What book could you just not finish and why?
Cloud Atlas
I read up to Sloosha, at which point I realised the author legitimately thought he was being clever, and I just couldn't bear it any more.
The Guild of the Wizards of Waterfire by Iain Reading with no trace of a doubt, I'm certain there's worse books out there but this one is my kryptonite. I found a copy of it on a convention floor, I tried returning it but nobody bit so I kept it. I've been reading a lot of younger fiction as its a genre I'm interested in writing for, but nothing will ever compare to the blithering shitpile that this book tries to pass as published material. I've finished books I hate just to say that through and through they are terrible, but this... this was different. This was a strange breed of awful. I don't even touch books printed like this anymore, THATS how bad it was. That being said, I have another book from that convention, also free: Eden's Secret Ore. Its FF7.
From what I remember, The Guild of the Wizards of Waterfire started off with an infodump "laced" through the introduction, that is: one meaty paragraph of worldbuilding and a couple sentences of book with little concern on how well it meshed. No, not in any particularly artful way either, the first two paragraphs are starters of their own, and the fucker flips narratives like a fish. Anyways, the whole magic of the universe is about balance, but mixing a certain two elements makes a very strong magic while basically everything else does jack shit. There's something about having to need a certain amount of people in the guild or they must break up, but its been 2 pages there's no stakes and I don't care if they break up or not.
Once the great dump is out of the way, prepare for another one. A character the reader doesn't know is revealed to be dead (I already don't give a shit) and the other characters the readers have known for ~500 words grieving, and... yeah, I still don't give a shit? To make matters worse, he's still dropping paragraphs about the world. Things get spotty after this in my memory, a chapter of the MC crying alone in her hidey-hole, and then chapter of her being late to school just like in the animes, I remember bits and pieces but I slammed that book into the garbage when the love interest was hailed as a fucking genius for saying "hey, what if we made a modern day romeo and juliet play?".
God, the worst fucking part was the fact that these elemental-wielding wizards used gemstones as a catalyst, the stones had a small amount of element inside of them (literally 'pure water from an iceberg' or something) and to use magic the kids had to squeeze the gem until a microscopic particle of the element came out. My suspension of disbelief was obliterated.
And before anyone calls it a 'kid book', I talked to the author that day while the book was in lost and found and I asked what age range his books are for. He said from "10 to 20". There's absolutely no way a 20 year old would find any joy in this whatsoever.
That being said, pick up a copy and see how far you get. I got to page 66. 2$ on Amazon kindle!
![visc05[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/noZQYzr.jpg "visc05[1].jpg")
>>7895546
The Brothers Karamazov
It was so long and slow and nothing important ever seemed to happen.
The Goldfinch
Good lord what a pile of shit.
>>7895635
I just started this last night, about 105 ereader pages out of about 2200 in. Luckily I'm at a 9 week school for work and spend my off time hanging out in my hotel room.
>>7895546
Crime & Punishment : I stopped about 1/3rd of the way through, I felt I knew exactly how much pussy footing it would take to make the story advance and I didnt have the courage to take up on this challenge. I could be wrong though but I doubt it.
Although a book I've burned was Stendhal's Le Rouge et Le Noir? Utter pile of shit and we needed paper to start the BBQ.
Cant say im proud, but not really ashamed either
>>7895640
Good luck Anon. Hopefully you will find it better than what I did. It's supposed to be a classic, after all.
Don Quixote, and because it was not good
In Search of Lost Time, mentioned it in several threads, it put me to sleep. I tried three different times.
>>7895546
pale king (RIP)
aeneid (RIP)
crying of lot 49 cause ruggles fucking gave the ending away (spoiler its the title) dropped that shit
>>7895749
There is nothing in life more powerful than this piece of fiction. It is still the final and the greatest expression of human thought, the most bitter irony that a human is capable of expressing; and if the world came to an end and people were asked somewhere there: ‘Well, did you understand anything about your life on earth and draw any conclusion from it?’ a person could silently hand over Don Quixote. ‘Here is my conclusion about life. Can you condemn me for it?’
Gravity's Rainbow
Room by Emma Donahue.
I was 15 at the time, and had a college reading level. I had been going through some sort of depression/revelation stage and had basically quit reading. I decided to get back to reading books starting YA and I'd work my way up. First book I picked up was that piece of trash. I to stop reading once the little boy started talking about his penis. It just... Tore me up inside.
Mfw I could tell that the mother was sexually abused by the third page.
Mfw I didn't want to hear a kid's perspective on sexual abuse or worse, hear how he can tell when his mom's being raped.
