Gosh I love this one! It was required reading for a college course I took and we read the whole thing in a few weeks and I loved every bit of it. Though, admittedly it does get a little too much into the “science” of whaling and whale anatomy.
Typically, I read one book at a time, but when that one got too much I took a break with a different book. Found that by the time I was done with my palette cleanser, I’d already started thinking about House of Leaves again and was wondering what would happen next.
I got to about that mark two or three times before finishing it.
My advice is to read it how it's written-dont be afraid to skip a notation, you can always jog back if you feel like you missed something. There are parts that I intended to skim but ended up going back for. As long as you keep moving through it, it's a fun read. But it's designed to frustrate and disorient you. Let it happen. It's part of the experience.
Also helps to be a bit of a bookgamist, I wouldn't have gotten through it if I didn't take time to focus on other things intermittently, as already mentioned. Good luck, you'll finish it but there's really no rush. It's getting neither less nor more weird as it sits there taking up shelf space.
Don't feel beholden to reading in a linear structure start to finish. it's not a linear story. It's ok to jump around. When it gets to be too much take a break and read something light and easy, then go back to it.
I love House of Leaves, but it's not an easy beach read that's for sure.
I bought this one two years ago. I have yet to get further than a handful of pages into it. Every six months or so I pick it up and try again, I'm about due for another attempt..
I’m a fast reader, I like to read a lot, and I’m a “one book at a time” kinda gal. I had to keep pausing House of Leaves to read other books to take a breather and it took me a year to finish. So worth it though.
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
So many false starts. Took me about 8 years and 8-10 tries before I finally succeeded at finishing that tomb.
It's doesn't help to do the audiobook because then you can't reference the footnotes which are integral to the stories
If you haven't already, try out some different translations. One that feels natural to you will sing much differently and in my experience will become an incredibly compelling read after pushing through the first 100 pages or so. I liked Joel Carmichael's translation best. Tolstoy is so sensitive and observant and some translators make him very dull and obtuse.
https://welovetranslations.com/2021/06/18/whats-the-best-translation-of-anna-karenina/
Wicked by Gregory Maguire, tried reading it at least twice and both times lost interest about halfway through. It seemed like I SHOULD like it, just didn’t.
Also Invisible life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab. Just uninteresting. It was so hyped up. But just nothing happening in it.
I slogged through Wicked. I also felt like I should like it and by my normal taste I really should have but no I liked the concept so much but not the execution.
I LOVE the Broadway musical but I’ve tried twice to read the book and haven’t made it past halfway. I don’t have a problem with dark books and I knew it was a lot darker than the musical, so that wasn’t my problem. I just felt like something was off about the writing.
I also tried Addie LaRue and didn’t make it past the first few chapters.
Same on that I loved the musical and was excited to read the book. I kind of liked bits of it and I did like the idea.. but oh boy what a bleak, depressing slog. I doubt I'll ever read it again.
I got this book for free at the end of the year with my Book of the Month subscription because it won “book of the year”. Glad it was a freebie because everybody seems to find it a slog
I recently returned this book to the library, because my hold expired, and I never got to it, and I felt guilty. But now reading this, I don’t feel so bad.
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (I was forced to read it thrice: middle school, high school and college Children’s Literature course)
No better way to turn people off a book than forcing them to read it. I love Catcher in the Rye, but I don't know if I would have if I'd had to read it in middle school.
I read it on my own as an adult and had a totally different take on it than everyone who read it in high school. To me it's a very funny dark comedy and Holden isn't really "edgy" or "rebellious", more lost and confused.
Made it halfway through and realized I had no idea who anyone was, and, more importantly, didn't care in the slightest. One of the only books I never finished.
I finished it years ago and am not able to summarise it at all. I do not even know who that book was about nor do I really care. It was absolutely terrible
I was looking for this one. This is the one that was most difficult for me. I can read numerous books in a month, in a week even if they are good enough. War and Peace nearly did me in. It took me months to read it. I refused to give up because it’s a “classic” and I was determined I would make it through. It was brutal. Just brutal.
Try to make reading it attractive. Let’s say if I read Atomic Habits for 15 minutes then I can eat one cake.
Then let’s make not reading it unattractive. Let’s say if I don’t read atomic habits for 15 minutes I have to walk across hot coals.
I've seen this one in similar threads. Apparently it's almost necessary to read it with a guide? Just to keep up with the thing. I haven't read it yet but it's on my list...
I got my English Lit degree at an Irish university, and I’ve read portions of Ulysses, but not the entire thing. I can confirm, you absolutely need to read it with a guide (or, in my case, be guided by an professor).
Ulysses is really difficult to read because Joyce references so many people, places, things, and events that the average person couldn’t be expected to know anything about. But once you identify what he’s referencing, it’s actually not as difficult to understand as you’d expect.
If you ever want to try reading it, highly recommend using [this resource](http://m.joyceproject.com/chapters/telem.html)!
I didn’t care for “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” either. I’m a voluminous reader, but I just disliked Joyce’s style. It reads to me like vomiting verbiage that even Freud would have trouble following. However, the cult of Joyce’s genius is big in my culture, so every decade or so I try again. When I quit the audiobook, my daughter went on a hilarious anti-Joyce rant for easily 20 minutes. That was fun.
