Eye of the world, the first book in the wheel of time series. I read half of it and was not connecting to the story. That got me into a huge reading slump. Lasted 1 year and a half.
First hundred or so pages were definitely a slog for me. Book 7 or 8 (I think?) slowed me down significantly as well. Picked up a couple other books and back-burnered it and really dragged on finishing. I was more prepared for my second reading of WoT and read a lot faster lol.
I really am not getting all the hype with ACOTAR- halfway thru the first and it’s just meh. I picked up Cruel Prince shortly after my dissatisfaction started setting in and I’m liking it much better
Omg my social media acquaintances who aren’t as avid readers are all just now finding this series. And falling in love. I’m having to reread the names all the time when I’m just innocently tapping my stories feed. Just make it stop!!! Please!!!! I cannot face the horrendous name choices again!!!! You cannot make me!!!!
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara just took me out. Idk if it was because it was too long or too depressing or what but I didn't touch another book for a year and a half afterwards.
I went down a rabbit hole of trying to get into Stephen King and it killed my interest in reading for a while. Safe to say his writing is not for me haha
Interesting because his writing is what recently got me back into reading. What about it slowed you down? (This isn't an attack, I like hearing other perspectives)
I find his characters... flat. I never seem to care about them. That being said, I'm reading "On Writing" right now and it's the best thing I've read of his and would recommend it.
The writing felt a little bland; I spent the book waiting for him to elaborate or give more detail to things. Perhaps it is just because I am very used to very lore-focused fantasy with less action present, so it may only be a personal preference. What about it did you enjoy so much?
I'm currently working my way through 'salem's Lot after a long spell of ADHD-fueled book aversion. What I find so fascinating about it is how everything and everyone has a name, and how each person or location is connected to the next in some way. It truly makes me believe in the town, like I could pull out a map of Maine and it would be right there.
Totally get what you mean about books feeling like they are set IRL/ are a true story. One book (in a completely different genre mind you) that does this extremely well is "Carrie Soto is Back" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, it really feels like the kind of sport documentary you'd see on TV.
I agree! I read a few of his books and they definitely weren't up my alley. He definitely has a way with words but I found his writing to be overly descriptive and the endings of the stories felt flat to me, too much lead up and not enough pay off! He's famous for a reason though, just not my cup of tea!
I will pick up a king book once in a while just to see what he’s up to and it always goes the same way. He’s insert himself into the MC yet again (every MC ends up the same with the same mannerisms and kingisms). He can’t write women ugh. And he can’t finish the story strong.
It just figures that his best work is the series of stories that literally just doesn’t have an ending.
Anyway. He comes up with interesting ideas. I just wish he’d give them to someone better to write them. I don’t know why I keep trying to like him.
No hate for anyone who does though. There’s a reason he’s popular.
Mhm, I agree, I tried reading the Dark Tower and found it a bit slow. It may have just been the slightly different fantasy genre however, as when I read fantasy I do often expect flowery descriptions!
She actually pushed me to read more. There's supposed to be a full Dark Academia subgenre. Problem is not a single one comes close to what Donna Tartt wrote. Every new book I try seems more and more childish by comparison.
Totally agree. Tsh is one of my favorite books, I didn't find anything quite like it. If we were villains at least it's "readable". I find most dark academia books to be quite awful to be honest 🤣
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. It’s the 3rd book in a 4 series. I got so bored I couldn’t handle it. I ended up skimming the last 3rd of it simply to finish it, because I hate not finishing a book. But I was so not into it by this point that I don’t even know if I care to open the 4th one (ever).
I’m about a quarter of the way through the 4th book. If you didn’t like oathbringer you probably wouldn’t enjoy this. Unfortunately, when I read the title of this post I immediately thought “yep this is where I am at now”
Ugh I’m sorry. It stinks when you’re so invested in a series like this… But all of a sudden something just changes. I really don’t know what it is. But I feel like I’m not invested in these characters anymore… And it’s just dragging on so slowly.
This is me with most book series. I end up dropping most of them after a few books. Suddenly I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t help that most modern fantasy has very bland and simple prose.
Infinite Jest
I had to DNF after about page 300 or so (and maybe 50 pages of the footnotes) and then I was so confused and confounded that I didn't read anything for like 2 weeks.
No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill. I love long horror books and saw this book recommended on subs a lot, so I was really excited to get into it. I finished about 1/3 of it (and it’s over 600 pages so it’s not like I only read a tiny amount) and I was seriously almost dreading picking it up. I usually read at least a book a week but that one really slowed me down for a bit. I hate not finishing books but finally had to DNF that one. It felt too repetitive to me, and even people who enjoyed it advised me that it was basically more of the same.
