What books did you give up on?

FaustusRedux · 11 months

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I practice Zen, I love road trips, I have a father, and I have a son. And I've taken 3 running starts at this book and can't get past the first 20 pages.

sgards · 11 months

The Similarion.

Negative_Gravitas · 11 months

Atlas Shrugged. And never going back.

MemeTLDR · 11 months

The Alchemist. I got about three fourths of the way through and it seemed like a much drawn out children's story. It wasn'y in anyway thought provoking and it seemed very repetitive. I kept thinking that something would break through and they would go on some awesome adventure but they just kept traveling through desert....

lancemonkey · 11 months

The first book I gave up on was Atlas Shrugged. I read the first chapter several times over a span of years, and finally gave up. I just didn't care who John Galt was.

The last book I gave up on was (like you) Infinite Jest. I wanted to be one of the cool kids who sponge themselves at the mere mention of David Foster Wallace's name, but it just never captured my interest. I love long, involved stories, but only if they grab me from the start.

I may try to go back to it someday, but, life is short, and there are so many other books out there that do pull me in, that I don't see the point of wasting time on a book that doesn't do it for me.

Fresca_Is_Underrated · 11 months

Anything by Nicholas Sparks. I keep trying to read his novels because so many of my friends recommend them but I just don't see the appeal. They're all the same and they're all kind of boring.

Jesus_on_a_Tortilla · 11 months

50 Shades of Grey. The hell was I thinking???

Abandcalledmetallica · 11 months

Catch-22. Sorry, it wasn't for me, I Stopped at Major Major Major and I'll go back to it in about ten years, maybe I'll fully get it by then.

spinnelein · 11 months

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. I got through about half of it, but couldn't get into it.

dreamkonstantine · 11 months

The Lord of the Rings trilogy... I couldn't get past the page-long descriptions of every leaf in a forest.

yellomrs · 11 months

Moby Dick. Also Infinite Jest but I read DWF Brief Interviews with Hideous Men and Im up for another round. Other than that there is Being and Time by Martin Heidegger , wich I am preparing myself to read again by reading some of his other stuff.

Hyperventilater · 11 months

This thread is such a wonderful example of how vastly different individual preferences are.

It's quite amazing, really.

r0b0c0d · 11 months

'How to read a book'

I have no idea what I'm doing.

Blackrabite · 11 months

I cannot finish Gardens of the Moon. I always get the feeling like the author was trying as hard as he could to make me not care about or even remember as many of the characters as possible. Every person I know that has read the books tells me the same thing, "keep reading until the end of the second book, it all makes more sense then." I just can't do it.

stuckinabarrel · 11 months

Stephen King's first Dark Tower book. I was trying to give King a chance (or myself a chance to enjoy him, perhaps that's a more accurate description, it's not like he needs me to like his prose, after all). I acknowledge his impact as a public writer, his success as a major bestseller machine, and I have enjoyed some movies based on his work. This book is supposed to be him at the prime of his powers, but ... well, meh. This actually bothers me a bit, because I am generally a reader who is very good at focusing on the good parts of what I'm reading, but that left me cold.

I enjoyed On Writing as a memoir, though. One of these days I might give one of his conventional horror novels a go, recommendations are welcome if there are any King buffs out there.

When I think about it, I have in fact yet to finish The Yiddish Policemen's Union. I put it aside some time ago, and have yet to pick it up. I think Chabon is good at cooking up outlandish premises for his stories, and this book is probably his most outlandish yet, but I have to agree that I don't find his writing that engaging. I have read Gentlemen of the road and Kavalier and Clay and enjoyed them, and I didn't exactly dislike The Yiddish Policemen's Union, either, but it didn't grab me even if I found the odd premise kind of cool.

alexportnoy · 11 months

I gave up on Gravity's Rainbow when I naively started it just after graduating high school. That was a bad idea. But, perhaps thankfully, I held onto my copy and finally restarted and finished it last summer. I think that's the only time I actually abandoned a book mid-read. It had nothing to do with the subject so much, I just couldn't get past the style and, at the time, struggled to get a firm, entertained handle on what was going on. Some books are best saved for later.

verily_bruh · 11 months

The Scarlett Letter. I stopped after realizing I'd just read the same sentence 5 times on the first page.

