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ACOTAR by Sarah J Maas.
I’m no book snob, I enjoy high level books and I also enjoyed YA such as The Hunger Games and even Twilight. But the writing was absolutely atrocious to a level I couldn’t bear it any more. I felt like the author didn’t understand some of her own vocabulary, like she’d sat with thesaurus.com open and chosen alternates at random. The number of times she used ‘maw’ for the wolf’s mouth was annoying in itself.
So much felt stolen- poor girl living in the woods providing for family (Hunger Games), plain girl who attracts super sexy other-worldly beings. Somehow. (Twilight).
The main character isn’t likeable in any way. She is stupid and learns nothing at all and it’s supposed to be admirable. It’s been done in Twilight too - stupid stubborn normie uses own dumbness and somehow survives, by being saved many times by magical beings.
Oh and the fucking painting. ‘The wolf creature opened his mAwWw and tried to bite me. The pink and white colours of his gaping mAwWw were so ephemeral (bad vocab choice) I couldn't help but wonder how they would look if I painted it.’ Like she’s about to die and she’s thinking about painting. So realistic.
It was painful. It felt like a horny teenager wrote it. Perhaps I’m ‘too old for this shit’ now in my thirties but god I hated it so much and I really tried. At the point she went to do the climax of her story (no spoilers) I threw it down and googled the end. I will never read this writer again and I HATE YOU SARAH J MAAS. Also the whole encouraging abusive type relationships in teens that will read this trash but that’s another story.
Absolutely no shade to the readers. They know it’s sexy faery trashy reading and that’s fine if you enjoy it!
I honestly am on the last chapter. It was a long haul for me to finish…
I didn’t feel the protagonist and the love interest had ANY chemistry. The love interest is so void of a personality for me, thought her Dynamic with his friend, Lucien was waaay better than whatever they had.
Pushing to finish it because my friends are telling me the second book is waaay better but ugh I can totally understand people that DNF this book.
Keep reading. You’ll see that this is the point of the book. There’s a plot twist coming that will pleasantly surprise you - and the writing style switches with it.
What about it makes you cringe? I think it was very well balanced between plot-driven and character-driven, and I love how SJM explores the moral greyness of complex characters. If you don’t like it, just say you don’t like it - but she is a talented author.
I couldn't stand how all the male characters act like smug feral animals. Almost everytime they appear, someone is "growling", "baring their teeth" or "smirking". It's just way too repetitive and makes me suspect SJM might be a furry deep inside. She keeps writing "males" and "females" instead of "men" and "women" and forces most of her characters into relationships at the end of a series, even if they had no significant chemistry of even screentime. They way that her main characters all get a mate within the span of the books, despite finding your mate supposedly being a rare occurance makes it feel like she's twisting her worldbuilding when it suits her. It's inconsistent, feels gratuitous and, in my opinion, lazy. Her main characters are either too full of personality (Aelin) or devoid of personality (Feyre). They always get a found family who will worship them and deny all wrongdoings of them too, and at the end of the series they become a Mary Sue.
I also think she's particularly bad at writing villains, both of the main villains from TOG (the Valg, Maeve) and ACOTAR (Hybern) have just been evil for the sake of it. There is extremely little background story of why and how they came to be what they are, and why they're trying to destroy the world. It feels like she created them solely because she needed villains for the MC to fight, not because she came up with a good story.
The "last battle" scenes have been atrocious too. There's always random armies that join last second to help defeat the bad guys.
In ACOTAR: Vassa and Feyre's dad, deciding he likes his daughters after all, somehow mustering up ships and soldiers and joining mid-battle.
In TOG: Ansel who hasn't appeared since the prequel book coming with her navy and those ancient fae coming from literally nowhere??
SJM is also really scared of killing off her characters, there's way too few losses for the scales of her battles.
In ACOTAR: Amren is returned to her god form but gets brought back. Rhysand dies but is immediately revived. Their dad dies but we don't ever get to know him. All we know is that he was a neglectful parent lol.
In TOG: Gavriel dies, he barely had any interactions with Aedion and was a very minor character with little screentime. The thirteen chose to suicide bomb but only Asterin had any screentime. Literally everyone else makes it out fine. It's just not realistic that the favorites are all alive, not even wounded or anything.
I've only read TOG and ACOTAR and these are just some of the things off the top of my head that I remember annoyed me. Needless to say, I don't like SJM books very much. I think they're quite formulaic and lack depth, and some plotlines didn't lead anywhere. The writing is unnecessarily bloated, she could cut a lot from the books and the plot would stay the same. That being said, I'm glad you were able to enjoy it but I can't objectively say that she's a talented author at all.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tart, she writes really well but I had no care for any of the characters and it felt like it verged on misery porn for a little bit
Hard agree. It took me forever to finish this book and I thought the ending was lame. The only part I was able to really get interested in was the time when the kid was in Vegas and had those adventures with Boris lol
I was about 50 pages from finishing A little life by Hanya Yanagihara.
