# Books You Just Couldn't Finish (or had to sludge through)



## SenorDingDong (Jul 8, 2012)

All right, you have to have read at _least_ one stinker in your life. 

And seeing as I've ran into a good many in a row and am really feeling the pain, I thought I'd make a thread.



What are the books that you either couldn't finish, or were so slow you felt you felt as if the pages actually collected further text while you read, keeping the end at bay?


----------



## MaxOfMetal (Jul 8, 2012)

Jack London's _Call of the Wild_

I was instructed to read it in 8th grade, and to this day is my least favorite book I have read. The fact that schools think this book has merit is beyond me. The characters are uninteresting and sans the main character don't develop in the least. 

Book in a sentence: 
A well cared for house dog is turned into a sled dog, outlives a few owners, then becomes a wild dog. The end.


----------



## skeels (Jul 8, 2012)

Being and Nothingness.

Sartre.No, sorry, Bertrand Russell. 

Loved it. Had to keep re-reading. 

Couldn't finish it.

It's a telephone book too.


----------



## -42- (Jul 8, 2012)

_Naked Lunch. _

I love the prose, I'm just not used to having to reread each page four times.


----------



## SirMyghin (Jul 8, 2012)

Wells' Time Machine.. The longest 110 pages I have ever read.


----------



## Demiurge (Jul 8, 2012)

I wouldn't classify it as a stinker, but I've been "starting" Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_ for about two years running. With long, challenging books there's always that fear that you'll have wasted a boatload of time committing to a book that you're not connecting with. Read the first few sections and it just wasn't happening. I suppose I'll get to it once I whittle-down my queue of other books I want to read.


----------



## kung_fu (Jul 8, 2012)

Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamozov". I made it nearly half-way, but it got kind of slow when the old priest was sick and dying. I wouldn't actually call ita stinker though, just sort of lost interest.


----------



## SpaceDock (Jul 8, 2012)

Story of the Stone.

I read everything in college and that book wrecked me. It was 1000+ pages of the most tedious details of some fictional ass clown from ancient Asia.


----------



## MFB (Jul 8, 2012)

Vonnegut's "Galapagos"

It's just boring as all fuck


----------



## lobee (Jul 8, 2012)

_Atlas Shrugged_. 

Ayn Rand's style is grating. I'm at 800+ pages and just completely sick of having the point beaten over my head. I borrowed it from my sister on vacation when I finished the book I was reading, and I feel kind of obligated to finish it since she said it was her favorite book. I just know she'll want to talk about it when I finish and get it back to her, but I'm sort of dreading that. "Meh," lobee shrugged.


----------



## ilyti (Jul 9, 2012)

The Silmarillion. Oh man, I've tried at least 3 times with that book, and I just can't. It took me 2 tries to start and finish the LOTR trilogy in one go, but now I've read that all the way through more than once. The Silmarillion is written like a very old translation of the Bible, and I don't get why Tolkien had to purposely be so boring.


----------



## morrowcosom (Jul 10, 2012)

"The Blue Sword" 

Back when I was in eighth grade, us students had to read books and pass tests pertaining to them in order to get a good class grade. 

We could pick out which ever book/books we wanted, but each book gave a certain number of points. I just chose a book that had enough points for a whole six week grading period, if I passed it. 

I "read" this stinker and all I could figure out was that it was about a blue sword. I then flunked the test by one question (ALL my answers were guesses) and lost 20 points off my class grade for 6 weeks. My only thoughts were "fuck it, at least I am done with that book", even though I was an A student.


----------



## Kwampis (Jul 10, 2012)

lobee said:


> _Atlas Shrugged_.



So true. I tried reading it 5 or 6 years ago and just couldn't handle it. I got about 200 pages in, and I had to stop. Poorly written characters, overblown prose, heavy-handed moralizing...


----------



## beneharris (Jul 10, 2012)

I've had a lot of trouble getting through Moby Dick. Its a great story, great atmosphere, but crap is it hard to read.

In a way, it is my white whale. Oh irony.


----------



## The Grief Hole (Jul 10, 2012)

Joyce's Ulysses. Its fantastic and like a blurred night on whiskey but 3/4s of the way through I always realize I have no idea what is happening.

I have a lot of friends who are unable to finish my favourite book: blood meridien, due to its unrelenting bleakness. For my money much more depressing than The Road as there are no moments of tenderness.


----------



## The Reverend (Jul 10, 2012)

Atlas Shrugged.

Atlas Shrugged. 

Atlas Shrugged. 

That book is fucking difficult. 1000+ pages of incredibly sick, twisted characters, and dialogue that's more like people exchanging philosophical treaties then people actually talking. The climax is the worst, John Galt delivering like an 80-page speech on "fuck everyone who isn't as good as me, son, I get mine."

I've also got a complete collection of Poe's work. I thought I loved Poe until I read his lesser known work. Definitely not too compelling. 