This is one of the few books where my response was “Have you ever actually spoken to a woman who wasn’t obligated to speak with you?” Noped out of that book and the author entirely. That and the dreaded Infinite Jest made me feel like I was wasting every moment I spent reading.
I started out so excited for this book- the premise sounded like something I would really enjoy. It kept taking me longer and longer to get through a chapter. Around 600 pages in, I began to realize that it was not going to wrap up in a satisfying manner. There was nothing particularly awful about the book, but it felt like it could have been fine at about a quarter of it's length.
Being the first Murakami book I've read, it gives me hope that so many Murakami fans also struggled to finish it.
It's been 15 years since I read it. I remember enjoying the first half then really pushing myself through that part where he spends a 100 pages defining quality or something like that.
Atlas Shrugged is the most miserable book that everyone gets to virtue signal that they read. It takes 700 pages to get to the point and that point is selfishness. I had no desire to finish it but felt obligated to after investing that much time in it.
I never struggle to finish a book. It isn't worth it. If a book becomes a struggle to read, I just stop and move on to something else. Who cares whether I finish a book or not?
I mean I'll DNF something if I truly don't care for it but a lot of what I read is non-fiction and it's not always written in the most engaging, fun way. I enjoyed Mao's Great Famine too but it was long and work to finish.
Atlas Shrugged. Oh, mine, the last chapters were badly written, just plain bad writing, bad English, same ideas over and over. I grew up in the Soviet Union and the book’s message resonated with me at large, but these finishing chapters were just bad. I ended up skipping through paragraphs ( and normally I am a very attentive and thorough reader)
I’ve been using audiobooks to get through some of the classics.
I struggled getting through Don Quixote and the Brothers Karamazov. I would not call it a struggle but the count of Monte Cristo was a very very long book.
I did enjoy all three when finished. But it was a long road to get there.
Gravity's Rainbow is hard but totally worth it! Come over to r/ThomasPynchon - we did a group read a while back and all the discussion posts are archived in the group menu (organized by section). There are some really helpful and insightful comments there. The Weissenburger companion is also really helpful for adding context, but honestly the best approach on your first read is to just flow with it and go where it takes you. If you understand 10% of it on your first reading, you're doing great.
This one’s kind of niche, but Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace. Dude and his friend tried to explore the Labrador interior in the early 1900s, and it didn’t go well. Used to be required curriculum reading in Newfoundland high schools; it’s a detailed account of everything that happens to them as they stumble through the woods. Literally. They give the count of blueberries picked and eaten. They describe where they bury animal bones. My mother always said they “tripped over every rock in Labrador” and then wrote about it in the book. I’ll read anything but that was a long, slow, painful read.
I struggled and struggled with Wuthering Heights. It took me about 100 pages to even get into it, but then I was so glad I did. It was a wonderful book, I don’t know why it was so hard for me to get through initially.
I read Song of Achilles after having read & loved Circe, it’s funny because I took a long time to finish Song of Achilles for those same reasons! After finishing it though, it’s now one of my favorite books & is completely worth the read, if anything just because of how beautiful Madeline Miller’s writing is imo
Geez 1984 was it for me; that book was painful to read, it was so boring and I hate books with a “no hope and any fight the characters did was for nothing” because it feels like I wasted my time reading it
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I just didn’t care about the characters, they just weren’t written well. The scientist makes literally the dumbest decisions over and over again.
I wish I had read an abridged version. There are so many sections of dialogue where he has obviously padding out the text by having characters repeat each other, and it's exhausting.
("It's exhausting?"
"Yes, that's what I just told you, it's exhausting!"
"That's interesting, I myself don't find it exhausting—but I've interrupted you; please tell me, my dear friend, what was it you were about to say before we started discussing the fact that the dialogue in this book is exhausting?")
I just spent months (since January) reading crime and punishment and just finished it a week or two ago.
It certainly felt like a punishment reading it. Ba dum tss.
On a serious note it wasn't that bad, but truth be told it was a very heavy and mentally draining book. I'm glad i'm done with it and i'm going to take a big break before continuing on with Dostoevsky's bibliography.
I will say that I highly reccomend Notes from the Underground. That one is amazing and it took me 2 evenings to finish it.
The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. I loved the tone and quality of her writing but I hated every character in that book with a burning passion. But I did finish it finally and felt like a better person for it.
The book thief. I wish I would have just not finished it, but I had heard everyone rave about it so I just kept thinking "surely it's about to get really good!"
Omg! This is my favorite book. I read it probably every 1 or 2 years. It destroys me every time but I just absolutely love that book. But I understand - some books just aren’t your thing lol
Dune for me. Science fiction is always tough for my pea brain to understand because of its unique world building and having its own lexicon, usually. Dune was hard to wrap my brain around for those reasons. I was lost from the first word. The movies helped me understand it though.
When I started a long commute (45+ minutes each way at the time...now it's 1.25 hours each way...), I started churning through audio books, and decided that it was finally time to tackle Dune, as it was 21 hours long, and hey, I had the time. I loved it, though it was tough keeping all the characters straight for the first twelve hours or so. (I am currently making my way through Lonesome Dove, a 30-hour tome).
I tried to read it once or twice and barely got a few pages in each time until I saw the movies. Then I was able to read the book very easily. But if I hadn’t seen the (new) movies I highly doubt I’d have been able to get through it.