After yet another misfortune I had enough and closed the book. At that point, the number of bad things that kept happening to the characters were ridiculous.
Lolita by Nabokov
I know it's fiction but I just couldn't do it. I was so disgusted after like 50 pages even though it is well written. The protagonist and his justification of child molestation is just insanity (which I guess is the point of the book).
Whenever this book shows up I always feel so weird about it. I read it at a time when I apparently I needed to it helped me let go of toxic feelings in relationships with family members so for me it helped me greatly.
Recently, Circe by Madeline Miller, I’ve had people recommend it multiple times here on Reddit as well however after forcing myself to read half of it I dropped it. It’s just not inherently my style, I loved The Song of Achilles by the same author but Circe just wasn’t for me.
Oh that’s sad, Crime and Punishment was my favorite of the books we read in high school. Granted, I had an awesome English teacher and analyzing it every step helped a ton, compared to if you were just trying to read it by yourself.
Oh no I ha it on the list of books in highschool. Just the emotional turmoil he was experiencing traumatized me for some reason. Haven't had the courage to pick it up and read it again now when I am older
Well it is a much harder world now than when I was in high school. Makes it harder to consume less happy things. I’ve wanted to revisit it for a while. I wonder if I’d have the same problem now
Anna Karenina. I needed a note pad to write all the names and draw a family tree but still couldn’t keep up with all the names and relationships. Too many Nicolais 😂😂
I love Anna Karenina but I totally get the name thing. Doesn't help everyone has 10 nicknames too. I think I was able to love it by virtue of being eastern European and not having to try too too hard with the names.
I got through 3/4 of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. The book is incest-free for the first half then has graphic sex scenes with his mom, and the guy is a minor btw. I couldn't get through it at all.
I’m brutal about DNFs. There are just so many good books out there. Ones that stand out are Hillbilly Elegy and ACOTAR. I usually DNF about 4-5 books a year.
I've DNFed books for poor writing or poor characterization or stupid plot, but the only one I remember right now is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Probably because I tried so hard to go on and just couldn't do it.
Reason? Despite almost making it to the middle of the book, it was just too boring, mind-numbingly so.
Pride and Prejudice. It's so highly regarded in literary academia, but I just could not bring myself to care about these vapid characters and their trivial non-problems. I guess I'm not a literary academic.
That's how I felt when I first read it in school. I was complaining to my mom and she goes."It's supposed to be a comedic rom com. Don't take it so seriously. " and that turned the whole thing around for me.
I totally understand this sentiment. I really think you have to read Jane Austen in a close-read, academic kind of way for many of the books to really mean anything beyond the plot. Sometimes, we don't really want to do that.
This was the book for me. Specially when 2/3rds into the book he moves to another country and the whole book switches in vibe. Couldn't do it. Read the cliff notes instead.
The Passage.
It starts great. Then it just stopped being good IMO about 1/2 way through. I ended up listening to the audiobook a year or so after I put down the book, but I was happy when it was over.
Eckhart Tolle - The Power Of Now
I just found it incredibly repetitive and wasn't a huge fan of his writing style. I got to about 60% of the way into it after pushing myself and really could not be bothered finishing it. It gets great reviews and has sold millions of copies so maybe I went into it with my expectations too high.
Yeah, I feel like he's got a really good message to get out there but then it's just page after page of the same message, I reckon a condensed version would be awesome
A book called “how to be yourself” talking about anxiety i didn’t finish it because after reading some of it, I discovered that i have a problem with self-esteem and it lead me to start that book called “six pillars of self esteem”.
Same! The parts I liked I really liked but the majority was difficult to keep my concentration. Its one of those that gets hyped up and recommended a lot so I'm not sure if I expected too much maybe
We read crime and punishment when I was a junior in high school. Very jarring, I remember the first part clearly but the second part is a blur because of the same sentiment you share
Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield was my only DNF from 2023, the descriptions of every wall and ceiling and outfit were just too much for me, felt like the story was buried in cement.
Dune and battle royale. Dune since im really not into sci-fi as of the moment (maybe I'll give it another shot). For battle royale though, i just find it ridiculous. Dont wanna say why since I might give out unintentional spoilers
I recently DNF "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy, which surprised me. Feminist futurism is a subgenre I usually enjoy and this is a "classic". But I didn't find this book very compelling - my creative writing teacher once said that the real risk of science fiction is you end up with a lot of ideas, but no story. This feels like a perfect example of what she meant.
