Books that defeated you!

Wolf Hall is my 'did not finish' book. I tried it as a Kindle book and also as an audible book but had to give up on both. Too many characters for me and I lost track.
Too many other books out there waiting to be read to finish a book that is not engaging you. It doesn't actually have to be an enjoyable book, as long as it's interesting.

Cloud Atlas was very difficult; liked some parts but couldn’t understand what linked all the different stories.
The Wings of the Dove by Henry James.Tried three times over my life and given up now. Anyone enjoy it?

NotAGran55

Even typing this makes me yawn 🥱 because it was so boring -
Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club.
A dreadful waste of paper imho.

Well I find him a boring oerson so wouldn’t even attempt his book.
Just remembered Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks .

Nannan2, I read My Family and other Animals when I was about fourteen. I think you would enjoy it. It was quite funny.

I'm with sara1954 and urmstongran in loving A Little Life. I read it on Kindle so wasn't really aware of just what a (physically)huge book it is. It was only when I saw a copy in a bookshop I noticed it's size and the very small print. Quite daunting - but a truly worthwhile read. I too felt like I had lost a group of friends when the book ended.
I once made the mistake of telling a colleague that Dr Zhivago was my favourite film and she promptly lent me the book. I think she took some pleasure in asking me almost daily how I was enjoying it. Eventually I had to confess that it was far too wordy, too Russian and altogether too complicated for me. I did manage to read a couple of chapters before giving up.

I did finish A Little Life. I wasn’t tempted to stop, but can’t say that I enjoyed it because it was harrowing. I enjoyed the time Travellers Wife, but goodness, the timing was difficult to follow. I loved David Copperfield, but like many, couldn’t get through most of his others.

I did enjoy War and Peace but skipped through the battle plans. Also liked A Suitable Boy and Catch 22
Can’t think of one that I hated but have given up on a few, Where the Crawdads sing is the last one. Everybody raved about it but it did nothing for me. Didn’t like The Hobbit either but loved Lord if the Rings. Wouldn’t attempt any Harry Potter after gamely trying to get my young son into reading The Philosophers Stone, ended up reading it to him and neither of us wanted to try another one! That bloody game of Quiddich!

I have a very worn copy of Little Women which was my dads, it was part is a set, possibly Treasure Island and more boyish things, so I only had Little Women, never likely to read it, it’s too discoloured, but it has nice illustrations.

I bought the Durrells books as i thought they will be as good as the series on tv- or even better-but i never started them as when they arrived they had so many pages in they were like tomes! Maybe one day when ive nothing else left to read....🤔

I don't often give up on books, but last year one defeated me, and it surprised me that I abandoned it. It was Little Women. A very early edition (not a First), large and beautifully leather bound. I know the story backwards having read various other editions, played in a stage production, and seen the films. So I was looking forward to reading the original version. But sadly I found it very hard work, tedious even. I could easily pick out the storylines that I knew but it was very over embellished, excessively descriptive, repetitive - and boring. I managed to read 2/3rds of it then gave up. I left a bookmark where I had stopped maybe one day I'll try to read the rest. But for now I enjoy it as a beautiful book on my bookshelf.

Dearknees
I really enjoyed The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and all the books which followed.
LadyHonoria
The Sea, The Sea is a favourite of mine, really
enjoyed it, but I read it many years ago, can’t remember it in much detail.

I no longer persevere with books I don’t enjoy. Always feel a bit guilty about it for some reason. Maybe it’s my days of studying English Literature at school and having to plough through things like Tale of Two Cities and Volpone.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera (I think that's his name), couldn't make head nor tail of it I'm afraid.

Richard Osman books are awful, are we supposed to like them because he is on TV ? Not a good story teller at all, over hyped tripe.

Lots of books I also couldn’t finish/didn’t enjoy but also many I love which other people hate. No one has mentioned’The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. My friend assured me if I got to page 100 I would begin to enjoy it but I just couldn’t get into it. Conversely she couldn’t read ‘Wolf Hall’ and I loved it - every word. I loathe all crime novels Tried Val McDermid recently but gave up after 5pages because life’s just too short.

I can't seem to get through most fantasy fiction, HP and LotR included. Plus I made chapter three of The Goldfinch then gave up. What a boring load of twaddle.

The thing about Middlemarch is that it's the ultimate beach book, the Victorian great-grandmamma of all soap operas. It's no good trying to read a few pages every night before you go to sleep, you need a good long run at it. When I did it as part of an Open University literature course I found a week slobbing on the porch swing for a week while visiting my American Mom-in-law.

Lord of the Rings
I got about 10 pages in, gave it to a charity shop

I tried Tristram Shandy and I’m the proverbial bookworm, but gave up.

Anything by Angela Carter.
At Swim Two Birds, Flann O’Brien, given to me by a boyfriend, but no thanks.
Terry Prachett, book group choice, also Philip Pullman, both chosen by the male members.
Dombey & Son, started but left, also Middlemarch, but I may give that another go.
I also had Tale of Two Cities as set book, hated it and never read historical fiction.
Loved Cancer Ward, Solzhenitsyn and Kevin as mentioned above.

Tristram Shandy anyone? I tried this several times but very quickly gave up. Would love to know if anyone has been successful.

Oh! Tried this and loved it, but did take 3 attempts

Almost anything by Iris Murdoch. I've got her Booker Winner The Sea, The Sea nearby with a bookmark in it about 30 pages in. It hasn't moved for months. Look, I know she was a great writer, and I have book-loving friends who think she's the bee's knees but she's never clicked with me. Yet.

Ulysses I've read three times end to end. The first was an ordeal that I only got through by sheer determination. The second time I blogged it section by section as I wrote it, and that helped. I compared it to walking the Pennine Way (which I've never done' although I've walked bits of it including some of the more testing stretches) where some days are easy and some you spend wading through knee-deep peat bog but you feel great when you reach the end. Somebody once told me that when the going gets tough you should try reading it out loud. Joyce was an accomplished singer with a keen ear for the sounds of words and how they fit together.

Les Miserables - a gift from a French student. I did read it all the way through, and a lot of it was inspiring, so I'm glad I bothered, but it was very confusing and actually "life's too short"as others have said. Wonder how much of his life he spent writing it 😬!

Sorry to hear that dragonfly46. One of my favourite books. I found it hilarious.