What book are you leaving behind?

OK, let's get down to brass tacks: what are you currently giving up on? For myself, I'm about to let A Country Affair by Rebecca Shaw and Swann's Way go. Two totally different ends of the spectrum, I know, but there you have it. Anyone else?

I just quit a book called Pilates, Yoga, Meditation and Stress Relief I don't the authors' names, but it was one of the most boring things I've ever picked up.

I tried to get through Animal Farm earlier today. Gave up after the first two chapters, just couldn't get into it. I really like 1984, so I thought I'd give this a shot, but it was just tedious, and I've got about 50 other books on my TBR list, so I axed it.

Returning Kate Mosse's Labyrinth to the library tomorrow - just three chapters into it, but already I have no desire to know what happens to these wafer-thin characters.

I tried A Clockwork Orange but only got through part of it.

I agree about Labyrinth - it was one of those books for me that just wasn't going anywhee. I'd just read The Historian and it felt a little samey but not as well executed.

Oh yes, I gave up on Labyrinth too - it was a Book Club book and I know two of the other members also gave up on it. Embarassingly, I'd been the person who chose it in the first place. Well it looked like a good book!

Other books I gave up on recently - Home: The Story of Everyone Who Ever Lived in Our House and Hitler's Willing Executioners.

Thinking about it, all three books have two things in common - firstly, the author's style of writing irritated me, and secondly, they all seemed to be "padded out". A good editor could have cut each book down to half the length, without losing any of the content.

Oh yes, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell was another one that I gave up on recently. It slipped my mind, because it wasn't as bad as the others - it just wasn't my kind of thing. Funny, because I usually like both fantasy and Napoleonic fiction, but the book just didn't work for me.

Really? I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell but didn't like the ending - had the feeling she was paving the way for a sequel. I liked the footnotes style but can see how others wouldn't.

It wasn't the footnotes that put me off, or the setting or plot, but the writing style. It struck me as being a bit twee and contrived - trying to give the impression of being written in the Nineteenth Century, but failing to hit the mark. In the end, I just found it too annoying to persevere with.

I got Melusine by Sarah Monette from the library a couple days ago because I happened to see it, and recognized it from some people on LT talking about how much they liked it.

I, on the other hand, hated it. I disliked it from the very first page and by page 19, I absolutely hated it. I tried to give it a decent go before giving up, I tried at least to get to page 50, but I got stuck somewhere around page 37 and I wasn't able to bring myself to open it again. I took it back to the library today and left with a few books that look like I'll actually like them.

I think I'm going to be abandoning The Sun also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, after 68 pages.
Another book recommended to me by my bf, but I just can't get past the endless paragraphs of
We came onto the Rue de Pot de Fer and followed it along until it brought us to the rigid north and south of the Rue Saint Jacques and then walked south, past Val de Grace...
I have never been to Paris so all it seems to be is an endless list of streetnames.

I, literally, left behind Absolute Friends. It was a hard slog through the first few chapters, and then I actually set it down in the Dr.'s waiting room and forgot to pick it up again. There are no accidents.

Blackberry Wine - I think I may quit it but I bought it from a charity shop so may carry on. Good writing style and I like Harris, but nothing much seems to be really happening and its quite incredulous!

Girly by Elizabeth Merrick. I already returned it to the library. I wanted to like it: setting, subject matter seemed perfectly tailored for me, but I lost interest about 200 pages in.

"The Secret of Lost Things." It's a new book, a mystery set in a bookstore with a lost manuscript, etc. At least that's what I recall of the publicity material.

Although I don't read much fiction, I love books about books. So I tried it and--YUCK. I struggled with each page, determined to give it a chance, until I finally gave up about 40 pages into it. That's when I heaved a big sigh of relief.

I recently gave up on Starship Troopers. I read it knowing that the movie, which I've seen and like, had little to do with it, but I didn't know the extent that was true. It turns out that, other than some names, and coincidental details, the only thing the two share is the name.

i didn't give up on it, but that might have been only because it was too short to warrant it... h.g. wells's the island of dr. moreau was barely worth finishing for me.

i'm surprised, because i tend to enjoy classics, but in this case 120 pages seemed like an eternity.

