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As per the title of this thread, discuss books you've given up reading. The first book I've ever stopped reading is David Copperfield. I was in seventh grade and I knew that Dickens was considered an important author, so I withdrew it from the library. I didn't know how boring Dickens is. To my credit, I made it 300 pages in (out of 870) before dropping it for something more interesting. Lately, I've been trying to read Nightwood by Djuna Barnes, but I just can't. My copy of the book has an introduction by T.S. Eliot in which he says "only sensibilities trained on poetry can appreciate it," and I'm not that kind of person. The prose is willfully dense and pretentious, which is a shame, because the story beneath it seems interesting.
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Oct 10, 2017 20:34
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Just gave up on Mary Beard's SPQR. It was surprisingly light on facts and chronological history, and instead highlighted themes across centuries. It also explained Roman jokes way, way too much. It seemed to be aimed at some mythical low brow who would buy a history of Rome but would get annoyed by any in-depth analysis. So yeah, on to something else.
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Oct 10, 2017 23:25
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I tried and tried and tried to read C.J. Cherryh's Foreigner, which gets talked up a lot, and just couldn't get into it. I actually liked the story in the first two parts that the publisher requested she add. But once we get past that it was basically sitting in a whiny characters head while he fussed over what to do. I'm usually ok with books that all about what the characters think, but I really couldn't connect with the main character and anytime the story started to get interesting Cherryh would go on another spree of writing about the main character worrying about something. Also, Cherryh's writing style just did not agree with me. Look at this sentence: quote:Stowing that, with best hopes for Estevez, he drew his square, pegging one-meter lines on a plastic grid, took up his handheld recorder, and began counting ordinary grasses-there was a type, Lawton argued, that, with 136 grains per ear on average, showed evidence of artificial selection, probably had drifted from cultivated fields, and that might let them, at a safe distance, gather information on the edibility for humans of what natives cultivated. I mean, sure, it's just one sentence out of a decent sized book and it is one of the more egregious examples of her style, but it seems like she just loved inserting as much unnecessary information as she could in each sentence. Fighting through her writing style for a plot that I just didn't care about made me dump it.
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Oct 13, 2017 07:42
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So I made a terrible mistake and tried to read Jefferson Davis' The Fall of the Confederate states (mostly because I wanted to discover for my self what the hell was wrong with the Confederacy). That book is an amazing combination of idiotic whining combined with absolute evil. I gave up shortly after his explanation of how Mean Ol' Abraham Lincoln took all his slaves.
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Oct 13, 2017 10:05
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Chapterhouse: Dune I actually really liked all the Dune books up through God Emperor, which basically wrapped up the entire series perfectly and would have been one of the best endings to a series ever... but then he went and wrote two more that basically felt like fanfiction. I've never read any of the non-Frank Herbert sequels, but if they're worse than Bene Gesserit and Evil Bene Gesserit arguing over who has the superior sexual kung-fu, they must be truly heinous. I specifically stopped reading Chapterhouse at a line to the effect of "I bet you don't even know the seven secret methods of vaginal pulsation!"
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Oct 13, 2017 21:14
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The Divinci code. That dumb rear end, guess who the bad guy really is by half way garbage. Made me realise how retarded the general public Is, everybody raving about a bog standard "thriller" which was basically "babbies first grown up book"
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Oct 15, 2017 04:41
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Been on a bit of an Arthur C Clarke kick recently and really enjoyed Rendezvous With Rama. I thought I'd check out the sequel. Christ, that was a bad call. It just got to a point where I thought "why am I sloggign through some half cocked, saturday afternoon soap opera budget crime story?". Throw in some weird Christian poo poo and and pacing that feels like trying to eat a bowl of mud and I just bailed out. I was so relieved to find out it was some other idiot that wrote it and ACC just put his name to it. Also, the new movie reminded me that I slogged through Stephen King's IT. I managed it in fits and starts, but that book is hard to digest and I nearly quit twice. Some great moments but it felt like wading through custard in places.
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Oct 15, 2017 12:22
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504 posted:The Divinci code. I remember reading it when I was 15, getting to "the mysterious codex the world's smartest minds could never decipher" and shouting "it's 'apple', you idiots, the answer is obviously 'apple'" over and over again at the page.
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Oct 16, 2017 09:54
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I tried at least three times to get into the Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Last time I got about 50 pages in and was just bored. I had an old coworker whose tastes I respected and it was his all-time favorite book so I figured there must be something to it, but I'll be damned if I've figured out the allure.
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Oct 16, 2017 15:09
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504 posted:The Divinci code. I started reading the Da Vinci Code and forgot to finish it. I was bored out of my mind but pushed on because I'd bought it, then one day I put it down and completely forgot to pick it up again. To this day I have no idea what happened to my copy.