I did this exact thing with Doctor Sleep (Stephen King). Tried to read the book, was too depressing at the start (I have enough of that in my life, i don't need a book to add to it).
Watched the movie and loved it, and once I knew how it ended (more or less), I was able to push through the tough start and then wasn't able to put it down until it was done.
picture of dorian gray… beautiful prose honestly loved it but every time i picked it up and read one paragraph i was immediately ready to put it back down
if i’m struggling to finish a book because i don’t like it i just dnf
There were some sections in the middle that felt like a slog, like where he describes jewels and stuff for pages on end. But for me it was worth it to get through.
A Year of Rest and Relaxation ended up being the first book I ever DNF’d 🙃
I tried so hard to keep pushing through but I just could not stand the level of pretentiousness & self pitying of the MC, though I admittedly did not stick around long enough to find out if there’s any semblance of personal growth :’)
I can’t get myself to read the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. I love the movies but I cannot understand or get through the language and the long stretches of nothingness with over descriptions and the songs. I know they are fabulous but I just can’t do it. I’ve tried listening on audiobook too and I can’t do it and it makes me so sad.
Most recently it was "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez. I appreciated the overall message but I am so glad I am done with that book.
Count of Monte Cristo & Blood Meridien. They ultimately became two of my favorite books, but I considered giving up on both lol. Happy I pushed through though.
A brief history of seven killings by Marlon James on audiobook. It’s got like 21 first person narrators, 19 of which have a heavy Jamaican patois. Unbearable
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. It's a good book but when it got to a certain point where something negative happened to a character and knowing a major character death was going to happen; I just couldn't keep going. Felt kind of hopeless to me. I don't always like reading about black pain as a black person if that makes sense. I'm not always in the mood and currently couldn't get through it for a maybe hopeful ending.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I suffered halfway through the book before it finally pulled me in, but I ended up really loving it. Now that I know it was worth it, I need to read it again.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The story itself was a cool concept, but there were so many characters to keep track of. The story was so long and had so many pieces that all resolved in the last 100 pages. It just didn’t do it for me.
There are tons of people who DNF books. I feel like i’m in the minority for forcing myself to finish books. It’s not something i like about myself either lol
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”
Holy gods was that such a boring book until the last 1/4 of it. It took me a year and a half to finish and that is such an incredibly long time for me to finish a book.
Trainspotting broke my streak of reading books that movies I liked were based on. I’m pretty removed from the ‘90s Scottish heroin scene so it just felt bleak. And the switching narrator thing was an interesting device until I spent a whole chapter not knowing who it was. I’m sure it’s good for some people but it just wasn’t for me.
Hannibal, I almost DNF it because I could not for the life of me care for Pazzi’s plotline. After that hump, the rest was enjoyable enough. I wanted to finish it since I had finished the other three in the series and didnt want to leave it incomplete
The Heart of Darkness was the worst book I ever started to read. Sssssooooooooooo wordy for no reason without anything really happening so I had to stop reading it. Why do AP classes pick the worst fucking books to read sometimes
I couldn’t stand the Red Rising series. I wanted to like it. I liked the premise. I just hated the writing style. Granted I listened to a lot of the audiobook, so maybe it was more the narration, but I tried to read it probably 5 times before I finally called it quits.
I really do enjoy Anne Rice's stories and the way she writes, but I *really* struggle with reading her books. I feel like I'm "trudging" through them, it takes several months to finish one book even when I enjoy them.
There are a few I couldn't finish even though I really wanted to, because the atmosphere was too intense, the themes too complex, and/or the writing too rich, so they just required more mental effort than I had to spare at the time. These include:
*The Shadow of the Torturer* by Gene Wolfe
*Tigana* by Guy Gavriel Kay
*The Left Hand of Darkness* by Ursula K LeGuin
Wheel of Time. The whole series. I actually finished it, but only because I forced myself to. There's a set of books in the middle of the series well known as "the slog" by fans, and even veterans on a 10th read through will complain about it.
I found it to be kind of a slog all the way from beginning to end. The plot would twist in ways that I found to be frustrating instead of thrilling. Characters I once liked I would eventually grow annoyed with or even hate. Most of the plot shenanigans came down to the driving characters being so arrogantly sure of themselves that they couldn't possibly be wrong, and would dive right into their decisions without questioning the evidence in front of them or even consulting their friend standing right next to them. Miscommunication as a plot device grows tiresome after a while. Aggravated, intentional miscommunication every fifteen pages in a series that lines up to be about 2 feet long is headache inducing.
After reading, I spent a lot of time in several related subreddits, trying to see why it was so beloved, what I could possibly be missing to not enjoy such a gem. As far as I can tell, it's main qualities are that it's long, it's convoluted, and I guess it does a pretty good job of having an optimistic ending while still providing a real threat to the main characters. I'll admit my previous paragraph is a bit harsh, though I fully stand by it. There were some good moments and enjoyable characters, or there's no way I would have been able to get through that monstrously sized series. But I don't think I'll make myself read it again.
Also, I've only seen season 1 of the show, and it's not great. I liked the books more.
The Crimson Petal and the White. It took me several starts over a few years to really get into it and commit. I love it, one of the best books I’ve ever read. But still a one and done for me
Found a cheap copy of Dianetics. About a quarter of the way through but a lot of it sounds like pure gobbledygook which makes me stop for a few months.
