What books have you given up on?

[Marjorie]

Just gave up on Married With Zombies by Jesse Petersen. It was recommended when I bought My Life as a White Trash Zombie and I thought it sounded amusing but after 50 pages it seemed too predictable.
For Classic Literature I gave up on Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Stopped at part 2 and haven't picked it up since.

[Rebecca]

For years I only made halfway through The Twi Towers until the movies finally made me continue. I have never actually finished Dracula , I always see another book I want to read and I just start reading the other book instead. Watership Down I have completely given up on. It is not the book for me.

[Jensownzoo]

I really like to finish books and will even give myself years to finish one that isn't keeping my interest. I've found that audiobooks are a godsend for the classics, particularly the bricks.

Probably the most recent "I give up" book was The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice (or A. N. Roquelaure if you're being particular) about five years ago or so. I found it a total snoozefest.

[Marjorie]

Probably the most recent "I give up" book was The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by Anne Rice (or A. N. Roquelaure if you're being particular) about five years ago or so. I found it a total snoozefest. "
I'm having trouble reading The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty right now. A friend lent it to me and I don't think I can hold onto it anymore but I don't think I can finish it.

[Lynda]

Well, I am sad to say..I gave up on the Jaid Black series Trek Mi Q'an. After the first three books it just started confusing me more and more until I lost interest. When I started out... they were great !

[Katie]

I'm also Team Abandoned LotR Midway Through Two Towers. But I love the movies.

I hate abandoning books, but lately I just don't have time to push through with so much else I want to read. As such, I ditched American Gods and The Marriage Plot. I need to connect to SOMETHING in order to make it worth it, and I didn't care about anyone in either.

[Kamil]

Katie wrote: "I'm also Team Abandoned LotR Midway Through Two Towers. But I love the movies.

I hate abandoning books, but lately I just don't have time to push through with so much else I want to read. As suc..."

LotR might be a bit harsh if not taken in small doses

[Sam]

Can I just say a belated "Eek" that they talked about this thread on the last hangout? Also, I finally know where the word "lem" comes from. I'd only heard it used once or twice before.

Do you know exactly when you don't want to read a book anymore? I tend to put the book down, wander off, and then just never come back to it.

A lot of people said they lemmed Lord of the Rings, but liked the movies. I'm curious if there's ever been an audiobook of it with the movie cast doing the dialogue. I did hear a bit of one for the Hobbit with Tolkien reading it and doing voices for the characters.

[Brittney]

I could not read Interview With A Vampire. It felt like I was reading the transcript of an interview. It never drew me into the story.

As for classics I haven't been able to finish Emma. I've started it a couple of times but get bored half way through.

[Brittany]

Brittney wrote: "I could not read Interview With A Vampire. It felt like I was reading the transcript of an interview. It never drew me into the story.

As for classics I haven't been able to finish Emma. I've sta..."

I gave up on Interview With A Vampire too. It bored me. And it wasn't that it read as a transcript, but it just took forever for anything to happen when Louis would talk about his family and life before being turned.

[Peter]

I had trouble with "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell" by Susanna Clarke because Mr. Norrell is such a boring and selfish character. However, the magical history of Britain and the slightly different history enticed me to push on for the first 200 or so pages until Strange enters the story. After that, it became worth reading, and I began to understand why it became so popular. Still, I was disappointed that the few women that appear are pretty much NPCs.

"The Ladies of Grace Adieu", a sort of sequel set just afterwards when magic has resumed widespread usage, is a collection of short stories which seems more interesting. However, I haven't started it yet.

[Kamil]

Brittany wrote: "Brittney wrote: "I could not read Interview With A Vampire. It felt like I was reading the transcript of an interview. It never drew me into the story.

As for classics I haven't been able to fini..."

Interview whith a vampire is a sham! If you read the second book you'll know why

[Jenn]

Hmm...I guess I give up a lot. A few of them I'll put aside to try again later (Jonathan Strange, The Color of Magic). Some I just can't suffer through any more. I gave up on the last Phillipa Gregory. I loved her Henry VIII wives books, but these War of the Roses books are just awful. I gave up on the last Anita Blake too. I suffered through that series entirely too long. Hmm...On the Road by Kerouac, Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller, Minion by LA Banks, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, Kushiel's Dart...Pretty much if you look at my 1 stars, MOST of them I gave up on. A book that I actually finished has to be REALLY bad before I give it just 1 star, so most of those are DNFs.

[Carolyn]

Stephen King's The Tommyknockers. I love King, he's written some of my very favorite books ever, but that one I just couldn't get through without falling asleep a few pages in. More recently, there have been quite a few 'blind picks' that were so bad I just couldn't hang. And for some reason, like a lot of you, I just can't get into 'the classics.' Boring.

[Peter]

Jenn wrote: "...A few of them I'll put aside to try again later (Jonathan Strange..."
If you can't make to about page 200 or so when Jonathan enters the story, you'll never finish it, 'cause Mr. Norrell is so extremely boring and selfish. You might try "The Ladies of Grace Adieu", which is set in the same world after English magic has returned to widespread use, and consists of short stories with female protagonists. I haven't read my copy yet, but I think it's an easier test of whether you're interested in that world.

[Roxy]

I gave up on the Shades of Grey books. The characters were flat and predictable, eliciting not the least bit of interest from me.

[Roxy]

To those who have given up on Game of Thrones, I recommend that you stick with them. WELL worth it!!! Martin is wordy, so just browse through his descriptions. LOL

[Roxy]

Too funny! I have ADD, so you KNOW it was a challenge, but... OMG! Too worth it! His next one, however, isn't due out for TWO more years. *headdesk*

[Roxy]

Larissa wrote: "Oh, there's a release date now? I AM EXCITE! Two years is adequate time for me to finish the books... ;)"

LMAO I believe it said 2015, but I'm thinking that HBO might have a wee bit to say about that. Each season is one volume of the series and they'd be all caught up by then.

