What's the last book you quit reading?

Bill Dodds · #1 Jan 26, '12, 12:20 pm

I've seen a lot of answers in "what's the last book you read?" but what's the last book you quit reading before completing? Why?

chevalier · #2 Jan 26, '12, 12:23 pm

The Innocent Man by Grisham. I read a bit of the back and forth between the author and the prosecutor and other people involved in the story. I lost my trust in the book being an accurate rendition of what happened.

insideitall · #3 Jan 26, '12, 12:55 pm

I routinely fail to finish non-fiction books when they turn out to read like a textbook or make me angry, so I won't include those. I pride myself on slogging through even the worst fiction, though, so the only ones that comes to mind are jane eyre (wuthering heights was bad enough, and jane eyre is suspiciously similar), war of the worlds, and I didn't even get past the first page of moby dick - does that even qualify as starting?

all three of those were when I was either in middle or high school, and I have no desire to try again. why couldn't I finish? no idea. they were just so painful to read.

there have been a few over the last several years that have been so bad, due to questionable content, that I don't even remember if I finished them or not..

sorry I can't give a better reason. book reviews have never been a forte.

Bill Dodds · #4 Jan 26, '12, 1:11 pm

Recently I had high hopes for a Washington, D.C., spy novel by a television journalist but after a couple of chapters I still didn't like, hate, or care about any of the characters. I suspect the book had all the right parts but no "pop." It just wasn't a good story being well told.

And I still remember trying to get through Ivanhoe in the eighth grade. No way. As I recall, only one student was able to do it.

michaelmas · #5 Jan 26, '12, 1:16 pm

Theology and Sanity

Why? Because I could not wrap my brain around it. I either need to build up to this book or find more elementary books on the same subject.

chevalier · #6 Jan 26, '12, 1:27 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by chevalier

The Innocent Man by Grisham. I read a bit of the back and forth between the author and the prosecutor and other people involved in the story. I lost my trust in the book being an accurate rendition of what happened.

Sorry, Lord of the Rings was later, actually. I just haven't made the decision to quit, I've simply postponed continuing, so it didn't occur to me. The reason is, I guess, it didn't keep me engaged. Certainly not when I had sensational legal thrillers to compete, even though LotR is a better and more worthy book. I guess that's life, sensation is more attractive than worthy content is.

odile53 · #7 Jan 26, '12, 1:29 pm

Almost thirty years ago I was living in an apartment building that was very noisy. I bought
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and used it in place of a sleeping pill. I have never been able to get through two pages of that anesthetizing work, and heartily recommend it for insomniacs. At the rate I'm going through it, it should last me the rest of my life!

I, too, force myself to wade through really poorly written fiction, on the grounds that if I paid for the book (download, whatever,) I might as well get my money's worth by finishing it.

KevinAK · #8 Jan 26, '12, 2:03 pm

Bill O'Reilly's Killing Lincoln -- borrowed from the library and couldn't renew it because there was a waiting list.

Havard · #9 Jan 26, '12, 2:05 pm

It may soon be Killing Lincoln. Despite what Bill says, I'm finding the scant narrative to be crowded out by unnecessary details. Hopefully it picks up soon...

DihydrogenOxide · #10 Jan 26, '12, 2:36 pm

Brave New World

Dunno, just annoyed me too much. I never read it and always wanted to, so I borrowed it. I was actually surprised by how crude it was, and really, it reminds me a lot of how modern times really are. Sad.

**puzzleannie** · #11 Jan 26, '12, 2:47 pm

Da Vinci code
I literally threw it against the wall because the actual writing was so bad, and the history was so wrong--did not even go into matters related to the Church that were so perverted, the Church can take care of herself, but Clio needs a defender

Jeanne S · #12 Jan 26, '12, 2:51 pm

"Messages from Mary",written by a woman who does"channeling",new age philosophy.She claims to be a Christian,who supposedly, in the 90's started hearing messages from Mary.This book was given to me by a friend who was really impressed by it.My friend is a convert of nearly twenty years.Iq was very troubled that she liked this book,as everything in it is so antithetical to our Catholic faith.ie: According to the author,Marytold her "Not to concern herself with Jesus,just go straight to God.She also said,don't pray to me either,Catholics worship me and hold tight to my apparitions,not wanting to share my messages to the rest of the world."I was very put off by this book.It was obvious to me that this woman had an agenda,that is to debunk anything Catholic.Amazingly,when I mentioned to my friend my concerns,she said she hadn't remembered any of that in the book.I wonder if it affected her differently because of being Protestant at one time:

Armor of Light · #13 Jan 26, '12, 2:56 pm

I made it through about half of "The Fountainhead"

Boooooring! I don't really know why I thought it'd be worth it, anyway.

bluerose · #14 Jan 26, '12, 2:58 pm

How about the last book I wanted to quit reading?

Like insideitall and odile53, I cannot bring myself to leave a book unfinished even though I cringe to think that I'll never get those hours back that I wasted either a) proving I'm no quitter, or b) doing penance that will, hopefully, count when I get to purgatory.

Also, I realize (from painful experience) that it's just as hard to write badly as it is to write well and so I offer up my suffering in the hope that my own writing will improve and that someone is willing to see it to the end and maybe, just MAYBE, give me a chance to see it published (after extensive editing and improvements to make it a book no one will want to quit reading!)

Anyhow, I was excited to see a series aimed toward teen or young adult Catholics--The John Paul II High books, written by Christian M. Frank (who is actually a team of writers that have their own imprint at Chesterton Press, after having originally started at Sophia Institute Press's Cross and Chisel line of fiction.) I read the first two books and they were quite good... good enough for me to look forward with bated breath to the third book in the series which, for reasons I've never understood, took nearly two years to finish and publish.

The third book was a resounding disappointment. The characters I had come to care about in the first two books had undergone severe personality changes, none of them for the better. In fact, two of the characters I had liked so much had become extremely disagreeable and I struggled to get to the end of the book. I didn't like these people anymore, certainly not enough to spend anymore time with them. Of course, the third book left a cliffhanger for a fourth book. How long will it take for them to publish the fourth book? I have no clue. Will I care enough to spend the money to buy the book? Also no clue. I bought the books primarily for my nieces and nephews to read because I wanted them to have books about real Catholic teens... I think I'd rather they stick to witches-in-training (at least they didn't go through two grade levels waiting for the next book in THAT series to come out!)

Maybe this should be the last series I quit reading???

Newsy · #15 Jan 26, '12, 3:21 pm

I don't do it very often, but the last one was about 2 years ago. It was "It's your time" by Joel Osteen. The book was a gift from a relative, I tried, I really did. I failed. I made it about 15 pages and quit. I later watched about 10 minutes of his program, it was all I could take. I am now convinced he is a heretic. If they called him a motivational speaker, it would be closer to the truth.

Sorry if I insulted anybody's favorite author.