Which books did you stop reading midway through? Why?

2666

too much for too little

American psycho, got to the point where he abuses the dog, too edgy for me desu.

>too edgy for me desu

It's just a dog, faggot.

Sun and Steel.

>Why?

It was nonsense.

I couldn't bear to read any more of Altered Carbon after it looked like the main character was going to add a fourth woman to his harem, plus the word 'neurachem' had appeared for the 86th time in the book, I was counting, with still no explanation of what it is or how it functions.

He also tortured and killed humans, you may have missed that part.

I've only not finished reading one book. It was called The Source. It was absolutely fucking boring. I reread the first 20 pages three different times before I gave up

>not liking dogs

that was later my negro

The sound and the fury. My teacher made us use a permanent marker to black out every single use of the word nigger because they were new copies for our year.

Nabokov's Ada. Didn't feel like it's going anywhere. I'm willing to pick it up again this year though

Stick with it. It doesn't ever go anywhere but it's a hell of a ride.

Confederacy of Dunces. I just could not stand the bits in the bar. I've read a lot of postwar American shit that just kind of yuk-yuks around but those sections were painfully dragged out and unnecessary.

Joe Abercrombie gets recomended alot on fantasy boards but he's complete shit.

Shantaram - worst shit I`ve ever read.

Not the best fantasy writer, sure, but for me his books were a lot a fun to read.

Then you haven't read any good fantasy yet.

The Decline of the West

I stopped reading Don Quixote part way through because he was barely in it.

James Joyce, Ulysses. Tried it in my native language and realised it was a mistake. Ordered a copy in English, hope I will finish it.

On The Road

>lets drive to Denver
>lets drive to NY
>lets drive back to Denver
>lets drive back to NY
>lets drive back to Denver

Well, it was truth in advertising at least.

The Tarkin book after I learned that the main conflict would be him trying to recover his stupid spaceship

moby dick

My diary.

What would you recommend?

Atlas Shrugged - the bit where pre-teen heir Francisco comes back from stowing away on a cargo ship for months without telling anyone and hi father's only question is something like "did you work hard?" the book was full of shit like that up until then, but i just couldn't go on after that.

"The Millionaire Next Door" and "How to win friends and Influence people" both were providing pretty obvious information, just skimmed through them and got the key points.

Dune, I picked it up three times over the last two years and every time I lose interest at the same spot in the story at the failed assassination attempt on Paul with the Hunter seeker

"my diary" is the Veeky Forums equivalent of "muh dick" I suppose

The Holy Bible

desu?

I started reading about a dozen books on russian orthodoxy, stopped reading each of them 1/3 of the way through, because i realized that there is no salvation for me except in German Idealism

'It' by Stephan King

Just found I couldn't listen to any more back-story asides. His fiction reads like maple syrup, for every interesting scene or idea there would be chapters filled with backstory I couldn't care less about. He really does know how to paint a vivid picture, but really needs to know what is vital to the story and what is a clean cut waste of time.

I'm saying this as a writer who has never published a book before.

This book. My dad got it for me when I was 14 and told me it was a masterpiece.
Granted at this point I was fluent in English (he got me and English translation) but the book was too confusing for me

I still can't quite believe that's his girlfriend.

He also cuts the throat of a child.

When I first started getting into literature I read a lot of "must reads". After seeing a lot of "life changing" quotes about On The Road I decided to read it. 150 pages in and left pretty unsatisfied. I think the snooping I did beforehand may have ruined it for me.

La Caverna - José Saramago, too slow and i was feeling depresing by just suspecting the ending

It never actually goes anywhere.

> Dropping Pale Fire
> Dropping The Faerie Queene

Do you even read?

Wizard and Glass by King. Fucking dragged on and on until I gave up. I've tried three times to get through it and can't do it....

Get the audiobook. Frank Muller brought the story to life.

Canticle for Leibowitz

I got emotionally invested in the main protagonist and he was killed off for no obvious reasons.

I don't count nonfiction. I go through the parts that interest me and without guilt skip the rest.

Catch-22, - didn't find a single thing funny and actually hated the author for making fun out of war.
Last from His Dark Materials, - forced myself through 2nd one, saw where it was going early in, threw it away.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, - i quite liked it at first, but then it started to drag and drag by the time of Spanish excursion. Way too long for the genre.

True, wish I could put him on the list, but I went through Blade Itself.

Brisingr was the first book I ever stopped reading because of quality. I was twelve. I don't know what Paolini thought he was doing with the Dwarf politics, but he certainly wasn't doing it well.

He was killed off because nobody lives forever.
I recommend giving it another shot with the realization that it's a book about time moving on, and that's too much for one person's lifespan to illustrate.

Wasn't he like 19 when he wrote it? I'm not sure he knew what he was doing either.

It and Infinite Jest

Why?

Felt that way with Dunces as well, finished it tho, but damn did that get old FAST

Naked Lunch

The most worthless words put to paper.