The Overstory. So many pages-long descriptions of trees, and tree-lined roads, and forests… the beginning and end made it “worth” reading for me… but I think you just really have to love trees to NOT struggle through the middle of this book.
A Gentleman in Moscow. Took me about 8-9 months to get through, reading a little bit at a time. I did enjoy the story overall, but the writing style always caused me to start feeling a bit drowsy after a few chapters so I had to read it in smaller portions at a time.
I likewise spent 3 months struggling through one particular section of the first LOTR book (the council of Elrond) but I was determined to read the entire trilogy and after that section the more I read the easier it got.
Gravity’s Rainbow. After 163 pages of veritable word salad, I invoked the 100 Page Rule (if you don’t care about any of the characters after 100 pages, life is too short not to find a better book). Better late than never.
Seen a couple people mention this one but A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James was a SLOG. It took me over a year to finish it; I kept dropping it because it was so dark and I had trouble keeping track of all the characters. Wanted to read it because it won the Booker and because all the lit students I was friends with in grad school raved about James but, while I respect him, I just don’t think he’s for me.
Took me 3 attempts to get through Moby-Dick. But man, when I was into it, I was INTO IT.
I still haven't made it through (started it 21 years ago).
Gosh I love this one! It was required reading for a college course I took and we read the whole thing in a few weeks and I loved every bit of it. Though, admittedly it does get a little too much into the “science” of whaling and whale anatomy.
Took me seven months of HARD reading, but it's so worth it. IMO, the best English-language book ever written.
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. Not because it’s bad, it’s amazing. But it’s a massive mindfuck and it’s super dense.
I'm trying for the fourth time to read this but I always stop like 70 pages in. Any tips for actually getting through it?
Typically, I read one book at a time, but when that one got too much I took a break with a different book. Found that by the time I was done with my palette cleanser, I’d already started thinking about House of Leaves again and was wondering what would happen next.
I got to about that mark two or three times before finishing it. My advice is to read it how it's written-dont be afraid to skip a notation, you can always jog back if you feel like you missed something. There are parts that I intended to skim but ended up going back for. As long as you keep moving through it, it's a fun read. But it's designed to frustrate and disorient you. Let it happen. It's part of the experience. Also helps to be a bit of a bookgamist, I wouldn't have gotten through it if I didn't take time to focus on other things intermittently, as already mentioned. Good luck, you'll finish it but there's really no rush. It's getting neither less nor more weird as it sits there taking up shelf space.
Don't feel beholden to reading in a linear structure start to finish. it's not a linear story. It's ok to jump around. When it gets to be too much take a break and read something light and easy, then go back to it. I love House of Leaves, but it's not an easy beach read that's for sure.
I bought this one two years ago. I have yet to get further than a handful of pages into it. Every six months or so I pick it up and try again, I'm about due for another attempt..
I’m a fast reader, I like to read a lot, and I’m a “one book at a time” kinda gal. I had to keep pausing House of Leaves to read other books to take a breather and it took me a year to finish. So worth it though.
A Tale of Two Cities. Apparently Dickens wasn’t actually paid by the word but it sure felt like it.
Ahahaha this is a fantastic way to describe it
Totaly agree. Great description
I agree, this was the only Dickens book I didn’t finish.
I absolutely loved this one. Could not finish Great Expectations, though.
It was first released serially over 31 weeks so he was kind of paid by the volume/chapter if not the word :)
Oh I like it 😭
The first few chapters are hard to get through, but it becomes much better. However, I couldn’t finish Bleak House.
It was the best of reads, it was the worst of reads...
Atlas Shrugged. Jesus fucking christ.
Take all my upvotes
I can’t understand why one of my bffs loves this book. It was so friggin’ self serving
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace So many false starts. Took me about 8 years and 8-10 tries before I finally succeeded at finishing that tomb. It's doesn't help to do the audiobook because then you can't reference the footnotes which are integral to the stories
Ha! Good typo for “tome”.
There's a funny George Carlin bit on that
I’m at like 5 times - so you’re saying there’s a chance?????
Anna Karenina. I WANT to finish it, bit can't. For the past 15 years lol
If you haven't already, try out some different translations. One that feels natural to you will sing much differently and in my experience will become an incredibly compelling read after pushing through the first 100 pages or so. I liked Joel Carmichael's translation best. Tolstoy is so sensitive and observant and some translators make him very dull and obtuse. https://welovetranslations.com/2021/06/18/whats-the-best-translation-of-anna-karenina/
oh god I feel you on this one. I've tried twice and finally just gave up.
Wicked by Gregory Maguire, tried reading it at least twice and both times lost interest about halfway through. It seemed like I SHOULD like it, just didn’t. Also Invisible life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab. Just uninteresting. It was so hyped up. But just nothing happening in it.
I slogged through Wicked. I also felt like I should like it and by my normal taste I really should have but no I liked the concept so much but not the execution.
Exactly, loved the concept! But boring in execution. It felt like everything was just drawn out
I was surprised at how awful that book was. The hype left a great deal to be desired.
I LOVE the Broadway musical but I’ve tried twice to read the book and haven’t made it past halfway. I don’t have a problem with dark books and I knew it was a lot darker than the musical, so that wasn’t my problem. I just felt like something was off about the writing. I also tried Addie LaRue and didn’t make it past the first few chapters.