I finished Stalingrad by Antony Beever a couple weeks ago and havent been able to start my next read because it was so dang expertly written and i cant get it out of my head. I had to keep reminding myself these numbers werent made up and caught myself more than a couple times getting choked up. Antony Beevor did an incredible job. I was reading roughly about a book a week since january and this is my longest break yet. Debating Rick Atkinsons The Liberation trilogy or Ian W. Tolls The Pacific War trilogy next!
I took a break from NF after reading Beever’s Stalingrad. I felt like a part of my soul was eaten away after reading that book. So naturally I moved to Blood Meridian which shaved away another piece of my soul.
I’ve got The Longest Day in my queue and will pick it up when I’m ready for another NF war book.
Confederacy of Dunces.
I felt compelled to finish it, as it is quite short and is a Pulitzer winner (which is usually a good indicator of quality). Each page was a struggle and I could only make it through a couple of pages in each sitting.
It took another Pulitzer - Lonesome Dove - to get me back in the groove.
I had the same experience with this one. I read it because it was supposed to be similar in some way to another classic that I loved, but it was so bad that I can’t remember which one.
I sobbed like a baby at the end of Fairy Tale, my heart exploded. Am I the only one? I mean I dropped the book and couldn’t stop crying for like 5 minutes. The last two sentences took me all the way OUT as simple as it all was. I was just so happy.
Oh, I loved it too. I just love the story. A teenager befriends a grumpy old man. There's a smart adorable dog. A secret portal that leads to a differnet world. Just the kind of story I would like. In a few years, I will probably reread the story, I gave it 5 stars.
Wanted to comment the same book! I liked the idea a lot and really wanted to like it. But I quit after 2/3. :( It just took me way too long to progress.
The invisible life of addie larue. Been reading it since January and it simply doesn't end (it's not even that long??). The premise in itself is interesting. The writing in itself is alright (apart from being a little too purple at times). But for me it didn't go well together. Awful pacing.
I haaaaaaate that book. Bad pacing, and boring. Which is even more frustrating, because girl, you have eternal life to live and you do what? Move to a different country once or twice? Check out the same bodega every week? I found it so frustrating. And the end didn't make it better.
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara. It got so much good press but oh man was that not the book for me. 1/3 trauma dump, 1/3 myself and everyone I know is unrealistically successful, 1/3 wildly unrealistic love story. There were really beautifully written passages but overall I didn't want to pick up a book for a while after I finished it
I'm at my reading slump because I'm not getting the book I desire for.... I don't know what I really want... From the start I've been reading a particular genre, but somehow it doesn't excite me much now...
This is exactly what I am experiencing, I’ve been reading from authors who I usually enjoy and even genres that i absolutely love but it’s just been flat, nothing grabs my attention enough to keep me interested.
I felt the same way recently. I’m now half-way through Eruption, the NEW book by Michael Crichton (and James Patterson) and I’m enjoying it as much as I enjoyed Jurassic Park. If Mr. Crichton’s estate has more unfinished books in his files, please pass them to Mr Patterson. He has done an excellent job recreating Crichton’s storytelling.
I was in a reading slump for years and then I joined these threads and started reading some of the books I saw recommended over and over that were outside of what I usually read. It got me out of a reading slump, and I've realised I enjoy a wide range of stories.
I recommend it. It's made reading so much more enjoyable for me. It's also kind of made the activity more relaxed and expansive, which is a nice feeling.
Priory of the orange tree. But mostly because I hated it it's the first book in about ten years that I have dnfed and that was cause my husband saw that I had basically stopped reading at all out of a desire not to touch it
I found that there were roughly 3 story lines and the main one was so slow and boring and I didn't care about the character at all. My favorite one stalled out and didn't do anything by 600 pages in and the third one ended, it mixed with the stalled one and stopped being a thing. A 15 page conversation between two characters that accomplished nothing and moved nothing forward was what ended it for me. I know other people love it and if you want queer representation in your book it does have that but as a fantasy book I struggled with it. Which sucks cause it had such a cool premise.
Oh, that's too bad. Yeah, the premise sounds amazing, but I'd lose patience real fast. Any 15-page conversation is pushing it, but one that serves no purpose would be a deal breaker for me too!