If you hate Animal Farm, you should read Snowball's Chance by John Reed. It will totally mess up your teacher's class.

I totally agree with saying farewell to The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway (message 12). I sort of liked A Farewell to Arms, but this book just seemed like a bunch of annoying drama, even though I love Paris.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles sticks out in my mind. I got halfway through, thanks to the nice desciptive writing, but the utter dryness won out.

The nice thing about this book-bashing is finding out you're not alone in hating a particular novel, especially is it's much-loved or a classic. So speak up, Hardy haters!

I've been plodding through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell a few pages at a time unwilling to completely let it go for the last two years so I may as well give it up. I love fantasy and history. Normally, the topic would have been my cup of tea, but it is such a serious drag I can't go on.

I purchased "Jonathon Strange..." at an airport where I was stuck waiting for weather to lift. It seemed like something I would love... but I just could not get past the first 100 or so pages. It bogged down and lost me. I finally gave it to the library friends to resell.

I am returning Mein Kampf to the library today. I was going to read it in honor of Banned Books Week, but damn, I just couldn't get past the overwrought style. I'll tackle it someday. I think the only way I could get myself to read it would be to take a long flight somewhere and only have that for entertainment.

I don't like giving up on books, and the only book I've given up on in the last year or two was The Last of the Mohicans. I got about 60% through it, but the endless Boy's Own bushwhacking, crafty woodsmen, silent Indians and fey women ground me down. It was just a great big zero on character, plot and style.

Tried to read One hundred years of solitude but found it hard going & a not a little disjointed. All the characters seem to share the same name! Plodded on for about a hundred pages then packed it in as a bad job. Felt like a chore to read it & I wasn't enjoying one bit.

#26 - I received One hundred years of solitude as a gift, with the advice to draw up a family tree/character map as I went along. Admittedly, I have yet to crack the book...

I got one sentence into The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.

Now you have to realize the first page is maybe two paragraphs and each paragraph is made up of two or three sentences. This sentence was about 100 words long!

Uck, not for me.

Heh, I found it on Gutenberg. Here's the first sentence:

I have received your esteemed favour of the 13th ultimo, whereby it appeareth, that you have perused those same Letters, the which were delivered unto you by my friend, the reverend Mr Hugo Behn; and I am pleased to find you think they may be printed with a good prospect of success; in as much as the objections you mention, I humbly conceive, are such as may be redargued, if not entirely removed -- And, first, in the first place, as touching what prosecutions may arise from printing the private correspondence of persons still living, give me leave, with all due submission, to observe, that the Letters in question were not written and sent under the seal of secrecy; that they have no tendency to the mala fama, or prejudice of any person whatsoever; but rather to the information and edification of mankind: so that it becometh a sort of duty to promulgate them in usum publicum.

morphidae -

My eyes started glazing over about halfway into the first line. Ugh.

You got through sixty percent of The Last of the Mohicans? Wow! I couldn't get through the first chapter. Mark Twain's essay Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses is very funny. The early nineties film of ...Mohicans was good.

oh no. someone up there hated animal farm! i just started it a few hours ago and im about to finish (granted its not a long book). i find it very interesting.

is last of the mohicans that boring? really? i was a bit excited about picking it up one of these days. like rufustfirefly said, the movie was good. jodhi may rocks!

If you take Last of the Mohicans in a spirit of hokey-ness, they you may enjoy it. Knowing that Cooper was utterly serious makes it even funnier.

animal farm was the bomb! how could anyone not like it? :(

i have tried 3 different books by eric jerome dickey and stoped around 50 for each one. i just really, really, really HATE his writing. the women characters are all overly emotional, dependent, pathetic.

i got up to pg 50 for two books by zane and quit, too. unrealistic, ridiculous, blahhhh...