Most classics I actually have a hard time with. I've read about half of what most literary types would call the essential classics, starting from the time I was 11 up until now. Very few are compelling right from the get-go, though I will say that if you give them a chance, they pick up quite nicely.


----------



## pentecost (Jul 10, 2012)

wuthering heights. girl porn at its most egregious. had to read it for AP lit and language, and worse yet try and extrapolate logical analysis in class. 
16 year old girls have NO BUSINESS reading that shit, their ovaries sprouted ovaries and stopped just short of demanding a blood sacrifice.


----------



## SirMyghin (Jul 10, 2012)

Got another one, Cantebury tales, couldn't read it, can't finish it either, because not Chaucer could do that

Seriously, I get stuck in Chaucer's rhythm, which is too rapid for my mind to keep up with whats happening and after 2-3 pages I realize I don't know shit about what is going on. Can't slow down either, as the percieved rhythm is just too quick and will sneak up on me again. 

RAH!


----------



## SenorDingDong (Jul 10, 2012)

My recent one (since I didn't say in the OP) was Bradbury's _Something Wicked This Way Comes_.


The prose was--_Bradbury_ prose. Never great, sometimes odd, but it's him and you know it. But the story literally went nowhere. Eighty pages from the end I just gave up on it. I had no preference for any of the characters, and didn't care what happened to them. The story wasn't very clear, in that he didn't explain anything enough to let you know what was happening. 

He spent thousands of words on long-winded metaphors that compounded into pages of dribble and left a small amount of story which, as I said, wasn't very clear to begin with.

And he kept comparing everything to cheese.

Yeah. 

Cheese.

I love Bradbury because he wasn't afraid to experiment, but man, it was a damn frustrating read.


----------



## gdbjr21 (Jul 10, 2012)

Paradise Lost, I've tried to read that over and over. Can't get past the first 20 pages


----------



## tacotiklah (Jul 11, 2012)

Mein Kampf. I honestly tried reading it from a historical context and was so bored and disgusted with Hitler's ego that I really just had to stop. Everything about him screamed "I'm trying too hard", and really it was a red flag (even in the first few chapters I read) that the dude was seriously fucked up.


----------



## ilyti (Jul 11, 2012)

^ Maybe try Arnold Schwarzeneggar's autobiography. Hitler's ego has nothing on his.. 



beneharris said:


> I've had a lot of trouble getting through Moby Dick. Its a great story, great atmosphere, but crap is it hard to read.
> 
> In a way, it is my white whale. Oh irony.


 
I'm reading that right now. Yeah, it's difficult, but I'm enjoying it. I thought the first part of the story was much better because it was funny, how he meets the cannibal.


----------



## MFB (Jul 11, 2012)

I've bought Moby Dick like, 3 different time yet never gotten too far into it  I'll probably try and re-read it during the summer but I'm 2/3 of the way through Wind Through the Keyhole now that I've got a physical copy and haven't even started Duma Key yet. House of Leaves would be nice to revisit but it's doubtful.


----------



## skeels (Jul 11, 2012)

skeels said:


> Being and Nothingness.
> 
> Sartre.No, sorry, Bertrand Russell.
> 
> ...



Haha! Went to pick it up again - it was Sartre.
Dont know why I thought Russell ...although he's no Plato either.

I looked at it and it just screamed "Read me, you philosophical philistine! "
And so I screamed back "You go back to the place from which you came - keeping my couch with the missing leg from slanting all lop-sided, you bitter, selfish book!"


I'm going to re-read The Hitch-hiker's Guide to The Galaxy, an exceedingly friendly volume.

Don't Panic!


----------



## K3V1N SHR3DZ (Jul 11, 2012)

I've had the toughest time getting through 
*"The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology" by Ray Kurzweil*. It's a great concept, the way he organizes the different tiers of evolution is wonderful. It is of course stunningly naive with his future time tables. Human greed and aggression sill not allow some of his predictions to happen while I'm still alive.

*"Tragedy & Hope: A History of the World in Our Time" by Carroll Quigley* is another wonderful book that just cannot hold my attention long enough to finish it. It also requires a week's worth of research to really understand each chapter, as he covers so much so quickly and I hated history in school (too much regurgitating name/date/place, no focus on concepts, commerce, propaganda, and the HUMAN aspect of history).

I just can't seem to find time, what with guitars to play and refinish, Star Trek and/or Battlestar Galactica to watch, working 40hrs/week, watching the GOP and their corporate overlords rape my country to death, cats to pet, etc... Oh yeah, and there's also this thing called pussy.


Also a fun quote on Ayn Rand you guys may like: 


some random guy on the internet said:


> There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.


----------



## tacotiklah (Jul 12, 2012)

ilyti said:


> ^ Maybe try Arnold Schwarzeneggar's autobiography. Hitler's ego has nothing on his..
> 
> 
> 
> I'm reading that right now. Yeah, it's difficult, but I'm enjoying it. I thought the first part of the story was much better because it was funny, how he meets the cannibal.