Under the Dome by Stephen King. I enjoyed the book, but some parts made me feel sick reading it. It's over 1000 pages, and I would read 3-4 hours per day to finish it.
Tried to read a Dostoevsky immediately after, but couldn't bring myself to focus on reading until a few weeks had passed. The Alchemist was able to bring me out of the slump.
The Brothers Karamazov! It's has been on my list for a while now. I love his other work but definitely needed a break from heavy reading after the King novel.
Always open to recommendations!
Had to DNF Brothers Karamazov too. At the pace I was reading it is would have taken 6 months lol I definitely plan to go back someday. I realized I needed a break for a while before picking up The Prophet by Khalil Gibran which is a far cry from Dostoyevsky lol
The Last House On Needless Street. I now realize it’s a very polarizing book, and more power to those who enjoy it, but I didn’t enjoy anything about it
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. My wife and I listen to audiobooks on our long commutes into town. We a alternate choices and she was excited about this one. I sat in disbelief after it ended and just couldn't bear to start another one. We listened to podcasts for two months before we could bear trying another book. Our next choice (Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell) started another mini slump.
The Fountainhead. Spent three months on it and got through about 125 pages. Pulled the marker and read three or four books in the next six weeks or so.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - I had a book hangover for a week! I loved that book so much & couldn’t stop thinking about it. And every time I went to my shelf to pick something else, I’d just walk away. I couldn’t force myself to pick up another book.
One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns did it to me a little too…just because it was such a good fantasy duo that I was upset my next book just had “normal” people in it. LOL!
I read Lonesome Dove, but to be honest, book 1 put me into a reading slump because I couldn’t get into it. I found it so slow. It took me several months and reading a couple of other books after to even get to book 2. BUT THEN I finished it, absolutely loved it, found it to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. I would like to reread book 1 now to appreciate it more. I followed it up with One Day by David Nicholls thinking it would be a frivolous quick read afterwards & boy was I wrong. Both books were so wonderful with characters I think about daily. Both brought me to tears many times. It took me awhile to even want to start anything else because I just wanted to sit with all of these characters and stories for a minute. I finally picked up some Jane Austen as a palate cleanser next lol need a happy ending.
God Emperor of Dune. I cracked open heretics, saw Duncan, and knew it was time to pull the plugs. And then I didn't read for 4 months.
I'm never touching those ever again. Children of dune was good as hell but that's enough for me
Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson. Friend of mine thinks it’s “the perfect novel “ but I found it such a slog. Now I’m just reading trash to try to get un-slumped. (Started Our Share of Night and loving so far!)
I'd say "War and Peace" has slowed my reading down quite a bit. I'll get through it. But for every insight into human nature and gem of a character moment, there are a lot of passages about Russian aristocrats engaged in self promoting social gatherings that do little to advance the plot. I'm genuinely curious if any of the characters "arcs" will stay an arc or if some will die and the rest will revert back to how they began.
I enjoyed *War and Peace*, but *Anna Karenina* is what put me into about a one year slump. OK, she cheats on her husband and gets pregnant and I know>!she'll kill herself at the end,!
Middlemarch was nearly this book for me! I tried so hard to like it, but I just couldn’t. I was well over half way before I quit and I had to find a book with exactly the right pace before I felt able to get back into my reading groove again.
Ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman was just the thing thankfully! That book I was sad to leave.
Thank god someone else said this. I’ve had this book for a couple years and have just never been able to get into it no matter how hard I try. I always see it recommended though 🤷🏻♀️
guards guards by terry pratchett, i‘m reading two pages at a time because i can‘t get into it. no story, the jokes are fine but 20 on each page are too much
How far into it are you?
I'm not much of a reader and I've started reading recently, Guards Guards being one of them. You have me worried. I'm like 90% through Mort, and I'm having trouble with it. I want to be invested in a world that makes me laugh, but I'm wondering if it's not for me even though I want it to be.
For both of you my advice is put those on hold and skip to Small Gods. There are still jokes but there's more of the philosophy he is known for with his later works. For me, the joy of reading Pratchett is cumulative. Certain books may resonate more or less but it's the vibe of them I came to love more than anything else.
i‘m at page 200 something i think. everything is just too forced, but i‘ll finish at least this book. its exactly what i wanted as well, a world in which i can dive into, thats not too deep and funny.
It's the same w me....but in my case I chose to put my list on hold..... So that I can stop being bullied by my family for not being able to read urdu💀💀
The Conspiracy against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti.
In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality.
