Books you didn't finish

[Mattyj]

How far in were you when you gave up? I struggled with this book for the first 100 pages or so, but after that it was brilliant.

...I didn't get too far - 70 pages, maybe. I will give it another try as I really do want to read it. I hear great things about the book and I think if I can just get into it I'll enjoy it. Thanks very much - I will start it again and keep what you said in mind.

 

[Violanthe]

I just decided to put down Laurell K. Hamilton's Stroke of Midnight after only getting about a tenth of the way through. It's opening scene was just too absurd for me.

 

[MonkeyCatcher]

I tried Catch-22 again, but gave up at about the 80-page mark. It was funny and I could see myself enjoying it, but I just wasn't in the mood - the unusual writing style meant the book required a bit more attention than I was willing to give.

 

[KristoCat]

Monkeycatcher,

Catch-22 was a book I tried and failed to read, too. For me it wasn't the level of concentration that was the problem--it was the humor. It wasn't funny to me, it was actually just depressing and disappointing. I didn't engage with any of the characters either (maybe for this reason) and that killed the whole thing for me.

 

[Coach Morse]

Real Magic
and
Tuesdays with Morrie

 

[wilderness]

Seven types of Ambiguity - Elliot Perlman
I didnt finish it, bot because it was bad..it was brilliant...but because it was long and my friends ruined it for me.

Blindness - Jose Saramago
Hated it

Lani

 

[Anamnesis]

Is there something wrong with me everybody tells me how good it is but I can’t seem to get into it.

Here's some food for thought: maybe the people who enjoyed it have something wrong with them .

All joking aside, The Historian was not the amazing epic that I was expecting. It was okay, and the information about Vlad Tepes and Romania was fun to read about, but Kostova's writing was more ordinary than I would have preferred it to be.

On topic: The only book that I don't remember finishing is called The Justification of Johann Gutenberg by Blake Morrison. I'm not sure whether or not I'll try reading it again. As for books I didn't bother starting, I have the first four Robert Jordan novels but didn't read Book IV.

 

[spikeyli]

Both books by Karen Scalf Linamen (Hand over the Chocolate and No one Gets Hurt and I'm not Suffering From Insanity...) and James Patterson books. They just bore me to tears. I know Linamen's books are supposed to be spiritual and funny, but I don't find myself laughing or feeling inspired. And Patterson's books just drones on and on.

Now if I want to be entertained with humor I'd go with Mary Janice Davidson or Janet Evanovich (only her Stephanie Plums series though) and if I want plot and intrigue I go with Dan Brown.

 

[MonkeyCatcher]

Blindness - Jose Saramago
Hated it

I thought I was the only one! I couldn't stand the writing style at all, and I despise the new trend of omitting quotation marks - very few authors can pull it off, and Saramago isn't one of them.

 

[ja9]

Add me to the list of those who decided that life is indeed too short to spend any more time on:

Imajica - at least a million pages long, and a plot that was as convoluted, meandering and endless as a phone conversation with my mother.

The Shipping News - depressing, drab and uninteresting. I gave up when it started going into the intricacies of upholstering the cabin of a boat. Not in this lifetime, sorry.

Blindness - ugly story. Quit when the mass rape of all the blind women started. Was very sorry that I listened to an otherwise reliable friend who recommended it.

And, my contribution is: "Everything is Illuminated"...I can't remember the author, which is telling by itself, since I always remember the names of authors whose work I enjoy. I found this book to be juvenile and sloppy, with a story line that went nowhere. I think a film has been made of it, or is being made, which I find amazing. Why anyone would waste time and/or money on this is beyond me.

 

[steffee]

The Shipping News - depressing, drab and uninteresting. I gave up when it started going into the intricacies of upholstering the cabin of a boat. Not in this lifetime, sorry.

Oh thanks, you just reminded me that I read half of that one time on a train, so should hunt it out for future train journeys. It was readable, better than The Sea by John Banville which I bought at the same time.

Blindness - ugly story. Quit when the mass rape of all the blind women started.

No need to read that now then.

And, my contribution is: "Everything is Illuminated"...I can't remember the author, which is telling by itself

Jonathan Safran Foer. In two minds about reading this because have heard mixed reviews of it anyway, and because surely nothing could beat Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...

Disagree with Life of Pi. While not everyone's cup of tea, I would have thought it unique enough to at least capture and maintain everyone's interest. Disagree too, with Tuesdays with Morrie. Thought that was infinitely superior to the dull Five People You Meet in Heaven.