Well I haven't read Arnie's autobiography, but here's a pretty good preview of how Hitler wrote....

Instead of saying something like "I walked over to the window", he writes this:
"The boy, filled with great confidence looked around the room, his pride swelling. Without much given thought, he put one foot in front of the other repetitiously, until he found himself sitting next to the windowsill. For a few moments he pondered as to what prompted him to do such a thing, but then readily dismissed it as the cool breeze blew in. There were birds, great and beautiful song birds chirping their saccharin melodies in the nearby tree."

It goes on and on like this. It took all of that just to say he went over to a window. 
(note that this is hypothetical and not an exact excerpt; it's intention is merely to show how bad his style is)


----------



## Vairocarnal (Jul 12, 2012)

The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka.

While I understand and appreciate the metaphors and allegories used the pacing is drivel, the context is sh!te, and the delivery is poor at best. Did I mention the pacing sucked?


----------



## ElRay (Jul 12, 2012)

As much as I love (the original series) Dune, I have not been able to finish anything else by Frank Herbert. I've started "The Jesus Incident" (Tick. The ship went tick. ...) four times, and "The White Plague" twice, but could never get far.

I've read Atlas Shrugged several times, but I've never read the John Galt speech past the 2nd page or so.

Anton Checkov's "The Cherry Trees" -- I've had to read that play too, too many times. I even had to write an essay on the sources of comedy in the play. The opening paragraph was: "The first time I read Anton Checkov's "The Cherry Trees", it was not funny. The second time I read Anton Checkov's "The Cherry Trees", it was not funny. The third time I read Anton Checkov's "The Cherry Trees", it was not funny. On the fourth reading, I finally understood the humor." My TA looked at the essay when I turned it in (He had a habit of doing so as I was the only Engineer in the class), shook his head and put it on the table.

Kafka I liked, but "The Trial" made me mad and I couldn't believe that the main character allowed everything to happen.

"Moby Dick" and "The Silmarillion" were also struggles.

Ray


----------



## gunshow86de (Jul 12, 2012)

After 4 attempts, I have not made it all the way through the Brothers Karamzov. It's not that I don't enjoy the book, quite the contrary. It's just such a slow, arduous read that I usually start reading a different book somewhere in the middle, then don't pick up the Brothers K for several months. This usually means I have to start over.


----------



## SirMyghin (Jul 12, 2012)

To contrast a lot of folks, I enjoyed the Silmarillion, it might be my favourite Tolkien work. AFTER the first 2 chapters that is with the whole singing into creation stuff.


----------



## Devyn Eclipse Nav (Jul 13, 2012)

ElRay said:


> As much as I love (the original series) Dune, I have not been able to finish anything else by Frank Herbert. I've started "The Jesus Incident" (Tick. The ship went tick. ...) four times, and "The White Plague" twice, but could never get far.



I actually enjoyed the WorShip trilogy (The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, The Ascension Factor) more than the Dune series. But maybe his son's books just left a bad taste in my mouth. He did a good job on The Hunters of Dune and The Sandworms of Dune, though.

As for my least-favorite book, I'd go with Battlefield: Earth by L. Ron Hubbard. I got it for 50 cents at a garage sale when I was ten, based off the title alone. I thought it'd be some awesome Sci-Fi epic about a war for earth on a grand scale. I was dead fucking wrong 

it's the year 3000, and 10 foot tall virus-based lifeforms (dah fuq) that are dumb as rocks and called Psychlos are mining earth for something that is either never mentioned or I missed, and humans have reverted to primitive tribes hiding from the aliens. A human "(Johnny Goodboy Tyler) goes to investigate the "City of the Gods" (Denver, Colorado) and to see one of the monsters of the legends (nobody's ever seen a Psychlo, and Psychlos have never seen humans. In 1000 fucking years. Sure.) He gets captured. Taken prisoner. Trained to mine by Terl (antagonist) as part of a scheme to get gold out of a cliff-face that psychlos can't go to as due to their "breathe-gas" exploding in the presence of uranium. Terl's planning a get rich quick scheme, and Johnny is planning to mine uranium to send to Planet Psychlo with Terl's smuggled gold to blow that shit up. They recruit a shit ton of Scotsmen, and do this. The end? Nope. This is page 500 or so, and there's 500 more to go. I'll keep it short - they deal with the rest of the Psychlos, then get attacked by a bunch of other aliens, have to deal with the universe's bankers going to foreclose them because they overthrew the mining company, therefore inherited their debts (Really?) They win, settle the debts, find out they destroyed Psychlo, and Johnny retires to the countryside with his girlfriend and her little sister, while the rest of humanity rebuilds. 

They did all this with a total planet human population of 2,500. Fought off about 5 times that many aliens with that had superior tech, with a force of under 1000 soldiers, and lost very few people. I call bullshit.