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Oct 16, 2017 16:05
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I used to defend Deception Point as the one good thing Dan Brown wrote but then I reread it when I wasn't like 13 and nope, its garbage too The most recent book I gave up on is Steinbeck's Tales of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, but I do intend to return to it.
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Oct 16, 2017 17:31
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Cyteen because it was boring and pointless and tedious
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Oct 16, 2017 18:56
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my bony fealty posted:I used to defend Deception Point as the one good thing Dan Brown wrote but then I reread it when I wasn't like 13 and nope, its garbage too Anyhow, for me it's The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton; I started it several times because the premise interested me, always read in short batches and always ended up reaching for something else in the interim only to return realizing I have no idea where I was.
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Oct 16, 2017 20:14
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I've been trudging through War and Peace for a month and a half. I'm halfway through and I enjoy reading it for the most part, but don't care at all about it when I'm not holding it. I just picked up a couple of fascinating nonfiction works and I wouldn't be surprised if I never end up finishing W&P
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Oct 17, 2017 03:52
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blue squares posted:I've been trudging through War and Peace for a month and a half. I'm halfway through and I enjoy reading it for the most part, but don't care at all about it when I'm not holding it. I tried to read it back in highschool because I heard it was like A Song of Ice and Fire... I didn't last very long. I picked it up again last month and enjoyed it a lot, though. Keep it up, it's worth it. 504 posted:The Divinci code. That reminds me: gently caress The Pillars of the Earth. It was like reading a thousand page Saturday morning cartoon.
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Oct 17, 2017 07:48
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Interestingly.. I loved pillars. Not actually interesting.
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Oct 17, 2017 09:20
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I gave up trying to read Name of the Wind pretty early on and turned to one of the many hate reads online.504 posted:The Divinci code. I thought the big deal about the DaVinci Code was introducing the Holy Blood Holy Grail Pierre Plantard conspiracy theories to the general American public, not the quality of the book itself. That almost seemed incidental. I'd have to go back and read some news coverage about it but I remember that being the focus. Dog_Meat posted:Been on a bit of an Arthur C Clarke kick recently and really enjoyed Rendezvous With Rama. I thought I'd check out the sequel. That's Gentry Lee, who cocreated the original Cosmos and was the chief engineer on the Viking space probe, and now chief engineers the JPL. Guess none of that translates to writing chops, lol
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Oct 17, 2017 19:55
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Stephen King's Insomnia. I got about a third of the way through and stopped. That was in 1995. Also, Asimov's Foundation. I am finding the dialogue difficult to swallow.
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Oct 17, 2017 22:46
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Lightning Lord posted:I thought the big deal about the DaVinci Code was introducing the Holy Blood Holy Grail Pierre Plantard conspiracy theories to the general American public, not the quality of the book itself. That almost seemed incidental. Maybe in the news, I found everyone I met that read it thought it was the absolute height of western litarature and i even saw people sitting around discussing it like.. It was worth discussing.. all wearing the "What a deep discussion we are having" looks on their faces. It just stuck in my craw that people that would in all seriousness ask me "Why do you read??" suddenly seemed to think they had Stuambled across the next war and peace.
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Oct 18, 2017 00:47
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Mister Kingdom posted:Also, Asimov's Foundation. I am finding the dialogue difficult to swallow. isaac asimov was a bad writer who wrote bad books
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Oct 18, 2017 04:24
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Lightning Lord posted:
Really? God drat, that makes it so much worse. How can someone with a real science background like that end up writing something that feels like All My Circuits in space? Such a bizarrely awful book. Incompetent people are picked for the most important scientific mission in the history of the species, a tepid murder "mystery" and astronauts consult with the pope for advice.
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Oct 18, 2017 07:14
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Dog_Meat posted:Really? God drat, that makes it so much worse. How can someone with a real science background like that end up writing something that feels like All My Circuits in space? Such a bizarrely awful book. Incompetent people are picked for the most important scientific mission in the history of the species, a tepid murder "mystery" and astronauts consult with the pope for advice. It's hard to believe that an engineer isn't very good at writing fiction
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Oct 18, 2017 09:40
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504 posted:Interestingly.. I thought it was terrible, it constantly went through the same loop of "the evil bishop and his dumb minion plot against the good guys, their plan gets thwarted every time" like a literal Saturday morning cartoon. Throw in some rape and bad history and that basically sums it up. (I did finish reading it though, I just wish I hadn't)
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Oct 18, 2017 10:06
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A human heart posted:It's hard to believe that an engineer isn't very good at writing fiction I was more surprised that an engineer would attempt to write fiction that wasn't cold, hard sci fi.
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Oct 18, 2017 12:16
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I LOVED Tolstoy's War and Peace. It was incredibly in-depth, psychological, and deterministic in just the way that clicked with all of my sensibilities. It was a life-changing read for me. So I picked up Anna Karenina and it was just a dull slog all the way through. It was about an extramarital affair and somehow managed to be as boring and passionless as possible. I got as far as the horse race and knew exactly what it was foreshadowing and where the book was going to go and just put it down and never picked it up again.