My mother Frickin face when they had the GALL to make a movie on that crap.
Tfw when no face can portray the fury I felt.
>>7896272
You are a gimp.
i finish all my books cause i dont read trash books and im not a weak willed faggot pseud
>>7895546
Heretics of Dune - it was such an obvious cash grab and took a sharp turn from the pacing and story of the previous books.
Me talk pretty one day - leddit's recommendation as one of the funniest books Id read, turned out to be a vapid piece of shit. could possibly take the title of quirky king of airport books, with little humor and just as much character to boot.
Naked Lunch. It was a total slog and totally unfun to read.
if on a winter's night a traveler. I'm sorry. I tried. But after the 7th new book I really couldn't find any reason to care or be engaged with Calvino.
>>7895546
House of Leaves. The typographical "interperation" pissed of off to no end.
Creativity Inc. It started as an autobiography then descended into a company help book.
I nearly gave up on Crime and Punishment but manned up and saw it through to the end. Was not disappointed.
Pic related, however, I just couldn't understand why anyone would read ~900 pages of tripe about petty quarrels in an English town. Fuck.
>>7896270
delet
>>7896272
>Deep and powerful = Good
Tell us more on why something incredibly boring is a work of art.
The Castle by Kafka. I felt like I was rereading The Trial.
>>7895546Breakfast of Champions
I got so close to the end before I got fed up with the how reddit-tier it was.Loved Cat's Cradle though.
>>7896306
Try it again.
Got through almost 200 pages of Finnegans Wake but it took way too long to get anything out of it. Will return to it sometime.
Got through about 100 of Brothers Karamazov recently but got busy with other stuff and didn't feel like picking it back up. Garnett translation sucked too, the P&V Dosto I've read was much better. Will return to it at some point.
Read the first ~40p of The Name of the Rose once, felt slow as molasses and I couldn't get into it. Will return to it at some point.
That's all I can think of.
Game of Thrones.
Totally out of subjective preference, honestly. There are certain things that can happen in a story that will make me throw my hands up and put the fucking book down. Ned being beyond fucking retarded was one of them.
What's worse, I know that best bastard meets a shitty end at some point in the series.
almost everything... crime and punishment, infinite jest, gravity's rainbow......
>>7895646
I don't get the C&P hate. I found that book to be extremely engaging and couldn't put it down.
>>7895906
how dim exactly are you?
>>7897748
Same, although I felt the epilogue wasn't needed, and the prose wasn't all that great. Still, I really liked it.
>>7898074
I didn't think the epilogue was as bad as everyone said it was even if the after events could better be left to imagination.
I found Sonyas support to be very touching and that it made a lot of sense that Rodya needed to repent to get rid of that anxiety even if it is some old idea like religion.
I could see how it puts off people who have their own view of events though
infinite jest -- 250 pages.
Went through a pretty tough depression. Lost interest in everything. I'd like to give infinite summer a try this year.
>>7898074
prose as in Garretts? I thought it was more story based anyway
>>7895646
Le rouge et le noir is masterful.
>>7898224
yea im with you. not sure why the anon was hating. great book
>>7898083
Doesn't help it's a pretty depressing book.
>>7895546
Assassin's Apprentice
I felt it generic, i could imagine something similar instead of reading it while i'm taking a shit.
>>7898083
that sucks because i remember for some reason very clearly that around p.250 is where it became great for me and didn't stop
A brave new world, literally fell asleep everytime I tried to read it.
Pride and Prejudice. Everything by Austen feels like an interminable slog.
crime and punishment, shit is way too long and boring, dostoyevsky has his moments but they were too few and far between in that one
>>7898460
Really? That's his book with the least amount of "dull" moments imo
Ulysses. Read half of it then other stuff got in the way.
>>7895546
Infinite Jest
The Stand
I got bored of John Dies at the End like a third into it.
Divergent, after my 60 year old uncle assured me it was really good.
This guy had given me a lot of sci-fi books as a kid and it depressed me to no end that 20 years later he had moved on to young adult shit where I had pretty much abandoned genre fiction.
>>7898490
The Book of Disquiet because every entry was essentially the same. After 100 pages I read the last few passages and it seemed like I missed nothing. However, the ending with the barber still did depress the shit out of me.
Sharp teeth by Toby Barlow.
I thought I would buy an passable Paranormal romance book. But the flood of poetry prose kept stopping me at random points in the action.
The book feels like the book On the Road at points but I had no interest in how this situation turns out or how the book will end.
I stopped a third into the book out of boredom.
>>7896710
Shit, I'm about to start this so I can bed this chick. I figured I could get through most of it this weekend.