[Jennifer]

The only book that I DNF'd is Ulysses. I just couldn't do it. After about 150 pages I still had no idea what the heck was going on. :(

I have read and loved the first 3 of A Song of Ice and Fire, as well as loved LoTR and soo much love for Jean Auel's Earth's Children series! <3 So seeing so many of you that haven't finished them makes me sad, but hey, we all have different tastes in books!

[Ivia]

I, too, find that as I get older I can't read as patiently. I have picked up Wuthering Heights, the Picture of Dorian Grey, Lolita, and a few others half a dozen times, but I just can't finish them. I want to understand the classics but they just don't grab me. I read LotR in middle school, and Dante's Inferno in high school, for fun, but I can't read them anymore. And yet, I have read all 14 current Wheel of Time books (11,000 pages) and all of the Song of Ice and Fire series, so it's not just verbosity that gets to me. It must be something in the style or vocabulary of older writing. :(

[Ravencrantz]

Last week I finally gave up on the House of Night series. I lasted until about 100 pages into the 9th book. Looking back, Im actually surprised I made it that far. There was just too much nonsense in that series and I grew tire of it to the point where I wanted to throw the boo at the wall and was dreading picking it up to read before bed.

[Amy]

I gave up on Catching Fire. I slogged through Hunger Games, and just didn't get the hype, so I was like ok, maybe I need to move farther, got half way through book 2 and just decided enough is enough.

I couldn't take any more of the choppy "simplistic" writing. I get it, it's YA, but even when I was a teen I'd have demanded more from my books. Then everything about the world was just too much to believe, among other things.

At this point the promise of action is gone, the games are over, so it's boring self interested dialogue ahoy with a bunch of characters that could all die in a fire and I'd probably enjoy that more.

Katniss the girl I wish was on fire.

[Alex]

I am ashamed to admit but I gave up Order of the Phoenix. Way too long, I don't think I'll ever attempt to read it fully either.

[Carrie]

Gave up on The Meaning of Night... supposedly a FPPV of a killer but couldn't make it past the 3rd chapter. As for classics gave up on War & Peace. Couldn't get past 1st chapter after I'd read like the same page three times and was still like "huh, what did I just read" Unfortunately it was for a class... I just watched the shortened Audrey Hepburn movie and that was enough for me.
In terms of series gave up after the 4th book of Carey's Kushiel series and Anne Rice's Vampire series. Just got bored with them all. Also gave up on Moorecock's Elric saga...was a total snooze fest for me and only reason I tried to read it was b/c my bf at the time was into it.

[Leah]

This months alt choice In Bed With A Highlander was my very first unread book. I'll not go into detail here, as my name is plastered all over the forum dedicated to the book. But it was definitely not worth looking at again.

[Avis]

Cryptonomicon. A little over halfway through & I couldn't take any more of Stephenson's Intarwebz libertarian bull.

[Mia]

I recently gave up on Jim Butcher's Summer Knight. I went through the first three books of the Dresden Files series within the span of few days and finally had enough while reading Summer Knight. Well, while listening to it, since I went through them in audiobook form. I didn't really intend to just stop in the middle of Summer Knight I actually planned on continuing it the next day, but I simply didn't and I don't feel the need to finish it either. The series has had certain problems I can't really brush over anymore and it has made me not want to read the series anymore. Instead I read the plot summaries for the rest of the books on Wikipedia. With that, I was able to avoid the things that really put me off and still get the story in a way.

[Savannah]

I feel like the main character, (which is written in her perspective) rambles on a little too much, dragged the story on a little too much, it was a cute mystery novel, but I just couldn't keep focused =/

[Lee]

@Jennifer "The only book that I DNF'd is Ulysses. I just couldn't do it. After about 150 pages I still had no idea what the heck was going on."

According to one of my lit professors, about 80% of readers give up after chapter 3. I'm one of them.

I used to finish every book I started out of principle but once I started reading purely for pleasure, I stopped feeling guilty about not liking a book. Now I give an author at least 100 pages (physical copy) or 20% (e-book) to grab my attention.

Books I've lemmed:
Twilight,
50 Shades of Grey,
Lost by Gregory McGuire,
Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon--all that detail about life at the French court was not too interesting to me. I gave up after the bit when the courtiers fight for the privilege of wiping the King's butt.
Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan--I just can't get into it.
Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins--stayed up all night reading the Hunger Games, but barely made it through the second one, and this one was just a slog
Crescendo by Becca Fitzpatrick--the sense of danger that made Hush, Hush (the first book) so interesting to me was completely gone, leaving very one dimensional characters
Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop. I read this before even knowing the Vaginal Fantasy group. I actually really loved the book until the author decided to include a graphic description of the rape of a child.

I stopped reading In Bed With a Highlander just after the post-consummation battle scene but I will probably finish it in order to discuss it at my local VF meetup. At least it's a short book and a quick read.

[Ravencrantz]

I recently gave up on The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. I wanted so much to enjoy that book, and I just couldn't.

[Rebecca]

Infinite Jest. I took it on vacation with me this winter (every year I have a week or two in a cabin without internet or TV). For 200 pages I underlined, wrote margin notes, and struggled to make sense of endless footnotes full of pharmaceutical jargon. I'm sure it's a good book because many trusted sources tell me it is, but I must have been approaching it the wrong way. It was making me stressed and anxious (and I imagine a delight to be around).