material. I don't mind an aggressive tone if it fits the character, but I LOATHE authorial bolt-from-the-blue preaching. It shows contempt for the reader. The other book I gave up on was some sort of real-life possession stories. The devil on your doorstep, that sort of thing. It was supposed to be real-life recountings but was so obviously fiction. You ever listen to those callers on Coast-To-Coast? They're talking about the mothership and radio signals in their dentures, and they have this certain tone; it can only be called plastic. Like the mold is already made and they're filling it, and you wonder how mentally ill this person is. That's how the book was. Awful, awful, awful. I remember where I ended . . . There's some sort of haunted trailer (which reminds me of an Alfred Hitchcock story I read as a kid), but of course this is more malevolent. The guy/gal flees to the parents' house, and then they say: "Your mother and I have been talking. We think you have a poltergeist." What! So stupid . . . No one would ever say this. I was hoping it was like Father Malachi's book. It has five possessions in it. It's immaculate. You have all of these historical details and a voice of sincerity. If the setting and characters are alive, then the plot lives. Everything in this book was plausible, the author had authority (hmm . . . that's redundant), and you believed it all. It was written during the 70's Devil Craze too, even better. Hostage to the Devil
I never finished Infinite Jest. I desperately wanted to, because I thought it would illustrate (to myself) my literary prowess. I was relatively young and just coming into my intellectualism in my new-found adulthood. But I couldn't get into it. The book just felt pretentious and meaningless. I kept waiting for the story to pick up and it didn't. I ended up researching a bit about David Foster Wallace, and realized that he was probably just too intelligent for me. The gags went over my head in a way that made them unenjoyable. I felt like I was at the butt of the joke, which I suspect is kind of the point of the book, in hindsight. Maybe someday I'll go back to it and revel in its brilliance, but there's just so much literature out there that I know I will enjoy. It's hard to imagine dedicating what little time I have to something I'm struggling to enjoy.
Could not finish: 5th HP, Harry was too whiny. 50 Shades, you all know why. Angelmass, Zahn got boring in the middle. Plan on finishing: Weave World Wired Kingdom The Foundation Trilogy Star Soldiers Forced to finish: Tease Me (Book 1) Bet Me (Joint Review). Hotel Death: The Chosen One At least I have a healthy stack on my reading pile on top of the ones I still need to finish.
I've enjoyed quite a few Stephen King books in my day (mostly his pre-2000's work), but I could not make it though Dreamcatcher for anything. It started out okay but went off the rails a little less than halfway through. I think I wound up selling it to Half Price Books. According to Wiki, in 2014 King told Rolling Stone magazine that he didn't like Dreamcatcher much either, attributing the poor writing to being high as eff on Oxycodone while recovering from being hit by a car.