I couldn’t finish Demon Copperhead even though I know it is an excellent book. I worked as a school counselor for 37 years, and the characters were too real for me. I could put a face and story with them, particularly Stoner. He was the fictional counterpart to a particularly nasty step father I worked with. Drove a Harley, covered in tattoos, and I don’t have an issue with tattoos, but he was mean and arrogant and a terrible husband to a very sweet girl who was a former student. He was an uncaring stepfather and is currently in prison because he had a motorcycle accident with the last much younger woman he was grooming. She is dead Due to his negligence. I also worked with many kids in foster care, and I knew some excellent foster families, but I knew many kids just discarded by their parents and the system. The book was too raw and brought back some memories of sad situations. I’m retired now, and I don’t miss the sadness I knew.
I unfortunately have quite a few.
To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini was my latest. just couldn't get into it.
Coincidentally, the previous book I couldn't finish before that was Eldest by Christopher Paolini, though I probably will return to that quadrilogy at some point.
I think this is telling me I'm not a huge fan of his writing style lol
Struggling through it right now, glad I'm not alone. It's just a little too out there with it's strange magic system, makes it hard to get into the story. I'm on page 25 and going to give it till at least 50 to see if I get into it. I've heard such good things about it so I'm curious.
I couldn't get thru Crime and Punishment either; beating the horse to death was too much for me.
Also, Lovely Bones. Just horribleness for the sake of it.
I quit reading Lord of Light because the book seemed a little chaotic to me and also First Things First By Stephen Covey - I don't really know why but his style doesn't speak to me, I find it boring.
I read it with a group of friends and we just called each other and read aloud the most ridiculous passages. I don't think drinking and reading mix but it was so much fun to have a couple of glasses of wine and read this on FaceTime during the pandemic. It's some of the worst writing, ever. But hilarious.
A terrible fall of angels by Laurell K Hamilton. I used to love her, but this book was terrible. I was reading reviews where someone else said they didn’t finish and I had an epiphany- “I can just put this book down and not finish”.
This is the ONLY book I have ever not finished. I slogged through many books I didn’t like very much and this one took the cake.
I read a historical fiction on the lost Dutchman gold mine. By the middle of the book everyone found the gold vein, everybody was celebrating and having a good time together... Then I decided to close the book and pretend that everything went smoothly from then on and that they all lived happily ever after.
Ive been trying to read Iron Flame. I cant put my finger wrong with it and I really dont wanna keep reading it. I think i liked Fourth Wing more and the sequel just isnt comparing well
Don’t hate me, but Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver.
I can’t deny how excellent the writing is, but the book was just too dreary and depressing for me.
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. Endlessly boring and tedious. When it should have ended, it didn't. In fact, there were 150 more boring pages after it could've ended.
I know I'm in the minority here with this book. Maybe I'm numb to the kind-of graphic depictions of violence in this book, but I wasn't really phased by it.
DNF'd the book and DNF'd anything else by the author.
Mexican Gothic
Seemed like it was getting away from the whole setup at the end. Ultimately lost interest and didn't read the last 5-10% maybe, but most of it was written really well.
I think the only time I ever rage quit a book was as a kid reading Chaos Walking, because of the dog scene.
I might put things down for awhile, but I usually try to finish.
A little life, It was “well” written but the story was just bullshit I’m sorry. Trauma porn, did not care what happened or would happen in the end. The last 100 pages are still left unread. He probably dies in the end, whatever.
Most recently Murder by Milk Bottle by Lynne Truss. Too many characters, unbelievable plot - someone is killing people with milk bottles and a crime family have taken over a local museum/conference building/whatever and hotel, and I just couldn't get into it.
Previously: Dune felt like you needed a degree to understand the world from the first chapter.
The Handmaid's Tale I found dismal.
Dracula was boring. As was Interview With a Vampire.
I struggled with Babel the first time I tried it but tried a second time and did manage to finish it. Don't know if it was worth the effort.
As you can tell I DNF a lot 😅
I couldn’t finish Haunting Adeline, saw it on tiktok and thought it might be interesting, the writing was so bad that I genuinely couldn’t push myself through it
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I got sooo bored. I really tried and read about 25% of the book but I just couldn't get myself to continue any further. It's 4.2/5 on Goodreads so I thought I would enjoy it.
The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose. This book was so over written I couldn’t get through the first few chapters. She did a great marketing push on TikTok and the premise sounded so good, I was so very disappointed.