Anyway, I tried reading that in 6th grade, gave up halfway through, and tried again last august. I finished it this time, but mostly because halfway through I used it for my english Independent reading assignment. And now Nevermore's This Godless Endeavor album is forever associated with that crime against literature.  

Don't even get me started on the movie  I could only watch a half hour, it was soooooo fucking bad,


----------



## MFB (Jul 13, 2012)

Don't worry, I checked out Battlefield : Earth after the whole L. Ron/Scientology thing blew up during my Junior year of high school and even then we all fucking laughed at how stupid it was. Within the first 20 pages there's mention of a book that's a couple thousand pages thick yet made out of a totally light-weight material that allows for the creation of such books and it's just more and more ridiculous as it goes on.


----------



## SenorDingDong (Jul 13, 2012)

I just ran into another book I couldn't finish.

Mary SanGiovanni - _The Hollower_

I tend to enjoy reading horror novels by authors who have reputation but I've never read before. Lately, though, I've run into a slew of bad writing. 


Thing without face stalks former drug addicts and emotionally damaged people. That's all I took from the 80 pages of poor, creative writing class-style writing. She spent more time describing the sky than she did developing her boring, 1D characters. Introduces so many characters so quickly I list track of who was who. 


And the thing that bothered me the most, and makes me put down any book after no more than 100 pages, is that she had no style whatsoever. Her writing was just so formulaic and bland, I couldn't stomach it. No dynamics in the sentence structure. Not a hint of a voice. Nothing unique.


----------



## signalgrey (Jul 13, 2012)

Haruki Murakami's Wind Up Bird Chronicles.

I had no issues with the first 2/3's of the book. The last 1/3 was just so fucking slow and annoying and pedantic uuuugh. fuck you. Overrated writer anyway.


----------



## Triple-J (Jul 13, 2012)

Both of H.W. Jeter's Bladerunner sequels.

I was real excited to get my hands on both of these books at first but pretty soon my excitement transformed into a mix of horror and boredom as both books are just a dull grind that cheaply retreads iconic scenes/characters from the film and drops them into a bunch of unbelievable situations that feel more like a Russ Meyer movie.


----------



## fps (Jul 13, 2012)

Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf. NOONE likes that book.


----------



## fps (Jul 13, 2012)

Vairocarnal said:


> The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka.
> 
> While I understand and appreciate the metaphors and allegories used the pacing is drivel, the context is sh!te, and the delivery is poor at best. Did I mention the pacing sucked?



The Metamorphosis is awesome, plus it's only about 50 pages long, so how is it difficult to get through? Also which translation did you read, as it makes a big difference.


----------



## fps (Jul 13, 2012)

Demiurge said:


> I wouldn't classify it as a stinker, but I've been "starting" Pynchon's _Gravity's Rainbow_ for about two years running. With long, challenging books there's always that fear that you'll have wasted a boatload of time committing to a book that you're not connecting with. Read the first few sections and it just wasn't happening. I suppose I'll get to it once I whittle-down my queue of other books I want to read.



Exactly how I felt. Worked backwards to Pynchon from David Foster Wallace and I can't get into that book either, no matter how hard I try. Might just have to grit teeth and plough through at some point, but you're right the size of the thing means I'm not sure I want to. He really should have made the first few chapters, not more action-packed, or easier to read or anything, just BETTER.


----------



## SenorDingDong (Jul 13, 2012)

fps said:


> The Metamorphosis is awesome, plus it's only about 50 pages long, so how is it difficult to get through? Also which translation did you read, as it makes a big difference.



I have picked up two-page short stories that were hard/impossible to get through. For me, bad writing is bad writing, regardless of length. If interest is not established, or if prose is rambling and disjointed, or even if plot seems secondary to literary-masturbation, finishing is a fictional concept.


----------



## ilyti (Jul 14, 2012)

I forgot to mention, I bought a copy of Frankenstein 5 years ago and I finally just finished it a month ago. Brutally painful, with about 50 pages actually enjoyable. Who knew, the monster is freaking eloquent when he speaks! Boris Karloff screwed that right up. 

Anyeay, I bought Mary Shelley's other book, The Last Man, and looking back on it, I have no idea why. The concept is interesting (humankind slowly wiped out by plague, one man remains), but I'm only 70 pages in, and it's not "modern" as it sounds. I love H.G. Wells predictions of the future in The Invisible Man, The Time Machine, and the Island of Dr Moreau. Those books were all great and I liked his writing style, it's very direct and to the point.

I read the first two books in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra Space Trilogy, but they moved so slowly, it was a real chore. Fascinating concept that blends creationism and sci fi. In this mythology, Earth isn't the only place the devil has tried to corrupt the natural way of life - it already happened on Mars (yes, Mars), and is about to happen on Venus (because people live there!) unless some dude sent in a spacecraft from Earth can persuade Venus Eve not to listen to the "serpent." I'd see a film version, but it will never happen because he wrote these books before anyone knew really that Venus is a boiling greenhouse and Mars a frozen wasteland.