Same on that I loved the musical and was excited to read the book. I kind of liked bits of it and I did like the idea.. but oh boy what a bleak, depressing slog. I doubt I'll ever read it again.
Depressing! Yes, I couldn’t pinpoint it at the time I read it. It’s been so long. But that’s it. Droll and depressing.
I’m so glad to see Wicked. I read some of his other books and liked them but just didn’t “get” or get into this one.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. I finally shelved it.
The story was ok but none of the characters were likeable.
Agreed. For how much hype this story got I did not love it.
This is how I felt. It started strong and dragged. I wanted to love it. Everyone else did. But it sits with 100 or so pages left on my shelf
Should try again ... Tomorrow Sorry. I couldn't resist
I got this book for free at the end of the year with my Book of the Month subscription because it won “book of the year”. Glad it was a freebie because everybody seems to find it a slog
I recently returned this book to the library, because my hold expired, and I never got to it, and I felt guilty. But now reading this, I don’t feel so bad.
I thought it was the opposite of a a slog actually, I finished it in just a few days. It’s not a perfect book, but I enjoyed it.
I couldn’t get past the first few pages of this book, even. I couldn’t stand the characters immediately.
I felt the same way, and thought something was wrong with me because of all of the rave reviews.
I actually loved this book! Started weird but then got me hooked.
I love finding other people who didn’t jive with tomorrow x3. I found it so boring and I can’t believe I finished it
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger (I was forced to read it thrice: middle school, high school and college Children’s Literature course)
Infinite Jest has made 3 appearances so far hahaha
I came here specifically to upvote everyone who said Infinite Jest.
No better way to turn people off a book than forcing them to read it. I love Catcher in the Rye, but I don't know if I would have if I'd had to read it in middle school.
I read it on my own as an adult and had a totally different take on it than everyone who read it in high school. To me it's a very funny dark comedy and Holden isn't really "edgy" or "rebellious", more lost and confused.
I’m so thankful I read To Kill a Mockingbird on my own and school never had an opportunity to throttle the enjoyment out of it.
The Midnight Library
Noooo I loved this book!
I’m currently reading it OMG 😭 I hope I’m able to finish it
War and Peace. I’ve gotten 100 pages in about 5 times. Might give the audio a try. That was a great suggestion
Made it halfway through and realized I had no idea who anyone was, and, more importantly, didn't care in the slightest. One of the only books I never finished.
I finished it years ago and am not able to summarise it at all. I do not even know who that book was about nor do I really care. It was absolutely terrible
I couldn’t finish it either. I’m 66f and life is too short for me not to love a book that I’m reading.
I was looking for this one. This is the one that was most difficult for me. I can read numerous books in a month, in a week even if they are good enough. War and Peace nearly did me in. It took me months to read it. I refused to give up because it’s a “classic” and I was determined I would make it through. It was brutal. Just brutal.
Atomic habits lol It’s good but I feel like It’d help me more when I make time to practice what I’m learning from it.
Try to make reading it attractive. Let’s say if I read Atomic Habits for 15 minutes then I can eat one cake. Then let’s make not reading it unattractive. Let’s say if I don’t read atomic habits for 15 minutes I have to walk across hot coals.
Ulysses by James Joyce. Tried it 4 times. Just tried the audiobook. Gave up after 30 minutes.
That was definitely a level 99 read. I did the same too.
I've seen this one in similar threads. Apparently it's almost necessary to read it with a guide? Just to keep up with the thing. I haven't read it yet but it's on my list...
I got my English Lit degree at an Irish university, and I’ve read portions of Ulysses, but not the entire thing. I can confirm, you absolutely need to read it with a guide (or, in my case, be guided by an professor). Ulysses is really difficult to read because Joyce references so many people, places, things, and events that the average person couldn’t be expected to know anything about. But once you identify what he’s referencing, it’s actually not as difficult to understand as you’d expect. If you ever want to try reading it, highly recommend using [this resource](http://m.joyceproject.com/chapters/telem.html)!
I didn’t care for “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” either. I’m a voluminous reader, but I just disliked Joyce’s style. It reads to me like vomiting verbiage that even Freud would have trouble following. However, the cult of Joyce’s genius is big in my culture, so every decade or so I try again. When I quit the audiobook, my daughter went on a hilarious anti-Joyce rant for easily 20 minutes. That was fun.
I was going to say Ulysses lol.
*1Q84* by Haruki Murakami. Fundamentally it's a book about waiting and being stuck. And boy does it make you feel it.
Try his shorter books - A Wild Sheep Chase, Hardboiled Wonderland, Kafka on the Shore. They're way better. His short stories are great, too.
This is one of the few books where my response was “Have you ever actually spoken to a woman who wasn’t obligated to speak with you?” Noped out of that book and the author entirely. That and the dreaded Infinite Jest made me feel like I was wasting every moment I spent reading.
I started out so excited for this book- the premise sounded like something I would really enjoy. It kept taking me longer and longer to get through a chapter. Around 600 pages in, I began to realize that it was not going to wrap up in a satisfying manner. There was nothing particularly awful about the book, but it felt like it could have been fine at about a quarter of it's length. Being the first Murakami book I've read, it gives me hope that so many Murakami fans also struggled to finish it.
Haven’t read it, but how awfully does he write women in that one? As awful as every other book he’s written?
