People Are Sharing The "Great" Books That They Honestly Struggled To Finish
Sometimes, no matter how classic or well-written a book is, it might not connect with the reader the same way it does with other readers. On the popular bookworm-filled r/books subreddit, u/myawn asked readers to share a well-regarded book they struggled to finish. Here are some answers that will either have you stunned or relieved you're not the only one:
1. Dracula by Bram Stoker
"This book is my nemesis. I must have tried it three times and never got even halfway through. Something about the format of diaries and letters just doesn't do it for me and breaks up my immersion in the story. I also find Jonathan and Mina's characters to be quite bland, though admittedly, I never got very far. For the supposedly quintessential novel on vampires, I have to say I was disappointed."
— u/myawn
2. Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
3. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
4. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Little, Brown and Company / Via barnesandnoble.com
5. Tale Of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
6. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
"Anything written by Hemingway. I can't stand his writing style; it's just mind-numbing to me. I still remember the paragraph from A Farewell to Arms with the word 'and' like 30-plus times in it."
— u/nildrohain454
7. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
8. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
9. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Simon & Schuster / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I LOVE Ray Bradbury, and I know it's an iconic book, and the first line is still one of my favorites ever. It was just boring to me."
— u/spanish_destiel
10. Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
Penguin Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I feel like you have to be in a great place in your life to be able to read this book and not get depressed. I wasn't at my best when I started reading it and stopped when I realized it was only making me feel even worse about life."
— u/inps37
11. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Penguin Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
12. Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
13. Don Quixote by Cervantes
Penguin Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
14. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
"I'd read it was the most brilliant book. I picked it up in the library, read 10 pages, decided it was over my head or something, and put it back."
— u/Charlie500
15. A Widow for One Year by John Irving
17. The Aeneid by Virgil
Penguin Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I don't know why because I really liked The Iliad, The Odyssey, and even Metamorphoses, which I would think would be the odd one out of the four. It's just Virgil that rubs me the wrong way. I've read them all at least once by the same translator, so I don't think that's it."
— u/ElricAvMelnibone
18. Neuromancer by William Gibson
Penguin Publishing Group / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I've tried to read it several times but never get more than 10-20 percent in before I decide I don't want to read it anymore."
— u/mrburnttoast79
19. The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
Harper / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I can't get through The Color of Magic, which boggles my mind! I've been a fantasy reader for decades! I don't like it!"
— u/KDLG328
20. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Penguin Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I've tried many times with increasing levels of determination, but I can never make it through that first party scene."
— u/BaileyGirl5
21. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King
Pocket Books / Via barnesandnoble.com
"It took me a few times to get through The Dark Tower, but I was able to get through it; it was worth it because most of the series is really good."
— u/nyrdcast
22. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Picador / Via barnesandnoble.com
"It has been recommended to me lots of times. I've started and stopped many many times. I think this is just going on my DNF list and leaving it at that."
— u/72_Suburbs
23. Dune by Frank Herbert
Ace / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I f*cking hated it. I despised every single character, and eventually stopped wasting my time reading it and just listened to the audiobook until it was over, rooting for everyone to die."
— u/Vanish_7
24. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Avon / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I couldn't get through it and stopped mid-way. The main character was just too dumb and too...unrelatable. Literally every time this guy spoke, I imagined a drooling six-year-old in my head."
— u/TheBackpacker2
25. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Gollancz / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I finished it, but it was a huge struggle. To me, that book is everything wrong with mainstream fantasy writing condensed to a brick of a book."
— u/Electronic_Basis7726
26. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Vintage / Via barnesandnoble.com
"It was really hard to get through."
— u/ztreHdrahciR
27. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Penguin Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
"As boring as the dirt on their wagon."
— u/Damnmorefuckingsnow
28. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger
Little, Brown and Company / Via barnesandnoble.com
"My teacher would talk about it so much I had really high expectations for it, but idk, maybe soon I'll give it another try."
— u/janepaches33
29. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill
Vintage Classics / Via barnesandnoble.com
"It's not even a long book and should be able to be read quickly, but I just can't get into it."
— u/BellePoivron
30. The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas
Bloomsbury YA / Via barnesandnoble.com
"Everyone I know has said so many good things about the Throne of Glass series and has told me to start with The Assassin's Blade …big mistake. It took me MONTHS to get through, and it's a fairly small book. I don't know if it was the POV, the character, or what. I usually love Sarah J. Mass and her other series, but because of that first book, I can't get myself to open Throne of Glass."
— u/SimpleResearcher8334
31. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Random House Worlds / Via barnesandnoble.com
"A friend lent me the first book sometime in the mid to late 2000s, and I absolutely couldn't get through. I found the number of POV characters bothersome and often found myself having to go back and skim through previous chapters in order to remember what had last happened in that character's arc. Combined with being genuinely bored by at least one of these characters, I just couldn't find the motivation to finish the book."
— u/DasMotorsheep
32. And lastly: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Knopf Books for Young Readers / Via barnesandnoble.com
"I'm studying to be a librarian, and the one that got me was The Book Thief. It's a young adult novel that is widely renowned, but I felt like it was a chore to get through. there wasn't a compelling plot and so much wordy prose I felt like I was reading A Room of One's Own! Wasn't what I was expecting from a YA novel for middle school."
— u/rosmitchell0rosmitchell0
Is there a book you found difficult to finish (if you finished it at all)? Comment below and share with me why!
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