----------



## fps (Jul 15, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> I have picked up two-page short stories that were hard/impossible to get through. For me, bad writing is bad writing, regardless of length. If interest is not established, or if prose is rambling and disjointed, or even if plot seems secondary to literary-masturbation, finishing is a fictional concept.



In translation, bad writing can be bad translation, would be the first point. Second, writing is far more of a two-way relationship than any other art form, it is more difficult to establish just what it is a reader is getting or not getting from a story or book than from a TV show or movie or album. So I was asking questions relating to these things.


----------



## All_¥our_Bass (Jul 15, 2012)

J.R. Tolkien's 'The Silmarillion'

Great book and I love it, but it's a very epic, 'heavy' reading book, soooo good, but very rich(to use a food metaphor), a little at a time is all I can read.


----------



## Dan_Vacant (Jul 16, 2012)

I'm not alone my book I can't finish is Atlas Shrugged, I actualy got shit for reading it in school but it was from people who don't read saying "there is a naked dude on the front WTF" and I said "nope it is a titan named Atlas."
the principle asked me about the book though, and my dad finds it odd that I haven't finished it cause he read it five times.


----------



## Tang (Jul 16, 2012)

Dan_Vacant said:


> I'm not alone my book I can't finish is Atlas Shrugged, I actualy got shit for reading it in school but it was from people who don't read saying "there is a naked dude on the front WTF" and I said "nope it is a titan named Atlas."
> the principle asked me about the book though, and my dad finds it odd that I haven't finished it cause he read it five times.



Is your dad Ron Paul?


----------



## Dan_Vacant (Jul 16, 2012)

Tang said:


> Is your dad Ron Paul?


Nope just a very bored man.


----------



## signalgrey (Jul 16, 2012)

ilyti said:


> I read the first two books in C.S. Lewis' Perelandra Space Trilogy, but they moved so slowly, it was a real chore. Fascinating concept that blends creationism and sci fi. In this mythology, Earth isn't the only place the devil has tried to corrupt the natural way of life - it already happened on Mars (yes, Mars), and is about to happen on Venus (because people live there!) unless some dude sent in a spacecraft from Earth can persuade Venus Eve not to listen to the "serpent." I'd see a film version, but it will never happen because he wrote these books before anyone knew really that Venus is a boiling greenhouse and Mars a frozen wasteland.



just read the first in the series. I love his writing style, but this was a bit slow. The bit near the end with all the god stuff was a bit of a turn off for me actually.


----------



## Tang (Jul 16, 2012)

I'll go ahead and mention East of Eden. I finished it eventually, but it was pretty grueling.

Also the bible.


----------



## Mprinsje (Jul 16, 2012)

kaas

for all non dutch here (and even dutch ppl who have never read this), it was something on the book list for dutch class, and almost everyone read it because it was only 80 pages or something. but my god, i read through all lotr+the hobbit+silmarillion before i finished that. freaking boring


----------



## ilyti (Jul 16, 2012)

Dan_Vacant said:


> I'm not alone my book I can't finish is Atlas Shrugged, I actualy got shit for reading it in school but it was from people who don't read saying "there is a naked dude on the front WTF" and I said "nope it is a titan named Atlas."
> the principle asked me about the book though, and my dad finds it odd that I haven't finished it cause he read it five times.


 
I guess that book is either you love it or you hate it. Which reminds me, no one in here has mentioned Catcher in the Rye. I absolutely LOVE that book, but I was the minority in my class that did. I just wonder if anyone here hated it as much as my classmates. I've read it all the way or in part about 10 times.


----------



## Osiris (Jul 24, 2012)

^Also the Bible
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
The Scarlet Letter
Little House on the Prairie
The Devil's Horsemen- I had to write a paper about it and it was pretty good but took forrrrrrever to read. About the Mongol Empire almost conquering Europe. 
never got past Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein kicked ass then has a bad spot when you realize how much of a vagina the scientist is. Then the ending is cool.
I feel like The Scarlet Letter is objectively one of the worst books of all time.


----------



## hairychris (Jul 24, 2012)

Hmm...

Stephen Donaldson - Chron. of Thomas Covenant. One of the few books I haven't finished.
Pretty much any poetry - It annoys me. My g/f likes having Paradise Lost read to her though.
Umberto Eco -Island of the Day Before. I usually like his stuff (In the Name of The Rose, etc) but this was dull.
The Bible - Managed until the minor prophets in NIV OT but that took me years due to boredom, started the KJV NT last week to see if it was any better. It isn't. You'd have thought that god would have a better editor.
Robert Jordan - Wheel of Time. I just gave up after about book 4.

Moby Dick I enjoyed. Chaucer is painful unless you read it out to yourself. Sounds crazy but the language works far better phonetically.