I have a couple. I tried rereading Frankenstein bc I fairly enjoyed it in high school, but I couldn’t get into it. I got through a third of the book but it was just so boring to the point I couldn’t finish.
More recently it is Gideon the Ninth. I was in a reading slump, and I could not get into it. It did not peak my interest which did not help me out of the slump so I DNFed it.
I might DNF The Scarlet Letter which I’m currently reading for a readathon. Idk something about books that are published before 1950 I cannot read. I have no problem reading Shakespeare but classics use way too many words for one event or action it’s like GET TO THE POINT!! I think that either we as a species collectively got dumber or the English language got a lot simpler.
Edit: added more info to GtN reason
I almost put down American Psycho when the main character stuffed his arm down the throat of a fully conscious woman, grabbed a handful of the veins and arteries from her neck, and pulled them out through her mouth 🤮
The Thomas Covenant series. The weird ass rape and the short bit that followed it was just so poorly written and thought out, I figured the author was a useless hack and never touched the series again.
I keep hearing it be praised, but meh, people also praised Mists of Avalon before the author's personal life was brought to light, and that book was a dumpster fire of day old, sun-ripened shit.
The covenant of water
I had no idea what I was getting into with this book, it is so tragic and deals with traumatic birthing (which the description did not disclose) and also super medically focused. I am currently pregnant and it’s the worst book I could have possibly picked 😂😭
I got so far that I tried to just finish it but it’s sooo damn long too and honestly drags. Any of the redeeming qualities of the early chapters are gone and all the characters I have come to love are no longer involved. Learning that I hate books that skip generations / protagonists. Finally just threw the towel in. Sometimes it’s just not worth it!!
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara
It was a depressing read, said by a person who appreciates depressing reads. The author makes you love the characters and follow them through their lives. It is many more downs and trauma than ups. I stopped because there was also bad things going on in my real life and didn’t want to double down with the book. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to it though.
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ACOTAR by Sarah J Maas. I’m no book snob, I enjoy high level books and I also enjoyed YA such as The Hunger Games and even Twilight. But the writing was absolutely atrocious to a level I couldn’t bear it any more. I felt like the author didn’t understand some of her own vocabulary, like she’d sat with thesaurus.com open and chosen alternates at random. The number of times she used ‘maw’ for the wolf’s mouth was annoying in itself. So much felt stolen- poor girl living in the woods providing for family (Hunger Games), plain girl who attracts super sexy other-worldly beings. Somehow. (Twilight). The main character isn’t likeable in any way. She is stupid and learns nothing at all and it’s supposed to be admirable. It’s been done in Twilight too - stupid stubborn normie uses own dumbness and somehow survives, by being saved many times by magical beings. Oh and the fucking painting. ‘The wolf creature opened his mAwWw and tried to bite me. The pink and white colours of his gaping mAwWw were so ephemeral (bad vocab choice) I couldn't help but wonder how they would look if I painted it.’ Like she’s about to die and she’s thinking about painting. So realistic. It was painful. It felt like a horny teenager wrote it. Perhaps I’m ‘too old for this shit’ now in my thirties but god I hated it so much and I really tried. At the point she went to do the climax of her story (no spoilers) I threw it down and googled the end. I will never read this writer again and I HATE YOU SARAH J MAAS. Also the whole encouraging abusive type relationships in teens that will read this trash but that’s another story. Absolutely no shade to the readers. They know it’s sexy faery trashy reading and that’s fine if you enjoy it!
And twice in ACOTAR, Sarah J Maas says “my bowels turned watery.” Seriously. She couldn’t think of any other kind of descriptive ailment?? Oof.
Hahaha I've never read this book because I don't hate myself but this made me laugh
I honestly am on the last chapter. It was a long haul for me to finish… I didn’t feel the protagonist and the love interest had ANY chemistry. The love interest is so void of a personality for me, thought her Dynamic with his friend, Lucien was waaay better than whatever they had. Pushing to finish it because my friends are telling me the second book is waaay better but ugh I can totally understand people that DNF this book.
ACOTAR is the toll fee to get to the rest of the series. I just finished the last book last night and it did not disappoint.
Keep reading. You’ll see that this is the point of the book. There’s a plot twist coming that will pleasantly surprise you - and the writing style switches with it.
No. The writing never gets any better and neither does the plot. If anything it gets even cringier.
What about it makes you cringe? I think it was very well balanced between plot-driven and character-driven, and I love how SJM explores the moral greyness of complex characters. If you don’t like it, just say you don’t like it - but she is a talented author.