EvaRee · 11 months

Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. I quite enjoy The Lovely Bones, but this one was just awful. I couldn't get past halfway. Other than that I gave up on Fellowship of the Ring. Tolkien, while a genius, is suuuuper descriptive.

KittyBombip · 11 months

The Road. It was too damn depressing.

MackeyBoogerlips · 11 months

Dracula. I enjoyed it, had no problems with it, but I ran out of gas for some reason. I wish I knew why.

CurlyAlex · 11 months

One Hundred Years of Solitude. So much happened but so little of it had any consequence.

snowleave · 11 months

The amber spyglass it didn't help that nothing made sense

Wannabeawriter · 11 months

The Sword of Truth series, about the 4th book in. It just seemed like the exact same plot, over and over, with way too much deus ex machina.

MYGODWHATHAVEIDONE · 11 months

The Two Towers. Extremely boring.

Littletrainthatcould · 11 months

Lord of the Flies, for a eighth grade reading assignment. Another book in our assignment was Night which is an amazing read.

Redspringer · 11 months

Savage Detectives by Bolano I think. Really wanted to like it.

Vegetarian_Meatloaf · 11 months

Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre. I know it's short, but it just bored the ever-loving-fuck out of me. It was like listening to schizophrenic voices.

snowleave · 11 months

[deleted]

littlechicken920 · 11 months

Wuthering Heights. I usually love stories from that time period...but the writing seemed to jump around so much. And Emily Bronte would have paragraphs of text talking about several characters but would refer to them all as 'he' or 'she'; so I never knew which character she was talking about. I gave it 50 pages and when I still didn't know what the frick was going on I gave up. Only book I've ever given up on.

WenchStench · 11 months

Tale of Two Cities. I gave it 75 pages and then literally threw it on the floor.

Mirror23 · 11 months

I gave up on House of Leaves. I went into it with high hopes because it was raved about on Reddit, but I couldn't get passed the boring, distracting, and often rambling footnotes and the needlessly academic tone.

alsothewalrus · 11 months

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

"He saw this fish, and this fish, and this fish, and this other fish, and this kelp, and this fish..."

cmackaing · 11 months

Ulysses (James Joyce) and A Clockwork Orange: as an American, I couldn't get past all the colloquial jargon and made up language respectively. Its hard to enjoy a book when you can't understand it. I will give both another go in the future.

JumalOnSurnud · 11 months

Naked Lunch - william s burrows. Completely unreadable I almost gave up on God Emperor or Dune, one of the tedious books i've ever suffered through.

psdtwk · 11 months

Snow Crash. The part where Hiro is discovering

Spoiler

I couldn't get past the nonsense.

Bigneak · 11 months

The Brothers Karamazov. I just didn't like the fact that after every page I finished I would be like "idk wtf these guys are talking about".

zip_000 · 11 months

Try another one of Chabon's - I'd say that one is his weakest.

The only book I gave up on was a Stephen King book called Blaze. It's about two guy - one of them is retarded - who make a plan to kidnap a baby for ransom. If I remember correctly, the non-retarded one dies, and the retarded one decides to go on with the plan anyway.

I had a new baby at home when I started reading it, and it just was making me feel very anxious so I dropped it.

MoonDaddy · 11 months

I also gave up on Ulysses but that doesn't mean I won't try again later. Maybe I should read the epic poem first.

not0your0nerd · 11 months

On The Road - it was like a meth addict telling me a never ending pointless story

Steppenwolf - all he talks about is wanting to die. I wanted to punch him half way through, but instead I just put the book down.

Art of the Master (came with Turn of the Screw) - quarter way through, felt like the story hadn't started yet. very boring.

Edit- accidentally forgot the "on" in "on the road"

Elbmirtneb · 11 months

The Stand by Steven King

0ld_thrashbarg · 11 months

Book 7 of the Sword of Truth series...The Pillars of Creation got about half way through and haven't picked it up in about 2 months, it was just so boring. Its a shame because the series started out so good. hopefully soon ill pick it up so i can attempt to finish the rest of the series.