I haven't tried any Rand yet, may do one day for the lulz. I'll do that once I finish the Bible, Quran, and other religious stuff I already have kicking around.


----------



## fps (Aug 1, 2012)

hairychris said:


> Hmm...
> 
> Stephen Donaldson - Chron. of Thomas Covenant. One of the few books I haven't finished.
> Pretty much any poetry - It annoys me. My g/f likes having Paradise Lost read to her though.
> ...



Moby Dick's terrific, not sure what is not to like about it. The Bible's best bit is Revelations by far.


----------



## espman (Aug 3, 2012)

Hobbes Leviathan - made it about halfway through and found that it made better use as a sleeping aid than anything else 

Lovecrafts Necronomicon/Eldritch Tales - Now, don't get me wrong, I love the weirdness of Lovecraft (which is why I got both of them), but there are some parts that seemed to drag on for so long that I just skipped over them. I've only actually read just over half of either of them


----------



## Furtive Glance (Aug 4, 2012)

Carl Hiassen's Tourist Season. My sister loves his books and I struggled my way through HOOT or whatever it was called (younger adult book), but I could NOT STAND the characters in this one. I actually hated everyone in it. There was not one person I was interested in seeing complete whatever they were going for. I got about 75% of the way through and just said "fuck it".


----------



## flint757 (Aug 4, 2012)

Young adult books targeted for girls are typically bad at least from a males perspective in my experience.


----------



## MFB (Aug 4, 2012)

flint757 said:


> Young adult books targeted for girls are typically bad at least from a males perspective in my experience.



For more on this subject of bad YA books directed at girls, see: Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, and (from what I've heard) The Hunger Games


----------



## flint757 (Aug 4, 2012)

FWIW I didn't think hunger games was all that bad. The reading level for it is pretty rudimentary and it is short so it can be read in like no time. I think it could have been worse...the violence helped subdue my gag reflex through the romantic BS which again could have been worse.


----------



## Pav (Aug 4, 2012)

The only reading that sticks in my mind for negative reasons is Faulkner. Tried reading As I Lay Dying for an AP Literature class back in high school and...I just couldn't do it. The man was wordy as all fuck and I must've missed the class on how that indicates genius writing.


----------



## SenorDingDong (Aug 5, 2012)

MFB said:


> For more on this subject of bad YA books directed at girls, see: Twilight, 50 Shades of Grey, and (from what I've heard) The Hunger Games



I found _The Hunger Games_ (book one and most of book two) enjoyable 

Granted, there wasn't much literary value, and I did run into a few gaping plot holes, but they were entertaining. 

The third book was terrible, though. And I hate this whole "love triangle" thing being put in every book nowadays. That part of the series was unbearable, but luckily didn't get started until everything good that would happen did happen. 


I don't think that Grey book is for YA audiences; at least, not from what Gilbert Gottfried read


----------



## flint757 (Aug 5, 2012)

No, 50 shades isn't for kids, but many are reading it and it is also written at a rudimentary level.

As for your assessment of Hunger Games Trilogy, verbatim how I feel about it. Liked the first and the second up till the end and probably excluding the beginning as well and hated the third entirely. I don't understand why women authors feel this strong desire to write these stupid love triangles.


----------



## MFB (Aug 5, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> I found _The Hunger Games_ (book one and most of book two) enjoyable
> 
> Granted, there wasn't much literary value, and I did run into a few gaping plot holes, but they were entertaining.
> 
> ...





flint757 said:


> No, 50 shades isn't for kids, but many are reading it and it is also written at a rudimentary level.
> 
> As for your assessment of Hunger Games Trilogy, verbatim how I feel about it. Liked the first and the second up till the end and probably excluding the beginning as well and hated the third entirely. I don't understand why women authors feel this strong desire to write these stupid love triangles.



I wasn't sure exactly whom THG main target audience was but that seemed to be the largest group I knew of going to see the movie but I guess that doesn't make it so. I had a feeling I was wrong so luckily I covered my ass with the little snippet before hand 

As for 50 Shades, I've seen the writing and holy shit given how bad it is (yes, I know it's some schmuck housewife's Twilight fan-fic that got picked up) I assumed she started off with early 20's readers since the girls were in college but I feel like I'm seeing controversy from even teenage girls reading it; and potentially not knowing what the fuck any of it means  

Young Adult to me has always been kind of broad and that's why I'm not sure where it goes to and starts anymore. I'm still technically a "young adult" being just about 22, but 99.999% of the books I see in the category of YA would bore me to tears since the target the much young half of the Young Adult category, usually finishing the category after "Young" and before "Adult" making it more like a Teen category vs what it should be. 

Hell, just get rid of book labels all together, people can make the fucking distinction themselves.


----------



## flint757 (Aug 5, 2012)

Well I enjoy having the category(ie's) as it made it easier for me to get into things like Pendragon, Artemis Fowl, Harry Potter, etc.