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Oct 18, 2017 12:23
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Elman posted:I thought it was terrible, it constantly went through the same loop of "the evil bishop and his dumb minion plot against the good guys, their plan gets thwarted every time" like a literal Saturday morning cartoon. Throw in some rape and bad history and that basically sums it up. I did enjoy that I admit, but I enjoyed watching the same group of people for several decades. Never read any of his other books, any good?
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Oct 18, 2017 12:29
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I found every paragraph of London Orbital an ordeal and got nothing out of it, so stopped a few dozen pages in.
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Oct 22, 2017 23:06
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the crying of lot 49 pynchon can suck my rear end
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Oct 23, 2017 00:27
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God Hole posted:I got as far as the horse race and knew exactly what it was foreshadowing and where the book was going to go and just put it down and never picked it up again. The book isn't really about Karenina's misery and suicide but about Tolstoy's alter ego's philosophical musings hth
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Oct 23, 2017 10:28
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I gave up on "The Catcher in the Rye"
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Oct 24, 2017 06:04
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God Hole posted:I LOVED Tolstoy's War and Peace. It was incredibly in-depth, psychological, and deterministic in just the way that clicked with all of my sensibilities. It was a life-changing read for me. Oddly enough I try to never put down a book I start but War and Peace ended up one of my few exceptions. It wasn't that it wasn't great, I thought it was fantastic as I was reading it but one of the characters reminded me so much of a childhood friend that I had to just put the book down every time he showed up because I just kept thinking that that's exactyly what he would've done.
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Oct 24, 2017 08:18
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I quit Inkheart shortly after Dustfinger's somehow-dull pyrotechnic show. God, that was a boring book, and the dialogue was awful. We get it, these people like books, you don't have to inject it into literally all of their spoken dialogue.
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Oct 24, 2017 12:23
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oldpainless posted:I gave up on "The Catcher in the Rye" I've read it twice, once for "fun," and once because I had to. I don't blame you.
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Oct 24, 2017 13:34
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Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Some goon assigned it to me as my wildcard for the Booklord Challenge this year but it's 2500 pages and is "easier to understand if you watch a 95 episode miniseries alongside it". I read the first 250 pages and gave up, it is the reason why I basically gave up on the Booklord Challenge this year. lol I also gave up on The Catcher in the Rye. I read it when I was younger, and quit during a re-read as an adult because the character was just insufferable. I gave up on Stephen King's The Dark Half because I thought it sucked
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Oct 24, 2017 18:36
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The Berzerker posted:Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong. Some goon assigned it to me as my wildcard for the Booklord Challenge this year
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Oct 24, 2017 20:56
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Snuff, by Terry Pratchett. I've tried reading it twice now, and dropped it earlier the second time despite knowing that I didn't like it. Vimes is my favorite Discworld character, followed by Granny Weatherwax, but hoooooo my loving god that book is insufferable. Thud! was already going a bit too far in glorifying Vimes for my taste, but every other conversation in Snuff involves Vimes lecturing someone about what it really means to be a copper and it loving blows. Vimes isn't a good guy - he's a bad guy who forces himself to do good things, so I was hoping that him coming off as holier than thou would be a plot point but instead it's just the Vimes button being hit over and over and over again. There's also just a lot of weird nonsense in the book. There's one scene that's a big Jane Austen reference where Vimes helps some woman come up with the entire genre of detective fiction. I didn't finish it, but it seemed to be a completely disconnected scene that had no relevance ever again. I didn't care for the goblin plot... it really seemed like Pratchett just went "oh, poo poo, we didn't do one humanizing the uhhhh goblins, let's get on that." Vimes was getting super emotional about the goblins, why was he getting emotional before the harp scene, god it just pisses me off. It's even more unfortunate that Pratchett probably hated the book way more than I did, too. Even when he was getting blasted with mental problems, he still managed to write something better and more coherent than I could.
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Oct 24, 2017 21:33
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What I always liked about Romance of Three Kingdoms is that I read it in high school after playing Dynasty Warriors on PS2 and was like "I know the book is gonna be nothing like the game but I still want to read it." And then every chapter is like "Zhang Ye ran down on horseback and killed thirty men in one swipe" and I am like oh my god its just like the game
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Oct 24, 2017 22:01
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oldpainless posted:I gave up on "The Catcher in the Rye" high school students manage it, whats your excuse
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Oct 24, 2017 23:30
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A human heart posted:high school students manage it, whats your excuse I don’t get graded on it
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Oct 25, 2017 14:38
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I could imagine Catcher in the Rye being a difficult read once you are an adult since its basically the bible of teenage angst
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Oct 25, 2017 16:07
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