Books that defeated you!

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel - I could not get on with her writing style at all, her odd use of "he" was confusing and driving me nuts! Put me off reading anything else by her. Most books I have read, or attempted to read, that have won prizes are not to my taste at all.

The Hobbit and anything by JK Rowling. Not a Harry Potter fan and I hate "Strike" that so-called crime thriller utter rubbish.

I am afraid to say that I hated Wuthering Heights (ducks!!) I did read it but just disliked it very much. As regards what people have said about Tolkien, I read the Hobbit as a child and then read all the Lord of the Rings books as they came out. The books are marmite - I have one son who gobbled them up and the other one couldn't get on with them at all. They had the same reactions to Harry Potter. Needless to say, I loved all the Harry Potters.

Ulysses . Bored to death!

Oh ….and Wuthering heights !! I tried…and tried …and tried to see what all the fuss is about! No wonder it was her only book ….give me her sister Anne any day.

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers. It began well but just went on and on... 500 pages with not much to engage me. Also couldn't get on with Girl Reading by Katie Ward - too disjointed and trying to do something clever with the format (similar to Cloud Atlas which I also abandoned). I was tempted to abandon The Thursday Murder Club, but kept going, skipping through the pages very quickly. What a waste of time. It must be galling for writers struggling to get a novel published to see these celebrity bestsellers.

It seems that Wuthering Heights and Wolf Hall are the books we either love or hate.
Personally, I love both.

Wuthering Heights has never ever been made into a decent film or TV series, probably because it really lives in the head of the reader. Wolf Hall, otoh, is one of my favourite TV series of all time, but I couldn't get away with either the book or the audiobook.

Couldn't get into Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Didn't like The Time Traveller's Wife

The Slap - horrible characters

I hated Wuthering Heights - gloomy and depressing

I don’t think anyone is expected to finish Ulysses.
TerriBull I have exactly the same dislikes as you. Except I’m the muppet who carried on reading Cloud Atlas to the bitter, pointless, pretentious end. I think I was on holiday, so I didn’t have an excuse not to. What a waste of a week.
After the first volume of Proust I felt I’d done my duty and stopped.

Ulysses, again, Captain Corelli's Mandolin and Lord of the Rings. But have read Terry Pratchett , all of them , many times.

Canterbury Tales and The Last of The Mohicans - love JR Tolkien books though, struggle with a lot of Dickens too !

Jane Eyre. I only managed sections we had to read for English homework.
That book gave me nightmares, so I never read any other Brontes . Even driving through Howarth village it seems a dull and miserable place.

I agree with the poster who mentioned Richard Osmans Thursday Murder Club , it was that bad I had to permanently delete it from my Kindle 😂.

Beloved. I finished it, but it was disgusting and gross. I get what it was trying to say, still hated the book. Also, poorly written. Like taking a trip in a vehicle with no brakes and no map. I need my authors to throw me some punctuation once in awhile.

Forgot to mention that I love PG Wodehouse. Also have read and enjoyed the biography of Queen Victoria and Mary Queen of Scots by Lady Antonia Fraser. Love good historical biographies!

Captain Corelli's Mandolin was my first "did not finish". My Book group recently had another book by the same author and none of us liked it.
I am surprised so many do not like Wolf Hall. I love all Hilary Mantel's books.
I used to always finish books even if I did not much like them but these days often give up on a book quite quickly. I used to be more into reading heavy, dense books but now want something lighter. I also think (as others have said), there's so many good books, life's too short to read ones we don't like.

Thisismyname1953

I agree with the poster who mentioned Richard Osmans Thursday Murder Club , it was that bad I had to permanently delete it from my Kindle 😂.

I did that once, but I can’t remember what the book was, which won’t help to prevent me from buying it again. It was a first generation kindle, and I had no idea how to delete anything from it, but whatever it was had me so incensed that I found out and deleted it with relish. That’s not at all like me, as usually I just stop reading if I hate something or am bored, so it must have been bad. I did get a lot of free or very cheap books when I got my first kindle, before I realised that they were free for a reason . It was probably one of those.

I'm a George Eliot fan but haven't been able to get on with Adam Bede.
And I threw the Da Vinci Code into the waste-paper basket after a few pages. How can such bad writing have been so successful commercially?
These are just two titles among many, I must confess.

Romola
Adam Bede is in my opinion, a really lovely book, I always feel it’s ahead of its time.
I always like a tale of country folk

War and Peace. Badly written. Could have been a great book but was so boring. Didn’t have to be. Great competition would be for the best re write.
Oh, a son in law, knowing I was a reader, presented me with a Barbara Cartland. Good grief! What silly rubbish

Am late in posting on this thread....as usual....but here we go
TerriBull I too enjoyed The Blind Assassin!
MerylStreep I was just going to post that I have never been able to finish a Donna Tartt book!
I struggled through The Wasp Factory and actually quite enjoyed the end.....or was I just glad to reach it 🤔.
I enjoy Kazuo Ishiguro's writing style and was happily reading When We Were Orphans until the story turned very weird part way through and I lost the will to carry on. Same happened with another of his books, can't remember the title but it was based in Anglo Saxon times

Thanks Sara1954 I will.

I agree with The Life of Pi comment, I just couldn’t get into it. I didn’t like Circe either. I did however push through with The Poisonwoid Bible and really enjoyed it. The Goldfinch could have “lost “ a 100 pages I thought.