The target audience probably is teenaged girls for THG, but as all books aren't the only ones reading them. After reading it, I didn't feel like I wasted my time or anything.


----------



## The Reverend (Aug 5, 2012)

I just finished reading Shutter Island.

It was like reading the screenplay for the movie, or something. It matched so closely that it wasn't even enjoyable to read. Dennis Lehane must have a boner for Hemingway, too; all the writing was just, "He looked at his hands and they were rough from the years of working as a detective and he lit his cigarette and looked out over the water and he remembered the war and he remembered what he did in that war and he felt like he would never heal and then he threw his cigarette into the water."

It wasn't uncommon to read a sentence that took up half a page.


----------



## Chickenhawk (Aug 5, 2012)

War and Peace.

The definition of fucking dull. I read it two and a half times. First time because I wanted to challenge myself in high school. The second time at 19-20 years old to see if I'd actually enjoy it, having matured a bit. And the third time two years ago (24)...made it about half way and threw it in the trash.

I understand and appreciate it's a literary masterpiece, but that doesn't mean it doesn't suck ass.


----------



## SenorDingDong (Aug 6, 2012)

The Reverend said:


> I just finished reading Shutter Island.
> 
> It was like reading the screenplay for the movie, or something. It matched so closely that it wasn't even enjoyable to read. Dennis Lehane must have a boner for Hemingway, too; all the writing was just, "He looked at his hands and they were rough from the years of working as a detective and he lit his cigarette and looked out over the water and he remembered the war and he remembered what he did in that war and he felt like he would never heal and then he threw his cigarette into the water."
> 
> It wasn't uncommon to read a sentence that took up half a page.




I have that book 



Haven't read it yet, but I actually love long sentences strung with "and" between each short subject (huge Cormac McCarthy fan), so maybe I'll enjoy it. 


Plus, I never saw the movie because I hate Leonardo DiCaprio.


----------



## SenorDingDong (Aug 6, 2012)

MFB said:


> I wasn't sure exactly whom THG main target audience was but that seemed to be the largest group I knew of going to see the movie but I guess that doesn't make it so. I had a feeling I was wrong so luckily I covered my ass with the little snippet before hand
> 
> As for 50 Shades, I've seen the writing and holy shit given how bad it is (yes, I know it's some schmuck housewife's Twilight fan-fic that got picked up) I assumed she started off with early 20's readers since the girls were in college but I feel like I'm seeing controversy from even teenage girls reading it; and potentially not knowing what the fuck any of it means
> 
> ...





There is a lot of drivel.

Finding YA with great value is like using a metal detector to find treasure buried in a field of turds; after a long bout of picking through shit, you lose your finickiness and simply start to hope that _something_ sank down far enough to remain untainted. 



Although, English authors tend to do YA better. Neil Gaiman and John Connolly are my main men in that field. And I also love the Harry Potter series.


----------



## dvon21 (Aug 6, 2012)

SenorDingDong said:


> Plus, I never saw the movie because I hate Leonardo DiCaprio.





There are so many smilies that correspond with my confusion!


----------



## flint757 (Aug 6, 2012)

Yeah he is probably the least tainted actor around. He only takes jobs for great movies: Inception, Departed, Titanic, and yes even Blood Diamond. Shutter Island, the movie, was actually really good...


----------



## SymmetricScars (Aug 6, 2012)

I tried to get into Catch 22 by Joseph Heller but I just found it to be really bland and ended up not finishing it.


----------



## ilyti (Aug 8, 2012)

I've officially given up on Moby Dick for the time being. It's driving me insane.


----------



## MFB (Aug 9, 2012)

^ I feel you on that one. I own three different copies and only on the third time did I get a good chunk into it to stop caring and go "when does this get good?"  I MAY try it again but I think that book itself is my white whale


----------



## MetalGravy (Aug 9, 2012)

Tried reading _Clear and Present Danger_...I think in 8th grade, maybe 9th? Too fucking long and too fucking boring; a shame, because I really enjoyed _The Hunt for Red October_ and _Patriot Games_.

Also, _The Cybernetic Samurai_...holy shit, I didn't think that it was possible to make sex scenes boring, but the author found a way. These were looong scenes, too. You'd think that a kid in the throws of puberty would be all over something like that, but no. I was sitting there wondering when the author would be done describing how the main character is fucking a computer "AI" with her mind--in her mind...whatever. I think I went right back to Stars Wars books after that.


----------



## Loomer (Aug 9, 2012)

Lord Of The Rings. I don't like Tolkien's fetish for lengthy scenery descriptions, and his overtly Catholic view of Good vs. Evil bores me to tears.

Also, Justin Cronin's "The Passage" had an incredibly boring middle section, but _my god _does he ever save it in the end.


----------



## Dan_Vacant (Aug 9, 2012)

Today I was going to try and pick "Atlas Shurgged" back up becasue I finished a few books but I thought it took me 2 months to get 300 pages. I may just give it back to my dad.