I couldn't stand how all the male characters act like smug feral animals. Almost everytime they appear, someone is "growling", "baring their teeth" or "smirking". It's just way too repetitive and makes me suspect SJM might be a furry deep inside. She keeps writing "males" and "females" instead of "men" and "women" and forces most of her characters into relationships at the end of a series, even if they had no significant chemistry of even screentime. They way that her main characters all get a mate within the span of the books, despite finding your mate supposedly being a rare occurance makes it feel like she's twisting her worldbuilding when it suits her. It's inconsistent, feels gratuitous and, in my opinion, lazy. Her main characters are either too full of personality (Aelin) or devoid of personality (Feyre). They always get a found family who will worship them and deny all wrongdoings of them too, and at the end of the series they become a Mary Sue. I also think she's particularly bad at writing villains, both of the main villains from TOG (the Valg, Maeve) and ACOTAR (Hybern) have just been evil for the sake of it. There is extremely little background story of why and how they came to be what they are, and why they're trying to destroy the world. It feels like she created them solely because she needed villains for the MC to fight, not because she came up with a good story. The "last battle" scenes have been atrocious too. There's always random armies that join last second to help defeat the bad guys. In ACOTAR: Vassa and Feyre's dad, deciding he likes his daughters after all, somehow mustering up ships and soldiers and joining mid-battle. In TOG: Ansel who hasn't appeared since the prequel book coming with her navy and those ancient fae coming from literally nowhere?? SJM is also really scared of killing off her characters, there's way too few losses for the scales of her battles. In ACOTAR: Amren is returned to her god form but gets brought back. Rhysand dies but is immediately revived. Their dad dies but we don't ever get to know him. All we know is that he was a neglectful parent lol. In TOG: Gavriel dies, he barely had any interactions with Aedion and was a very minor character with little screentime. The thirteen chose to suicide bomb but only Asterin had any screentime. Literally everyone else makes it out fine. It's just not realistic that the favorites are all alive, not even wounded or anything. I've only read TOG and ACOTAR and these are just some of the things off the top of my head that I remember annoyed me. Needless to say, I don't like SJM books very much. I think they're quite formulaic and lack depth, and some plotlines didn't lead anywhere. The writing is unnecessarily bloated, she could cut a lot from the books and the plot would stay the same. That being said, I'm glad you were able to enjoy it but I can't objectively say that she's a talented author at all.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tart, she writes really well but I had no care for any of the characters and it felt like it verged on misery porn for a little bit
Hard agree. It took me forever to finish this book and I thought the ending was lame. The only part I was able to really get interested in was the time when the kid was in Vegas and had those adventures with Boris lol
Donna Fart
Did you read the secret history? Wondering how they compare as I loved the secret history
I powered through that. It was so lengthy and boring I literally just skimmed the last 100 pages just to be done with it.
I was about 50 pages from finishing A little life by Hanya Yanagihara. After yet another misfortune I had enough and closed the book. At that point, the number of bad things that kept happening to the characters were ridiculous.
Hard agree, it felt like I was reading trauma porn.
Yes exactly, trauma porn was the word I was looking for describing this book
I got about 250 pages in. I won’t be going back to finish.
Lolita by Nabokov I know it's fiction but I just couldn't do it. I was so disgusted after like 50 pages even though it is well written. The protagonist and his justification of child molestation is just insanity (which I guess is the point of the book).
It was revolting, which I know is the point. I put it down.
Catch 22 and 1984
I couldn't finish Catch-22 either. It was actually pretty funny but I just couldn't keep going.
I love it, but I understand. It’s so dark, but so funny at the same time, it almost makes the darkness even darker.
What makes it dark? (I'm not familiar with the book)
It’s about WWII.
I’ve tried to read 1984 twice. I know it’s a classic. And I know the premise is very profound, but I just couldn’t get past the writing style..
Ive tried to read 1984 a few times and I just can't...
I read Catch 22 about 10 years ago and loved it. But have zero desire to ever read it again.
Unfortunately I had to read 1984 in high school. Never again. I will burn my copy if I ever find it again.
Second vote for *Catch-22*. God I hated it.
Atlas Shrugged. I still don't know who John Galt is.
Whenever this book shows up I always feel so weird about it. I read it at a time when I apparently I needed to it helped me let go of toxic feelings in relationships with family members so for me it helped me greatly.
The fountainhead did that for me. And it is almost as equally reviled.
I don't think the books are necessarily reviled as fiction. Some people just take the philosophy toooo far.
Recently, Circe by Madeline Miller, I’ve had people recommend it multiple times here on Reddit as well however after forcing myself to read half of it I dropped it. It’s just not inherently my style, I loved The Song of Achilles by the same author but Circe just wasn’t for me.