 

[lady.cordelia]

But she only found this faith after becoming a "born again" christian, so you could say that this was the cause of her quitting.

she didn't quit writing, though

speaking of, i didn't finish her book Lasher. It just grossed me out.

oh, and i didn't finish Russka or that book by Aleksander Solzaneitzan (sp?). I plan to finish them. They are just so long I got absorbed in other things in life, put them aside, and haven't picked them back up yet, but I do plan to finish them. They are interesting. Russka is more interesting in the first half, though.

 

[lady.cordelia]

I can't NOT finish a book - even if I don't like it, I am compelled to finish, regardless.

For example, I was going to read Ahab's Wife for my book group so I deceided it would be interesting to read Moby Dick first - an American classic, one of those books you should read before you die, blah, blah, blah. Well, I couldn't have been more bored with it (does that make me evil or something). That is a long book and I HAD TO FINISH IT - I can't even tell you why - I have no reason.

Right now I am reading Mao: The Unknown Story and I am really wanting to quit it, but I CAN'T!!!!

Is there a support group for people like me...

i am the same way. it is like this weird obsessive/compulsive thing. i have only three books that i listed and two I WILL FINISH NO MATTER WHAT, but i will say i was able to put one down and hope i don't ever feel compelled to finish it (Lasher by Anne Rice - I felt it was polluting my mind. it was AWFUL!)

but the other two i liked okay, or at least found them somewhat interesting, and i do feel compelled to finish them. i do have to admit, though, that i still have Lasher and often look at it and think i really should finish it and be done with it so i can give a final review to just explain how awful it is in all truthfulness, but it makes my skin crawl and makes me nauseous to even think of reading another word of it!

 

[Anamnesis]

speaking of, i didn't finish her book Lasher. It just grossed me out.

That wasn't one of Rice's better efforts, but I liked it well enough to finish it. Any particular aspects of the book that grossed you out?

 

[lady.cordelia]

That wasn't one of Rice's better efforts, but I liked it well enough to finish it. Any particular aspects of the book that grossed you out?

the incest for one thing and that is just the beginning and the whole nursing issue (and for those who haven't read it and don't understand what i am talking about i am not anti-nursing - in fact, my husband often calls me a breastfeeding nazi! lol! i do get a bit fanatical about the importance of it and breastfed my youngest well past the age of 2 - it isn't a typical mother/child nursing and is just the strangest and grossest thing and i can't even imagine an imagination that could think of such a thing)

 

[Violanthe]

Kostova's writing was more ordinary than I would have preferred it to be.

That's an intriguing comment. Could you be more specific?

 

[spikeyli]

That wasn't one of Rice's better efforts, but I liked it well enough to finish it. Any particular aspects of the book that grossed you out?

I finished that book but it wasn't impressed. I also read the sequel to that one, Ashlar. Again I was not impressed. I hadn't been impressed of Rice overall, don't see what the big deal is.

 

[tundra]

I couldn't finish Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce. I couldn't get a grasp on the story in S and F because the mentally retarded guy telling the story kept switching decades on me. Too bad I didn't think to cheat and download a timeline of events for the book. I did something like that when I read Clockwork Orange..except that time it was an English-Nadsat dictionary.

Hopefully I'll finish them before I'm dead. It bothers me too when I don't finish books, especially when they are supposed to be classics. I tend to listen to less-than-thrilling books on CD in the car during my commute, and that makes it more interesting somehow. It didn't work with these books, however, but I never would have gotten through Moby Dick any other way.

 

[Anamnesis]

That's an intriguing comment. Could you be more specific?

When I read the book, I thought Kostova's writing style reminded me a lot of Dan Brown's. Nothing particularly offensive, just a little too plain. Given the amount of research and planning that went into this book I expected her writing to be more flowery and descriptive. I hope this helps...

the incest for one thing and that is just the beginning and the whole nursing issue

Ah. I forgot the characters in that series committed acts of incest quite often. It's a wonder most of the children turned out okay...

 

[lady.cordelia]

When I read the book, I thought Kostova's writing style reminded me a lot of Dan Brown's. Nothing particularly offensive, just a little too plain. Given the amount of research and planning that went into this book I expected her writing to be more flowery and descriptive. I hope this helps...



Ah. I forgot the characters in that series committed acts of incest quite often. It's a wonder most of the children turned out okay...

well, see. i didn't read enough to find out how they turned out. i did, unfortunately to my discredit, i skipped a few chapters to see a little of what it was leading to, as to whether or not i could even allow myself to read the dang thing and just found it to be worse (that is when i ran across the whole nursing issue - it was disgusting). just thinking about that book makes me want to vomit. lol