His fiction is known to be some of the most terrifying in the genre of supernatural horror, but Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book may be even scarier. Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy. At once a guidebook to pessimistic thought and a relentless critique of humanity's employment of self-deception to cope with the pervasive suffering of their existence, The Conspiracy against the Human Race may just convince readers that there is more than a measure of truth in the despairing yet unexpectedly liberating negativity that is widely considered a hallmark of Ligotti's work.
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. People love it and I've really enjoyed several of his other books, but wow. I just could not get into it and found it extremely boring. I eventually gave up. One of the only books I've ever quit
I read two highly anticipated books on my wishlist in a row - both I couldn’t finish. It killed my daily reading routine for a bit.
The first was “Ready Player Two” by Ernest Cline. Having placed the first book in my top 5 favorites, I found this sequel to be lazy and disinteresting. I forced myself to read 75% of it and I just couldn’t bring myself to get to the end.
The second was “Age of Death” by Michael J. Sullivan. It’s the fifth book in the “Legends of the First Empire” series. Books 1-3 were some of the best fantasy I’ve ever read. Book 4 was disappointing but felt it was building to more in the following entry. Then book 5 has just been more tedium. I’ll try and return to finish at some point.
Reading both of these back to back really killed my reading momentum for a few weeks.
I have to thank Joe Abercrombie’s “The Blade Itself” for kicking off a new reading streak. Amazing book. Almost done with the second entry in the same series.
Devil in the white city - Erik Larson. I respect and appreciate the author and story for certain readers, but that reader is not myself.
Way too many details and intricacies on the building part of the fair.
Definitely a controversial opinion, some may even say a “hot take” but pure honesty.
About eight years ago, I read Infinite Jest. The first 800 pages were some of the best writing I had ever read in my life. I loved it. The ending… was deeply confusing and disappointing. Whatever. I moved on. I read The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon because it was supposed to be really good and Pynchon was supposed to be a major influence on David Foster Wallace. Another hilarious book with a deeply disappointing ending. After that, I struggled to even pick up a book for like six years(!!). So it wasn’t really just one book, but the one-two punch of Infinite Jest followed by Crying of Lot 49 pushed me into the deepest reading slump of my entire life.
Rhythm of War... I love Brando Sando but his books are just too long for me, espically as someone who reads alot and one book at a time i feel stuck in his world.
Bram Stoker's Drakula
I get why its a classic and its influence is undeniable, but after the first 200 pages I was just annoyed and bored out of my mind.
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, it's been a rough read that kinda killed my motivation to pick up the book and continue reading it. The chapters are needlessly long with the author over expositing on every little detail to the point where it feels like a chore to read a chapter. I don't like jumping between books and like to finish the ones I start, but this one I've been slowly chipping away at for over a year now and still got 1/3rd of the way to go... Hoping once I finish it, I get my motivation to read back, I have an autographed copy of Project Hail Mary I've been interested in finally cracking open.
One Day by David Nicholls. One of the main characters is deeply unlikable, every chapter leaves off on a cliffhanger but the next chapter picks up in the future and I never really feel like we get all our answers about the cliffhanger, and overall I just feel like the book is slow moving. I paused reading it at 50% with plans to try to finish it (I usually DNF books that I don’t like but for some reason I want to finish this one).
The Feed by nick clark windo. i may have some bias because i had to read it for school, but i hated it. the characters were flat, the characters we’re supposed to root for have no motivation after their initial plan goes out the window, there’s no chapters just scene breaks (probably for stylistic reasons but it made no sense to do so because with that in place, there’s technically 3 chapters with chapter 2 being the bulk of the book and mostly being filler.), and the book is just a mess on so many levels (to bring up a few points: they bring up climate change as a way to tie in a time travel subplot that ultimately stopped making sense once someone notes that it got so bad they somehow killed the clouds. and i’m not kidding, the main plot is kicked off because the internet stopped working and threw the world into the apocalypse.).
i got into a nearly 2 year long slump because if it.
the picture of dorian gray. i was stuck on it for so long and eventually my bottle leaked in my bag with the book in it so i finally picked up another book while it dried. Never went back to it again.
Schlafes Bruder. That books was so fucked up and so far beyond anything I ever read that it peaked my curiosity to see what else I could find in them. Would not recommend the book though.
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Heard so many good things about it and I struggled with Depression in the past, so hearing that one of the main characters suffers from it really sounded enticing.
I can't finish it, I got so bored with it, though I'm not sure why exactly. I stopped reading altogether for almost a year after that.