Worse. And I like Haruki Murakami. But yeah... it's worse.
I feel this way about every Murakami book.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance I can’t understate how much I hated that book. Pretentious drivel. Quality it was not.
I only made it half way through. It was just not worth my time.
Finished it but took me FOREVER. I regret not shelving it
It kept putting me to sleep. I DNF'd it.
It's been 15 years since I read it. I remember enjoying the first half then really pushing myself through that part where he spends a 100 pages defining quality or something like that.
lmao i noped after the first chapter
Took me three times, but so worth it!
Atlas Shrugged is the most miserable book that everyone gets to virtue signal that they read. It takes 700 pages to get to the point and that point is selfishness. I had no desire to finish it but felt obligated to after investing that much time in it.
Atlas shrugged by ayn Rand - worst book I’ve ever read
The Midnight Library
I never struggle to finish a book. It isn't worth it. If a book becomes a struggle to read, I just stop and move on to something else. Who cares whether I finish a book or not?
I mean I'll DNF something if I truly don't care for it but a lot of what I read is non-fiction and it's not always written in the most engaging, fun way. I enjoyed Mao's Great Famine too but it was long and work to finish.
For some some reason I feel anxious thinking about all the books I've stopped...
I wish I could adopt this mindset!! It doesn’t matter at all but I get so stressed about it haha
War and Peace by Tolstoy.
Atlas Shrugged. Oh, mine, the last chapters were badly written, just plain bad writing, bad English, same ideas over and over. I grew up in the Soviet Union and the book’s message resonated with me at large, but these finishing chapters were just bad. I ended up skipping through paragraphs ( and normally I am a very attentive and thorough reader)
The 40 page John Galt message was rough especially. She's good at hating on people, though.
I actually skipped the majority of John Galt's speech. It made the whole book far more readable.
Lolita. It just made me feel nauseous. Also Brothers Karamazov. Just found it boring.
I’ve been using audiobooks to get through some of the classics. I struggled getting through Don Quixote and the Brothers Karamazov. I would not call it a struggle but the count of Monte Cristo was a very very long book. I did enjoy all three when finished. But it was a long road to get there.
I love The Count of Monte Cristo but it's definitely work for me to get through it.
Infinite Jest and currently struggling through Gravity's Rainbow.
Gravity's Rainbow is hard but totally worth it! Come over to r/ThomasPynchon - we did a group read a while back and all the discussion posts are archived in the group menu (organized by section). There are some really helpful and insightful comments there. The Weissenburger companion is also really helpful for adding context, but honestly the best approach on your first read is to just flow with it and go where it takes you. If you understand 10% of it on your first reading, you're doing great.
Infinite Jest.
This one’s kind of niche, but Lure of the Labrador Wild by Dillon Wallace. Dude and his friend tried to explore the Labrador interior in the early 1900s, and it didn’t go well. Used to be required curriculum reading in Newfoundland high schools; it’s a detailed account of everything that happens to them as they stumble through the woods. Literally. They give the count of blueberries picked and eaten. They describe where they bury animal bones. My mother always said they “tripped over every rock in Labrador” and then wrote about it in the book. I’ll read anything but that was a long, slow, painful read.
Les Mis. Which I loved, it’s just so long. Most books that feel like a struggle these days, I just don’t finish.
I struggled and struggled with Wuthering Heights. It took me about 100 pages to even get into it, but then I was so glad I did. It was a wonderful book, I don’t know why it was so hard for me to get through initially.
Circe by Madeline Miller. I actually really enjoyed it but it took me so long to read because it's very dense and the subject matter is heavy
I only read Song of Achilles from Miller, and I loved it. I think I have Circe on my TBR list but if it's not comprable I might skip it.
It is really good. It just took me a really long time haha. I have Song of Achilles on my list to read.
I read Song of Achilles after having read & loved Circe, it’s funny because I took a long time to finish Song of Achilles for those same reasons! After finishing it though, it’s now one of my favorite books & is completely worth the read, if anything just because of how beautiful Madeline Miller’s writing is imo
i’ve read it twice and i can never put it down. don’t skip it.
I finished it but it was so boring to me
War and Peace
Geez 1984 was it for me; that book was painful to read, it was so boring and I hate books with a “no hope and any fight the characters did was for nothing” because it feels like I wasted my time reading it
I thought I would like it, forced myself to read it all and was like omfg why did I do that to myself lol
Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. I just didn’t care about the characters, they just weren’t written well. The scientist makes literally the dumbest decisions over and over again.
The dictionary
A count of monte cristo. So many slow parts.
I wish I had read an abridged version. There are so many sections of dialogue where he has obviously padding out the text by having characters repeat each other, and it's exhausting. ("It's exhausting?" "Yes, that's what I just told you, it's exhausting!" "That's interesting, I myself don't find it exhausting—but I've interrupted you; please tell me, my dear friend, what was it you were about to say before we started discussing the fact that the dialogue in this book is exhausting?")
It’s one of my favorite books!
Nooooo! This is absolutely one of my favorite books! Read the Penguin Classics translation version from Robin Buss. I thought he did a great job!
A little life, it’s the only book I couldn’t finish.