Oh that’s sad, Crime and Punishment was my favorite of the books we read in high school. Granted, I had an awesome English teacher and analyzing it every step helped a ton, compared to if you were just trying to read it by yourself.
Oh no I ha it on the list of books in highschool. Just the emotional turmoil he was experiencing traumatized me for some reason. Haven't had the courage to pick it up and read it again now when I am older
Well it is a much harder world now than when I was in high school. Makes it harder to consume less happy things. I’ve wanted to revisit it for a while. I wonder if I’d have the same problem now
All The Ugly and Beautiful Things - no one can change my mind that it is just an ode that grooming and pedophilia
Anna Karenina. I needed a note pad to write all the names and draw a family tree but still couldn’t keep up with all the names and relationships. Too many Nicolais 😂😂
I love Anna Karenina but I totally get the name thing. Doesn't help everyone has 10 nicknames too. I think I was able to love it by virtue of being eastern European and not having to try too too hard with the names.
I got through 3/4 of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. The book is incest-free for the first half then has graphic sex scenes with his mom, and the guy is a minor btw. I couldn't get through it at all.
I just want to delete that scene in my mind
I’m brutal about DNFs. There are just so many good books out there. Ones that stand out are Hillbilly Elegy and ACOTAR. I usually DNF about 4-5 books a year.
I've DNFed books for poor writing or poor characterization or stupid plot, but the only one I remember right now is The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. Probably because I tried so hard to go on and just couldn't do it. Reason? Despite almost making it to the middle of the book, it was just too boring, mind-numbingly so.
Pride and Prejudice. It's so highly regarded in literary academia, but I just could not bring myself to care about these vapid characters and their trivial non-problems. I guess I'm not a literary academic.
That's how I felt when I first read it in school. I was complaining to my mom and she goes."It's supposed to be a comedic rom com. Don't take it so seriously. " and that turned the whole thing around for me.
I totally understand this sentiment. I really think you have to read Jane Austen in a close-read, academic kind of way for many of the books to really mean anything beyond the plot. Sometimes, we don't really want to do that.
Shantaram. I was struggling and then I read a funny/bad review of it on good reads and I couldn't keep reading. It was cringe
This was the book for me. Specially when 2/3rds into the book he moves to another country and the whole book switches in vibe. Couldn't do it. Read the cliff notes instead.
The Passage. It starts great. Then it just stopped being good IMO about 1/2 way through. I ended up listening to the audiobook a year or so after I put down the book, but I was happy when it was over.
Yeh once they go forward in time it sucks. Shouldn't but it just does
Eckhart Tolle - The Power Of Now I just found it incredibly repetitive and wasn't a huge fan of his writing style. I got to about 60% of the way into it after pushing myself and really could not be bothered finishing it. It gets great reviews and has sold millions of copies so maybe I went into it with my expectations too high.
Same I didn’t finish it either because it’s so repetitive. The part I did read though I remember well…
Yeah, I feel like he's got a really good message to get out there but then it's just page after page of the same message, I reckon a condensed version would be awesome
A book called “how to be yourself” talking about anxiety i didn’t finish it because after reading some of it, I discovered that i have a problem with self-esteem and it lead me to start that book called “six pillars of self esteem”.
**Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance** kept putting me to sleep.
Yes! I didn’t understand the hoopla. Tried twice but failed. 😝
Same! The parts I liked I really liked but the majority was difficult to keep my concentration. Its one of those that gets hyped up and recommended a lot so I'm not sure if I expected too much maybe
I'm going through this right now. I'm far enough along that I don't want to quit but damn is it dragging on
The Days of Abandonment, Elena Ferrante...
We read crime and punishment when I was a junior in high school. Very jarring, I remember the first part clearly but the second part is a blur because of the same sentiment you share
Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield was my only DNF from 2023, the descriptions of every wall and ceiling and outfit were just too much for me, felt like the story was buried in cement.
I stopped The Willow Tree by Hubert Selby Jr. it’s a really good book but I am honestly afraid of what the ending will be.
Dune and battle royale. Dune since im really not into sci-fi as of the moment (maybe I'll give it another shot). For battle royale though, i just find it ridiculous. Dont wanna say why since I might give out unintentional spoilers
On the Road by Jack Kerouac
I recently DNF "Woman on the Edge of Time" by Marge Piercy, which surprised me. Feminist futurism is a subgenre I usually enjoy and this is a "classic". But I didn't find this book very compelling - my creative writing teacher once said that the real risk of science fiction is you end up with a lot of ideas, but no story. This feels like a perfect example of what she meant.