CrystallineFrost · 11 months

Crime and Punishment. I hate to give up on books, but I found it so tedious at the time that I couldn't stay interested. When I fell asleep reading a few times I knew I wasn't going to be finishing it. Someday I will finish it.

triceratops3 · 11 months

The Catcher in The Rye.

I couldn't get over how absolutely ridiculous the whole scenario was

hamez3 · 11 months

The House of God by Samuel Shem. I tried to read it because I have a general interest in how hospitals operate and my girlfriend is starting med school in the fall, so I wanted to be able to at least have a feel for what she was talking about. I made it about half way through the book before getting sick of reading the same story over and over again with different patients. There is a chance i'll return to it later, but as of now there is 6 or so books ahead of it in my "to read" pile.

rube · 11 months

I've tried twice now and it just bores me.

gilesdudgeon · 11 months

A Passage to India. I enjoy Forster's writing a great deal, but the story just became too painful for me and I had to put it down.

I also gave up on Little, Big many years ago (from boredom), but I plan to try again one of these days.

heshballs2 · 11 months

Gulliver's travels, forced my way through the first tale and part way through the next before I called it quits. It may have just been my edition but it was not fun to read.

dorky2 · 11 months

The first time I read Huckleberry Finn I didn't make it all the way through; I was in 8th grade and had loved Tom Sawyer and Connecticut Yankee and the Prince and the Pauper, but Huck Finn was too much for me at the time. Also, Moby-fucking-Dick. I don't even think I'll try to read that again.

istillhatecraig · 11 months

The only one I've given up on is Of Human Bondage. I really loved the first half or so but couldn't force myself through after a little further.

miss_jessi · 11 months

Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley.

I love Huxley, but I could not get myself past the first four chapters. It was probably because I had read Catch-22 and Slaughterhouse Five right before cracking that one open (and those two became my favorite books), but I couldn't get myself past the first four chapters.

kendrahwithanh · 11 months

Beloved
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
The Poisonwood Bible

I read all three of them recently about halfway through and just could not finish them. For Beloved it's like, I really want to like Toni Morrison. I just... don't. At all.

[deleted] · 11 months

JR and A Paradise Built in Hell

I really like the idea of the plot of JR, and I am generally not shy of ambiguity, but I hated how much time I had to spend trying to figure out whether something was narration or dialogue given the author used no quotation marks. The way the story flits about character to character like a fly wandering dish to dish at a picnic made it really difficult for me to follow.

A Paradise Built in Hell sounded like a great idea for a non-fiction book, but it turned out too repetitive for me.

tjh213 · 11 months

wow, i feel a little better about myself after reading all the other people who also threw in the towel on infinite jest. i love moby dick, but i was in my late thirties when i read it. that's the great thing about books: they're not going anywhere. we can always give certain ones another shot when we're older.

Sevidicalone · 11 months

I almost gave up in Infinite Jest around the 150 page mark, but now that I have 350 down, I am never looking back. Amazing story, intriguing characters, and a great mix of pleasure and pain. You don't even meet all the characters until 300 pages or so I believe so I can see why some give up, but so far it has been a trip.

iyla · 11 months

The wind up bird - Probably a mistake, but i just couldn't get into it. No matter how hard I tried.

Shirley - I really enjoyed Jane Eyre, so I figure I'd give this one a try. I got bored with it pretty quickly.

AbsintheHaze · 11 months

Anna Karenina. It was so long and boring and such a tiny typeface. If felt cold and tedious.

h3rcules · 11 months

Most recently:

Beloved by Toni Morrison ... I simply cannot relate to any of the characters, they just do the exact opposite of what I would have done, and blame it completely on the mentality of the time...which isn't Morrison's fault for being authentic.

Midnight's Children by S. Rushdie ...I really did enjoy the first parts, but after awhile, all the characters started running together, and I had to stop. I fully intend to go back to it though.