----------



## Captain_Awesome (Aug 9, 2012)

I'm currently slogging through Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman. It's hard reading, but it's an incredible book, some of the descriptions are so real and mesmerising... Maybe I'll try finish it, haha.


----------



## The Grief Hole (Aug 12, 2012)

SymmetricScars said:


> I tried to get into Catch 22 by Joseph Heller but I just found it to be really bland and ended up not finishing it.



Seriously? That's one of the best books I've read. Chalk and cheese I guess.

I just did the Qu'uran which, much like the Bible, makes me wonder why how many adherents have actually read it. Starts of nicely but gets boooooooooring.


----------



## jwade (Aug 16, 2012)

Moby Dick, War of the Worlds, and The Brothers Karamazov. I've tried reading all three multiple times, and no matter what, I end up giving up not even a third of the way through. 

I had the same issue with Anne Rice's The Witching Hour. It took me 2 years to struggle through, tried reading it at least 4, maybe more times.

Most books I rip through in a few days, these ones though just have something in them that I can't stay interested in.


----------



## galca002 (Aug 16, 2012)

I can never finish any book I pick up anymore. School killed the fun of reading for me.


----------



## espman (Aug 17, 2012)

galca002 said:


> I can never finish any book I pick up anymore. School killed the fun of reading for me.


 Then you're just not reading the right books 
I had the same problem for a while, just took the right book to get back into it.


----------



## flint757 (Aug 17, 2012)

Read something simple with a good story. As an example I'd started reading Pendragon in intermediate school, picked it up last year and finished the whole series. Simple is a good way to start I think.


----------



## JeffFromMtl (Aug 17, 2012)

-42- said:


> _Naked Lunch. _
> 
> I love the prose, I'm just not used to having to reread each page four times.



This.


----------



## Fiction (Aug 17, 2012)

dvon21 said:


> There are so many smilies that correspond with my confusion!



I understand his point, Leonardo sucks, and so did Shutter Island, to be honest.


----------



## TheDuatAwaits (Aug 17, 2012)

A few months ago in English class, we had to read Macbeth. It was one of the most grueling things I've ever read, especially with me reading all of the Macbeth parts. 

Also the book "Animal farm". I couldn't get past the first chapter.


----------



## MFB (Aug 17, 2012)

Really? I found Animal Farm to be great and didn't try to be more than it was. It was simple to read but the message was still ...hard-hitting? I guess, I'm not sure how to describe it really.


----------



## TheDuatAwaits (Aug 17, 2012)

Yeah, I had to read it before Macbeth. Seemed like nobody in my class liked it.


----------



## fps (Aug 18, 2012)

galca002 said:


> I can never finish any book I pick up anymore. School killed the fun of reading for me.



This happened to me after school for a bit. It was due to two things:-
Wrong books
Too much internet and therefore no attention span.


----------



## Jakke (Aug 18, 2012)

Mein Kampf, I tried to read it in seventh grade, but it was so poorly written and just batshit paranoid that I just couldn't finish it.


----------



## Choop (Aug 18, 2012)

I really couldn't finish Slaughterhouse-Five for some reason. I think it kind of offended my roommate, who said Vonnegut was probably his favorite author. Granted it's been a while since I tried, but I remember being about a quarter in and just couldn't stay interested enough. D: I can appreciate the anti-war messages he uses, but his style of writing, in that book at least, felt very (overly) explanatory..like when someone is giving you a run-down of their entire family history. Does it get better? Should I go back and finish it/start from the beginning?


----------



## MFB (Aug 18, 2012)

Slaughterhouse Five was the first Vonnegut I read and I fell in love with it


----------



## Choop (Aug 19, 2012)

Perhaps I'm just an idiot (probability is high).


----------



## SenorDingDong (Aug 20, 2012)

Choop said:


> Perhaps I'm just an idiot (probability is high).




I doubt it.


Entertainment, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.


----------



## Jakke (Aug 20, 2012)

^Well said


----------



## Danukenator (Aug 21, 2012)

As I Lay Dying

Jesus, even thinking about that book requires me to want a drink. Not only are most of the characters unlikable but it's very difficult to actually understand.

You have to contend with the fact that the first person changes every chapter. So, "I" in never the same person. There are also these long train-of-thought sections that are an absolute mind screw to read. It was a book where I had to read a chapter, re-read certain parts and then check Sparknotes to figure out if I had it right. 

Billy Bud was also very hard. That could also have to due with me being in 9th grade at the time.


----------



## Atomshipped (Aug 21, 2012)

Hmm I really enjoyed Animal Farm as well *most* of the other books I've read in English over the last few years (in high school) including Fahrenheit 451 and The Scarlet Letter. Now, I absolutely hated all the tedious boring assignments I was required to do to maintain by A in the class, but the books were quite good.


----------