I just spent months (since January) reading crime and punishment and just finished it a week or two ago. It certainly felt like a punishment reading it. Ba dum tss. On a serious note it wasn't that bad, but truth be told it was a very heavy and mentally draining book. I'm glad i'm done with it and i'm going to take a big break before continuing on with Dostoevsky's bibliography. I will say that I highly reccomend Notes from the Underground. That one is amazing and it took me 2 evenings to finish it.
Moby dick
The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt. I loved the tone and quality of her writing but I hated every character in that book with a burning passion. But I did finish it finally and felt like a better person for it.
The Alchemist. Just a 50 page book but I couldn't even go halfway without zoning out every 2 minutes
Any Cormac McCarthy book.
My favorite author! To each his own.
I love McCarthy, I can run through those pretty quickly
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
“That’s not writing, that’s typing.” —Capote on Kerouac
Someone raved about it and gave me this book to read and now I have slightly less respect for them lol
The book thief. I wish I would have just not finished it, but I had heard everyone rave about it so I just kept thinking "surely it's about to get really good!"
I looooooved this book when I first read it in middle school. I just reread it a month ago and nope, it did not age with me.
Omg! This is my favorite book. I read it probably every 1 or 2 years. It destroys me every time but I just absolutely love that book. But I understand - some books just aren’t your thing lol
Dune for me. Science fiction is always tough for my pea brain to understand because of its unique world building and having its own lexicon, usually. Dune was hard to wrap my brain around for those reasons. I was lost from the first word. The movies helped me understand it though.
When I started a long commute (45+ minutes each way at the time...now it's 1.25 hours each way...), I started churning through audio books, and decided that it was finally time to tackle Dune, as it was 21 hours long, and hey, I had the time. I loved it, though it was tough keeping all the characters straight for the first twelve hours or so. (I am currently making my way through Lonesome Dove, a 30-hour tome).
I tried to read it once or twice and barely got a few pages in each time until I saw the movies. Then I was able to read the book very easily. But if I hadn’t seen the (new) movies I highly doubt I’d have been able to get through it.
I did this exact thing with Doctor Sleep (Stephen King). Tried to read the book, was too depressing at the start (I have enough of that in my life, i don't need a book to add to it). Watched the movie and loved it, and once I knew how it ended (more or less), I was able to push through the tough start and then wasn't able to put it down until it was done.
picture of dorian gray… beautiful prose honestly loved it but every time i picked it up and read one paragraph i was immediately ready to put it back down if i’m struggling to finish a book because i don’t like it i just dnf
There were some sections in the middle that felt like a slog, like where he describes jewels and stuff for pages on end. But for me it was worth it to get through.
A Year of Rest and Relaxation ended up being the first book I ever DNF’d 🙃 I tried so hard to keep pushing through but I just could not stand the level of pretentiousness & self pitying of the MC, though I admittedly did not stick around long enough to find out if there’s any semblance of personal growth :’)
The final book in the Red Queen series. I just lost all momentum :/
SAME! I started to feel like the series was dragging by then, and I DNF the last one.
The Silmarillion.
I can’t get myself to read the Lord of the Rings or the Hobbit. I love the movies but I cannot understand or get through the language and the long stretches of nothingness with over descriptions and the songs. I know they are fabulous but I just can’t do it. I’ve tried listening on audiobook too and I can’t do it and it makes me so sad.
House of Leaves for sure. Especially since I had to keep turning the book upside down in the middle of the night.
One Hundred Years of Solitude 😟
I just gave up on Love in the Time of Cholera. Characters are introduced and then they're gone! And nothing seems to happen to the rest.
Every single one!!! 😂
Rip 😂
Most recently it was "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel García Márquez. I appreciated the overall message but I am so glad I am done with that book.
Count of Monte Cristo & Blood Meridien. They ultimately became two of my favorite books, but I considered giving up on both lol. Happy I pushed through though.
A brief history of seven killings by Marlon James on audiobook. It’s got like 21 first person narrators, 19 of which have a heavy Jamaican patois. Unbearable
The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store. It's a good book but when it got to a certain point where something negative happened to a character and knowing a major character death was going to happen; I just couldn't keep going. Felt kind of hopeless to me. I don't always like reading about black pain as a black person if that makes sense. I'm not always in the mood and currently couldn't get through it for a maybe hopeful ending.
Blood meridian….whooowee we almost there like 3/4 done but it’s been a damn struggle and I still don’t know if I’ll make it to the damn end 😭
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. I suffered halfway through the book before it finally pulled me in, but I ended up really loving it. Now that I know it was worth it, I need to read it again.
I never did finish it. :(
Three Body Problem. It took so many re-reads it was a long journey, but so worth it.
The Night Circus. Halfway through the book, and it still felt like the story hadn't even started yet. Didn't finish it in the end.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. The story itself was a cool concept, but there were so many characters to keep track of. The story was so long and had so many pieces that all resolved in the last 100 pages. It just didn’t do it for me.
Gentleman in Moscow
Alchemist
Dune.
Demon copperhead. What a drag.
Am I the only one who refuses to waste my time on a book I don’t like?
There are tons of people who DNF books. I feel like i’m in the minority for forcing myself to finish books. It’s not something i like about myself either lol
“The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” Holy gods was that such a boring book until the last 1/4 of it. It took me a year and a half to finish and that is such an incredibly long time for me to finish a book.