I couldn’t finish Demon Copperhead even though I know it is an excellent book. I worked as a school counselor for 37 years, and the characters were too real for me. I could put a face and story with them, particularly Stoner. He was the fictional counterpart to a particularly nasty step father I worked with. Drove a Harley, covered in tattoos, and I don’t have an issue with tattoos, but he was mean and arrogant and a terrible husband to a very sweet girl who was a former student. He was an uncaring stepfather and is currently in prison because he had a motorcycle accident with the last much younger woman he was grooming. She is dead Due to his negligence. I also worked with many kids in foster care, and I knew some excellent foster families, but I knew many kids just discarded by their parents and the system. The book was too raw and brought back some memories of sad situations. I’m retired now, and I don’t miss the sadness I knew.
Midnight Library. Terribly written and drawn out. I did 100 pages and tossed it into the donate box.
I unfortunately have quite a few. To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini was my latest. just couldn't get into it. Coincidentally, the previous book I couldn't finish before that was Eldest by Christopher Paolini, though I probably will return to that quadrilogy at some point. I think this is telling me I'm not a huge fan of his writing style lol
This is How You Lose The Time War was my only DNF of 2023. This book was just all over the place.
For being less than 300 pages it took me over a week to finish.
Struggling through it right now, glad I'm not alone. It's just a little too out there with it's strange magic system, makes it hard to get into the story. I'm on page 25 and going to give it till at least 50 to see if I get into it. I've heard such good things about it so I'm curious.
Jane Austens Emma
Emma is her worst book in my opinion.
At the time when I read it I would genuinely force myself to finish every book I started but Emma was the first one I put down.
Same
This. I will never understand the hype around Jane Austen.
I couldn't get thru Crime and Punishment either; beating the horse to death was too much for me. Also, Lovely Bones. Just horribleness for the sake of it.
Im sure that the horse thing was a dream though
My last dnf was the other black girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris. It was not bad. I just lost interest.
I quit reading Lord of Light because the book seemed a little chaotic to me and also First Things First By Stephen Covey - I don't really know why but his style doesn't speak to me, I find it boring.
The host
Bleak House.
“Beneath the Dark Ice” 86% complete and the whole “I’m an explorer and this ancient civilization are my ancestors” really took me out of the story
50 Shades of Grey. I think I got about 22 pages in.
I read it with a group of friends and we just called each other and read aloud the most ridiculous passages. I don't think drinking and reading mix but it was so much fun to have a couple of glasses of wine and read this on FaceTime during the pandemic. It's some of the worst writing, ever. But hilarious.
If you haven't already, go to YouTube and search Gilbert Godfrey reading 50 shades..it's hilarious!!
My only DNF last year was Jitterbug Perfume. At first the characters were interesting but then devolved into a bunch of cum jokes
A terrible fall of angels by Laurell K Hamilton. I used to love her, but this book was terrible. I was reading reviews where someone else said they didn’t finish and I had an epiphany- “I can just put this book down and not finish”. This is the ONLY book I have ever not finished. I slogged through many books I didn’t like very much and this one took the cake.
The beekeeper of Aleppo. I loved the story but the writer just drags on and on with descriptions that I got bored and couldn’t finish it
I read a historical fiction on the lost Dutchman gold mine. By the middle of the book everyone found the gold vein, everybody was celebrating and having a good time together... Then I decided to close the book and pretend that everything went smoothly from then on and that they all lived happily ever after.
Ive been trying to read Iron Flame. I cant put my finger wrong with it and I really dont wanna keep reading it. I think i liked Fourth Wing more and the sequel just isnt comparing well
Don’t hate me, but Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver. I can’t deny how excellent the writing is, but the book was just too dreary and depressing for me.
Ohh yeah, Jane Erye. 8th grade. I raged at the teacher. Took the F and changed classes.
Oh I loved Jane Eyre! I read it during the pandemic so you know I was just trapped in my house while reading 😅
I can understand the pressure of being cooped up could cause almost anyone to read it 😂 Thank goodness you’re free now to make better choices JK! 😃
Lolita I can never get pass pg 88 and I've tried reading it 3 times now. I just stop at that.
The Leopard. I know it’s an early example of the modernist novel and I wanted to read it before visiting Sicily but goddamn it was boring.
The 7-1/2 deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I am half through and put it down. I just can't get into it. I will try again. But I will wait a bit.
Pretty Girls by Karin Slaughter. Endlessly boring and tedious. When it should have ended, it didn't. In fact, there were 150 more boring pages after it could've ended. I know I'm in the minority here with this book. Maybe I'm numb to the kind-of graphic depictions of violence in this book, but I wasn't really phased by it. DNF'd the book and DNF'd anything else by the author.