ActofMercy · 11 months

Both On the Road, and Dharma Bums by Kerouac. They are stories of mostly ordinary people written like the life they lead is the best way. I want much more than recounting in my novels, I want introspection and analysis.

sugarandpcp · 11 months

The Sookie Stackhouse novels. Everyone on the planet just loves them but me. Everytime I tried to read some of them it was the equivalent of nails running down a chalkboard.

dcpoc1985 · 11 months

I've failed to finish the Hobbit, many times. Have completed LOTR tho.

I gave up on The Wheel of Time series (having read a decent number).

Stopped midway through Let The Right One In, but plan to try again.

Currently reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy, 40 pages in. I will finish.

tjv72394 · 11 months

Pale Fire... It was brilliant, but I am not on that reading level. Or at least I wasn't at the time.

springbroke · 11 months

The Bell Jar. I tried to force myself through it but it was just way too self-deprecating for me

ScumEater · 11 months

Summerland by Chabon. I wtf'ed myself through the first 40 or so pages until I realized it was just total bullshit and gave up. Too bad, he's normally excellent.

Matter by Iain M/ Banks turns out I should have read the two proceeding books in the series. Who knew? The top review on Amazon states, "This book has a very complex plot and a huge cast of characters. The Glossary and Cast of Characters alone are nearly 20 pages." Very well written but kind of a slog, so it sits...

Zodiac by Neal Stephenson I disliked the main character right from the start and never cared about anything that happened to him. I loved Diamond Age and Snow Crash so I assumed I'd like this but it just annoyed me. I later tried Cryptonomicon and was just overwhelmed by it immediately and gave up on page 11. I need to try these books again I think.

Other ways to get me to give up on a book?

Gratuitous sex scenes or worse female masturbation scenes by male authors. See Peter Straub's, Julia. Threw it right in the garbage. So bad.
Balding, heavyset, paunchy losers who stumble their way to some kind of success or solve a crime (against all odds, duh.)
Baseball stories by famous authors reliving their childhood in a fit of midlife crisis. (They all do it. Look it up. You'll see).
Introducing more than a few characters in the first chapter and then refusing to give them any characteristics other than a name to set them apart. See Ghost Story. Peter Straub

failgiraffe · 11 months

Flatland. It was like reading a rule-book.

hope-hubris · 11 months

I gave up on Moby Dick. I tried 3 or 4 times to get into it but gave up eventually.

Celestialkat2 · 11 months

Perdido Street Station. That book actually has the honor of being the only book none of my book club members finished. Farthest one person got was halfway through.

stephentkennedy · 11 months

1Q84--and I've read every other book by Murakami.

reality_bites · 11 months

Wheel of Time. It's the only series of books that I have given up on. I have some pretty bad books, but that series really frustrated me. There were some great plot lines lost in the minutiae of an author who seems to have worked without an editor.

RealHero · 11 months

House of Leaves. As a law student, it was too much effort to skip to other pages, and reading footnotes for fun isn't fun when you do it 4 hours a day.

soundfurious · 11 months

No Country For Old Men. Couldn't stand it. It was too bizarre writing for my tastes. And trying to decipher what was being said and not said and what was being described was irritating. I READ FOR PLEASURE. NOT TORTURE. >.>

emc2x27 · 11 months

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I tried it twice and both times couldn't get past the part where they meet the duke and dauphin.

ijustwanttotaco · 11 months

Naked lunch

RenegadeGeophysicist · 11 months

I gave up on Naked Lunch. Just wasn't into it at that point in my life.

SaneDunk · 11 months

I gave up on Lord of the Flies, not sure if I want to go back and give it another try. I think it was something about the writing style that put me off.

Should I give it another try?

juspeter · 11 months

I have given up on books temporarily in order to start other books I become more interested in. Sometimes, it's done in shame.

For instance, I own Lovecraft's complete works, and wanted to start diving into that. However, I recently got a copy of John Dies at the End, and I cannot stop reading this wonderful book.

you'll need to login or register to do that

create a new account

privacy philosophy

login