Lisey's Story by Stephen King.
It constantly flashed back to this one memory of Lisey's where she and her husband were hanging out under some trees during a snow storm, back to her life for a chapter, then reexplaining the same memory again but with a bit more detail and last a few minutes longer for a chapter. This literally went on for 12+ chapters. I put the book down at an admittedly exciting part. But I was halfway through reading about that one memory before I realized sick I was of the repetition.
Cover was cool as shit though.

On the Road.

>and then we did this
>and then I did that
>and then we ate this
>and then he fucked that

Fucking boring.

War and Peace

I didn't even make it 1% of the way. I knew I would hate it by the way the characters were first introduced, and I don't care enough about history to be wowed by verbose fashion description of some cunts.

>American Psycho
>abuses the dog

America is a pet obsessed culture so injuring any animal, but a dog in particular, is considered vulgar to the point of, or perhaps beyond CP; because they're just so "innocent".

Are you retarded?

>dog gets shot in an average work of fiction
Oh damn how could they do that. ( Never think about it again, remember it when you finish the book when you see a meme about it)
>child porn is displayed in an average work of fiction
You what the fuck is wrong with this guy detailing child porn so intensely. This guy is a serious pedophile. I think it's trending on twitter.

Stretching your metaphors that thin only makes you look like a tard.

A game of thrones.
Somehow I hate the writing style ("he responded angrily" as example) and I hate the word it's set in.
Not for me.

Rewrite this post user.

museum of innocence. got boring.

kill yourself

>something happened
got a little over halfway. not sure why i stopped reading it, will probably go back to it eventually.

>anna karenina
maybe a 1/3 in, just found it fucking boring

>steppenwolf
halfway through, will probably go back and read it.

>white trash: the 400 year history of class in america
just not what i was expecting

The Suicide Collectors

The cover art looked awesome, and dude had a good idea...he just fucking knew nothing about world building, character development, or proper responses to situations.

Like, I literally felt like I was reading something that I would have wrote when I was 14.

And then, to top it off, I flip to the back to get a look at this motherfuckers face, and it says this author had not one, not ONE, but TWO fucking majors in english.

I literally started laughing and put the book down right then.

A farewell to arms

>dude eating spaghetti and drinking wine in the alps during WWI lmao!

Also, hemmingways caveman-tier prose is fucking grating

Catch-22 gets serious later on, as the characters start hitting the war more in earnest and we start seeing all those plots pay off... It's well worth finishing, and one of my favorites.

If you unironically use the term "show don't tell" in the context of literature (At all really) you need to read more broadly and deeply.

I'm reading To the Lighthouse now for uni, and I feel like there's a lot I'm missing. How did you get?

>anna karenina
you have triggered me
that book was phenomenal; part seven and eight made up some of the best literature I have ever read

lmao
my gf's mom got me this for christmas
haven't opened it yet
why is it shit?

Virginia Woolf's The Waves. Can't handle that horrific writing style

This. Fuck The Part About The Crimes.

you made a huge mistake, user. everything that matters in that book happens in the final part.

Same read it but don't get the hype. I did like the scene where he was sleeping in a rainforest in Mexico though

>reads first page
nvm no need to respond

You mean how far did I get? Like 40 pages. I've managed to finnish The Years and I've enjoyed Mrs Dalloway but this one seems to be a lot more difficult.

When I read analysis in between chapters, it was obvious I had no idea what was going on so I had to drop it.

To kill a mockingbird, dropped it on fucking page seven.

Bitch could barely write

Maybe try Harry Potter
The first page is a shit representation of the book. Read 100 pages of it, see if you think the same. I liked it a lot

Resurrection, or whatever it's called in English, by Tolstoy. The first quarter of the book is really nice, but then it starts to feel like it's all disconnected and written without any real sense of direction in the development of the plot and the characters.

That raep scene with the thawing river though, that's some good shit.

Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum - too hard
Dante, Divine Comedie - too hard
Zola, L'assomoir - around page 50, I found it depressing as hell

Mind you, I tried reading those at 16. More recently:

The Master and Margarita - absolutely confusing
Infinite Jest - gave up around page 700
A few self-help book that were unbearable to read.

Just slog through the Master and Margharita if it's confusing at first and enjoy the writing. Then read it a second time and enjoy it as a whole. It's really worth it user, I swear.

I think maybe the 4(?) book in the dark tower series, just turned into complete bull shit

Dig it up and go back to it. It's masterpiece.

must suck being a brainlet

Also, get annotated one. The confusing bits are mainly down to soviet references that were obvious to anyone at the time.

Watership Down

Fucking rabbits.

i stopped reading white noise because the philosophical dialogue is nothing you can't get from a fucking seinfeld opening

Norwegian wood. I was on page 60 when it hit me that I was reading Murakami repeat himself over and over again while jerking off to Western books/music. The composition is so ugly and repetitive that I struggle to imagine why anyone would like this.

Guns, Germs and Steel and To Kill a Mockingbird.

they both sucked shit.

>Infinite Jest - gave up around page 700
there are like 200 pages to go. how can you give up after getting that far?

gravity's rainbow, i gave up after around 400 pages, but i was younger then, and really wish i stuck it out. I plan on trying it again this year.

This, and every vollman novel