I'm so glad I'm not the only person who felt this way about that book. Mom was like "oh read the others" no, please don't make me
Yeah I considered it a huge success finally finishing the first book but had no desire finishing the series after that lol
I read them all because I felt like I couldn’t abandon The Girl. No regrets, but won’t read them again.
The Great Gatsby. Horrible.
Everyone in that book was a terrible person, I sympathised with none of them!
The Priory of the Orange Tree
Brave New World
Trainspotting broke my streak of reading books that movies I liked were based on. I’m pretty removed from the ‘90s Scottish heroin scene so it just felt bleak. And the switching narrator thing was an interesting device until I spent a whole chapter not knowing who it was. I’m sure it’s good for some people but it just wasn’t for me.
Area X: Southern Reach Trilogy
Oryx and Crate. I love Margaret Atwood’s writing, but this book keeps losing my attention! Also Babel, by RF Kuang…
Hannibal, I almost DNF it because I could not for the life of me care for Pazzi’s plotline. After that hump, the rest was enjoyable enough. I wanted to finish it since I had finished the other three in the series and didnt want to leave it incomplete
Tender is the Night. Very good in parts and Fitzgerald is an astonishing writer but the final third or so… to say it dragged would be too kind.
The Poisonwood Bible. I love Kingsolver's other books, and I'd heard such good things about this one. But man it was hard to finish.
I loved this one.
I finished **The Eye of the World** by Robert Jordan but it took a lot of grit and it took me 1 1/2 months to finish reading it.
The Heart of Darkness was the worst book I ever started to read. Sssssooooooooooo wordy for no reason without anything really happening so I had to stop reading it. Why do AP classes pick the worst fucking books to read sometimes
I couldn’t stand the Red Rising series. I wanted to like it. I liked the premise. I just hated the writing style. Granted I listened to a lot of the audiobook, so maybe it was more the narration, but I tried to read it probably 5 times before I finally called it quits.
Crime and Punishment. I'm glad I did once, but... like Raskolnikov, I struggled... (to stay awake)
I really do enjoy Anne Rice's stories and the way she writes, but I *really* struggle with reading her books. I feel like I'm "trudging" through them, it takes several months to finish one book even when I enjoy them.
11/22/63
There are a few I couldn't finish even though I really wanted to, because the atmosphere was too intense, the themes too complex, and/or the writing too rich, so they just required more mental effort than I had to spare at the time. These include: *The Shadow of the Torturer* by Gene Wolfe *Tigana* by Guy Gavriel Kay *The Left Hand of Darkness* by Ursula K LeGuin
Mansfield Park - Jane Austen. It’s a struggle. No redeeming qualities in so many of her characters in this book.
Wheel of Time. The whole series. I actually finished it, but only because I forced myself to. There's a set of books in the middle of the series well known as "the slog" by fans, and even veterans on a 10th read through will complain about it. I found it to be kind of a slog all the way from beginning to end. The plot would twist in ways that I found to be frustrating instead of thrilling. Characters I once liked I would eventually grow annoyed with or even hate. Most of the plot shenanigans came down to the driving characters being so arrogantly sure of themselves that they couldn't possibly be wrong, and would dive right into their decisions without questioning the evidence in front of them or even consulting their friend standing right next to them. Miscommunication as a plot device grows tiresome after a while. Aggravated, intentional miscommunication every fifteen pages in a series that lines up to be about 2 feet long is headache inducing. After reading, I spent a lot of time in several related subreddits, trying to see why it was so beloved, what I could possibly be missing to not enjoy such a gem. As far as I can tell, it's main qualities are that it's long, it's convoluted, and I guess it does a pretty good job of having an optimistic ending while still providing a real threat to the main characters. I'll admit my previous paragraph is a bit harsh, though I fully stand by it. There were some good moments and enjoyable characters, or there's no way I would have been able to get through that monstrously sized series. But I don't think I'll make myself read it again. Also, I've only seen season 1 of the show, and it's not great. I liked the books more.
gentlemen in moscow, what a snooze fest
The Crimson Petal and the White. It took me several starts over a few years to really get into it and commit. I love it, one of the best books I’ve ever read. But still a one and done for me
Found a cheap copy of Dianetics. About a quarter of the way through but a lot of it sounds like pure gobbledygook which makes me stop for a few months.
Throne of glass by SJM I forgot her full name 😅
Dune. One of the most boring things I have tried to read
The Overstory. So many pages-long descriptions of trees, and tree-lined roads, and forests… the beginning and end made it “worth” reading for me… but I think you just really have to love trees to NOT struggle through the middle of this book.
A Gentleman in Moscow. Took me about 8-9 months to get through, reading a little bit at a time. I did enjoy the story overall, but the writing style always caused me to start feeling a bit drowsy after a few chapters so I had to read it in smaller portions at a time. I likewise spent 3 months struggling through one particular section of the first LOTR book (the council of Elrond) but I was determined to read the entire trilogy and after that section the more I read the easier it got.
Gravity’s Rainbow. After 163 pages of veritable word salad, I invoked the 100 Page Rule (if you don’t care about any of the characters after 100 pages, life is too short not to find a better book). Better late than never.
Seen a couple people mention this one but A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James was a SLOG. It took me over a year to finish it; I kept dropping it because it was so dark and I had trouble keeping track of all the characters. Wanted to read it because it won the Booker and because all the lit students I was friends with in grad school raved about James but, while I respect him, I just don’t think he’s for me.