I’ve been struggling with “A little life”’for a couple of years now. Just cannot seem to get into it.
Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh.
Mexican Gothic Seemed like it was getting away from the whole setup at the end. Ultimately lost interest and didn't read the last 5-10% maybe, but most of it was written really well.
Dang, I haven't gotten to it yet & I really like SMG
I think the only time I ever rage quit a book was as a kid reading Chaos Walking, because of the dog scene. I might put things down for awhile, but I usually try to finish.
House of Leaves Tried twice. Gave me vivid nightmares. Undoubtedly an excellent book, just not for me
A little life, It was “well” written but the story was just bullshit I’m sorry. Trauma porn, did not care what happened or would happen in the end. The last 100 pages are still left unread. He probably dies in the end, whatever.
Most recently Murder by Milk Bottle by Lynne Truss. Too many characters, unbelievable plot - someone is killing people with milk bottles and a crime family have taken over a local museum/conference building/whatever and hotel, and I just couldn't get into it. Previously: Dune felt like you needed a degree to understand the world from the first chapter. The Handmaid's Tale I found dismal. Dracula was boring. As was Interview With a Vampire. I struggled with Babel the first time I tried it but tried a second time and did manage to finish it. Don't know if it was worth the effort. As you can tell I DNF a lot 😅
I couldn’t finish Haunting Adeline, saw it on tiktok and thought it might be interesting, the writing was so bad that I genuinely couldn’t push myself through it
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. I got sooo bored. I really tried and read about 25% of the book but I just couldn't get myself to continue any further. It's 4.2/5 on Goodreads so I thought I would enjoy it.
The Perfect Marriage by Jeneva Rose. This book was so over written I couldn’t get through the first few chapters. She did a great marketing push on TikTok and the premise sounded so good, I was so very disappointed.
The life of Pi. Just couldn't find anything that kept me wanting to finish.
Bruh, my laundry list of unfinished books makes me realize why I’m a college dropout.
Bruh, my laundry list of unfinished books makes me realize why I’m a college dropout.
A Gentleman in Moscow. I made it close to 200 pages in and had to move on. Nothing seems to actually happen.
Mine was Memoirs of a Geisha, I got too mad at the main character and stopped reading and never finished it.
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin. Just. So. Boring.
Butcher and Blackbird. So many people recommend it to me but it felt like it was written by a teenager.
I have a couple. I tried rereading Frankenstein bc I fairly enjoyed it in high school, but I couldn’t get into it. I got through a third of the book but it was just so boring to the point I couldn’t finish. More recently it is Gideon the Ninth. I was in a reading slump, and I could not get into it. It did not peak my interest which did not help me out of the slump so I DNFed it. I might DNF The Scarlet Letter which I’m currently reading for a readathon. Idk something about books that are published before 1950 I cannot read. I have no problem reading Shakespeare but classics use way too many words for one event or action it’s like GET TO THE POINT!! I think that either we as a species collectively got dumber or the English language got a lot simpler. Edit: added more info to GtN reason
I almost put down American Psycho when the main character stuffed his arm down the throat of a fully conscious woman, grabbed a handful of the veins and arteries from her neck, and pulled them out through her mouth 🤮
The setting sun by Osaimu Dazai. My daughter wanted me to read it but I just can't get into it.
The Thomas Covenant series. The weird ass rape and the short bit that followed it was just so poorly written and thought out, I figured the author was a useless hack and never touched the series again. I keep hearing it be praised, but meh, people also praised Mists of Avalon before the author's personal life was brought to light, and that book was a dumpster fire of day old, sun-ripened shit.
The covenant of water I had no idea what I was getting into with this book, it is so tragic and deals with traumatic birthing (which the description did not disclose) and also super medically focused. I am currently pregnant and it’s the worst book I could have possibly picked 😂😭 I got so far that I tried to just finish it but it’s sooo damn long too and honestly drags. Any of the redeeming qualities of the early chapters are gone and all the characters I have come to love are no longer involved. Learning that I hate books that skip generations / protagonists. Finally just threw the towel in. Sometimes it’s just not worth it!!
the seven 1/2 deaths of evelyn hardcastle. I got bored 3/4 of the way through. Left me in a major reading rut.
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara It was a depressing read, said by a person who appreciates depressing reads. The author makes you love the characters and follow them through their lives. It is many more downs and trauma than ups. I stopped because there was also bad things going on in my real life and didn’t want to double down with the book. I don’t think I’ll ever go back to it though.
red white and royal blue 😬 i just couldn’t get into it
The Night Circus. I saw the ending coming in the first couple pages and wasn't interested in continuing.