Books that defeated you!

Lord of the Rings. My brother read it several times as a teenager and I tried to get into it but little elves don’t do it for me. I am not a fan of fantasy or sci-fi anyway.

Read The Lovely Bones,whilst arranging a memorial for my daughter who wasnt buried for 11months,I loved the book

Grumpa
I enjoyed the book, but the only way I could read it was to go and sit at the dining room table.

Thursday Murder Club divided our craft group - people either love it or loathe it. I did get to the end, but I had to make myself.
I read War & Peace on holiday decades ago. I finished it, it was a good story.
Can't manage to get past the first few chapters of Far from the Madding Crowd or (1st) Lord of the Rings, though I'vetried each several times and they're also excellent stories. Am trying to get DGD into The Hobbit on Audible to encourage me to try again.

MaizieD

Oh, just remembered. Michelle O'Bama's autobiography. So worthy, so dull. I never got as far as her becoming First Lady.

So disappointing because I admire her greatly.

I struggled with the printed version so bit the bullet and went for the audio version read by Michelle Obama and loved it! I'd already had a couple of Barack Obama books on audible read by him and enjoyed them, so thought it worth the punt.

I struggled with "The Goldfinch" which one of my sons bought for me. That was a determined effort to get to the end. A good story that could have stood dramatic shortening! I really don't like to abandon any book I start to read.

NotSpaghetti

^Captain Corelli's Mandolin^
I tried and tried and tried!

I tried 3 times too.

Anything written by William Faulkner. I was required to read The Sound and the Fury at school. Awful.

The Harry Potter books. Not bad films but I can’t read the books. Also the Da Vinci Code- dreadful style.

I'm with Notspaghetti on Capt Corelli - tried twice failed twice

Life after Life by Kate Atkinson. Love most of her books but this one defeated me

Marmight
Funny isn’t it, Life after Life is probably my favourite Kate Atkinson.

I too don’t like books written in the present tense. A friend and I used to challenge ourselves to read the Booker shortlist. Dreadful forgettable books a lot of them. I have become more selective now. Life is too short to deal with books I don’t enjoy.

A lot of Booker winners are awful, but I always think the Booker panel are far better informed and intelligent than me, so I must be missing something.

Sara1954

A lot of Booker winners are awful, but I always think the Booker panel are far better informed and intelligent than me, so I must be missing something.

I agree. I have given up on several of them but, as someone else posted earlier, life is too short to persevere with a book you don't find interesting/enhancing.

I have loved books all my life.... if a book doesn't resonate with me for whatever reason (could be due to what's going on in my life), then I put it aside.

I read for pleasure ... if I'm not feeling it, I find another book. Every day I give thanks for libraries

PS. I didn't like Michelle Obama's book, or Cloud Atlas, or Midnight's Children, or The Lovely Bones to name a few.

Some Other Rainbow by John McCarthy and Jill Morrell defeated me as did Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawkin. I tried both several times.

Anything by Donna Tartt. And I have really tried 😟

I am a firm believer that if I've started then I will finish, to paraphrase Mastermind. Some of the titles mentioned, I would agree are difficult and turgid but I persevered. The only book so far that I was unable to finish was Ulysses by James Joyce. It hurt my brain and I've given up a number of times! Maybe I should make that my project for March.

Nearly all my late husbands books I found very boring and never finished one of them
Catch 22 - he read this at least once a year
Lord of the Rings
The Alchemist
All of Hilary Mantels (although I enjoyed Wolf Hall on TV)
All of Philip Pullmans
Any books people say will change my life ie Where the Crawdads Sing - The Time Travellers Wife. They don’t

Grandabatty
I agree with you, I always need to get to the end if possible, and very often I’m glad I persevered.

I think like Sara above the reason why I do persevere with some books is that sometimes, what initially comes across as a complete bore, once you crack the first 100 pages or so it turns into something else altogether. I found that very much with Atonement, I really didn't like it at all until 70 pages or so in, but ended up loving it once I got into the heart of it. Although I would add that's an exception, more often than not my first instincts are often right.

I also gave up on Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell and Wolf Hall. Not a big fan of Phillipa Gregory either, but Shadow of the Wind is one of my favourite books.

TerriBull

I think like Sara above the reason why I do persevere with some books is that sometimes, what initially comes across as a complete bore, once you crack the first 100 pages or so it turns into something else altogether. I found that very much with Atonement, I really didn't like it at all until 70 pages or so in, but ended up loving it once I got into the heart of it. Although I would add that's an exception, more often than not my first instincts are often right.

I found that with We Need To Talk About Kevin. I was reading it for a book club meeting and struggled until the person who'd chosen it said to start later in the book as the opening was hard work. She was right. I started where she suggested and it has become one of my favourite novels. I re-read it from the beginning when I'd worked out the structure, which was what was getting in the way. It's really a very good book.

50 Shades of Grey, not so much for the reputed raunchy content as for the appalling writing. I abandoned the attempt after the first chapter.

Doodledog
I don’t remember finding the beginning of ‘Kevin’ to be too difficult to get into, it’s a book that shocks and horrifies, but the worst thing is that you can see how in a country with few gun laws, this could too easily happen.