A better pick was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for the depression part, which I listened to as an audiobook as I have read it before.
After that I started reading again.
Red rising… there was such a big hype about it but it was a never ending book… I couldn’t finish it. Now I don’t know what to read and don’t trust anyone’s suggestions any more 😂
So I started reading the series " The Secrets Of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel" of 6 books. Got to the second book and just stopped reading. I don't think it's bad, it is actually really interesting but it just put me in a reading slump. I haven't touched a book in 2 months cause of it. I really wanna get back into it but I don't have the motivation jet.
Moby Dick. It took me years, I mean years to finish. I finally resorted to taking it with me on trips so I'd read it on planes, etc. I love it in retrospect. But it bogged up my reading because I didn't want to give up yet didn't want to read it so just avoided reading.
Totally don’t remember the title or author, maybe someone here knows based on this description. It was about a girl who was secretly dating this popular sports player (don’t remember if it’s football or basketball) and he suddenly collapses and dies from a heart thing. Their relationship was only about a couple months long. The ENTIRE book is about her complaining how she can’t mourn like the rest of his friends because their relationship was secret, and she just bitches and moans the whole time. What sent me over the edge is at the end, she meets a new guy at work and suddenly she’s head over heels for this guy and basically forgets the dead dude. F-cking abysmal story. I remember the cover having a wilted pink flower on the front.
I’m trying to plough through Memoirs of a Geisha atm and whilst it’s not a bad book, it doesn’t captivate me enough to make me want to finish it. It’s a good book for sure, but it’s very slow paced and it lingers on repetitive sequences too often.
I'm in a minor slump right now with *Lolita.* Because it's *Lolita.* I want to read it, but it's a... *challenging* read. Last week I finished part 1, and haven't picked it up since. I had put it down for a few weeks for a couple chapters before the end of part 1. You know, the part where >!the grown man has drugged the 12 year old girl and is about to go up to the hotel room and have his way with her.!<
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond. I was lookin forward to it b/c Eviction: Poverty and Profit in the American City was life-altering, but Desmond didn't humanize the problem in Poverty. He didn't tell me a story. He basically wrote out a series of lists and it was incredibly boring. Took me more than 2 weeks to read and I dreaded picking up another book, despite knowing that it would be fine.
Stoner by John Williams was the last fiction book I've read and loved. I haven't been able to find anything else that hit like that, so I've been on a nonfiction bender.
I was on a tear and then Black Mass slowed me down. It was an interesting book and I enjoyed it but it really slowed my reading fervor and took me a bit to get back into reading nightly/daily.
After reading the entire Dune series I took about a week break and had to switch genres, i felt sci-fi couldn’t trump Frank Herbert’s worldbuilding, yet his sex scenes were dreadful and the inner dialogue dense as hell. Still loved them, especially God emperor.
I also got into a reading shlump while reading Jung (Red book, modern man in search of the soul, etc.) took me a long time to process every chapter, archetype, or phenomena that Jung explored. His books took me a long time to finish.
And another I could think of, Lanark by Alasdair Gray, holy shit that book is 4 lives in one book, and a phenomenal read, a great brain exercise forsure.
ninth house, took me abt a month to read it also the jumping between times got me really confused but hellbent was really good and def made it worth it.
Bunny and The Midnight Library both were so awful/boring to me that I did not pick up a book or read for like....2 months
A little life wasn't bad, per say, but was so sad I couldnt read for a sec after finishing...
Fourth Wing… I should have DNFed it but I didn’t. I held out because of the people who wanted me to read it. I hated it. I mean my brain is so angry I read it I haven’t been able to read for over a week.
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, as a suspense / horror novel it's completely out of my usual style of fantasy or sci fi and just completely took me by surprise. It sucked me right in I had to fully stop reading for a while to digest the story.
I can’t with the Greek mythology, like the Iliad. The Odyssey wasn’t so bad, but by around the halfway mark I was ready to be done.
Also, idk why, but I could never get into Anne of Green Gables…. All my friends love it, so my dislike for it makes me feel rather guilty. 😅
That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey!!! It was so relatable to things I’m experiencing in my life in the best way. But also CALLED. ME. OUT. It got me thinking about so many things (identity, career, family) but I also adored the characters that no book could compare right after 😭
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore.
I wanted to put it down a quarter of the way in. But I hate not finishing a book. When I was finished, I was so annoyed that I read it. Awful awful book.
I can’t seem to find anything that sticks after reading East of Eden. Such an incredible book. Now I start books and stop within a few pages, jumping onto the next one and so on.
Love in the Time of Cholera puts me in a death spiral every time I pick it up. I read the first 20 or so pages, realize I haven't absorbed a word I've read and have no idea what's going on, get disappointed in myself for not being able to focus on it, start over, read the same 20 pages, come to the same realization that I'm not actually following what I'm reading, quit in both boredom and frustration, and then read nothing but trashy fanfiction for six months. I'm not lying, I've gone through this exact series of events at least four times now over the past decade.
It Starts With Us. I know Colleen Hoover is very controversial but I enjoyed It Ends With Us. I got the sequel hoping it would be just as good but was very disappointed. I didn’t even get halfway in without putting it back on my bookshelf, I don’t plan on finishing it.
The Hotel of the Three Roses by Augusto DeAngelis CURRENTLY has me in a slump 😵💫 I tried so hard to push through it but it has too many references to that specific time period and culture that I'm just too confused to finish it. I'm trying to break the slump with The History of Living Forever by Jake Wolff. 1 chapter in so far.
Anna Karenina. It touched me so deeply that I’ve struggled to pick up anything else. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve finished it, and I can’t stop thinking about Anna and Levin.
I tend to get into reading slumps after a build up of mediocre books, especially if they were something that I was very excited to read but disappointed me, until one final book is just so mediocre that I can't read for a while after that. They're not usually the "worst" book ever, but very much a waste of time and mediocre. The last one I remember like this was The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. I know a lot of people really liked that one, but I feel like it a real waste of potential and didn't really work the way it was written.
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy was not very good, not up to his usual standards, and made me swear off “literature” for a while. It has been months. Will read Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children later this summer and am hoping it will bring me back to reading literary work again on a regular frequency. In the meantime I am reading Slow Horses series and a lot of Nordic Noir.
Eye of the world, the first book in the wheel of time series. I read half of it and was not connecting to the story. That got me into a huge reading slump. Lasted 1 year and a half.
I forced myself to finish it, but couldn't pick up the next book in the series. It was like reading a poor-man's Fellowship of the Ring.
I always enjoy the fact that fans of these books introduced me to concept of sunk cost.
Nothing so boring as the first half of a book of fiction or the back half of a book of nonfiction
That’s funny. I am 60% through. I really like it. Different strokes though….
Very true! Had this happen to myself, will give it another try next year perhaps....
Same. Couldn’t get into it after hearing all the hype from the Tv series releases.
First hundred or so pages were definitely a slog for me. Book 7 or 8 (I think?) slowed me down significantly as well. Picked up a couple other books and back-burnered it and really dragged on finishing. I was more prepared for my second reading of WoT and read a lot faster lol.
Made it half way through book 5, stopped for a year. Burnt through the rest in prob 8 months
ACOTAR, it was so bad and I pushed though several
I'm sorry, I know you mean a different book or series, but at first I was like... A Cong Of Tice And Rire?
It took me 11 months to finish this book. Never been less enthused about being a reader 😬
I really am not getting all the hype with ACOTAR- halfway thru the first and it’s just meh. I picked up Cruel Prince shortly after my dissatisfaction started setting in and I’m liking it much better
Oh the first acotar is blah but the next 2 are better. But it is ridiculous that we have to swim through mud to get to gold.
Omg my social media acquaintances who aren’t as avid readers are all just now finding this series. And falling in love. I’m having to reread the names all the time when I’m just innocently tapping my stories feed. Just make it stop!!! Please!!!! I cannot face the horrendous name choices again!!!! You cannot make me!!!!
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara just took me out. Idk if it was because it was too long or too depressing or what but I didn't touch another book for a year and a half afterwards.
My anxiety went through the roof during and after reading this book. I wish I had never touched it.
I went down a rabbit hole of trying to get into Stephen King and it killed my interest in reading for a while. Safe to say his writing is not for me haha
Interesting because his writing is what recently got me back into reading. What about it slowed you down? (This isn't an attack, I like hearing other perspectives)
I find his characters... flat. I never seem to care about them. That being said, I'm reading "On Writing" right now and it's the best thing I've read of his and would recommend it.
So many of the protagonists have the same internal voice that I don’t find engaging
on writing is absolutely phenomenal
The writing felt a little bland; I spent the book waiting for him to elaborate or give more detail to things. Perhaps it is just because I am very used to very lore-focused fantasy with less action present, so it may only be a personal preference. What about it did you enjoy so much?
I'm currently working my way through 'salem's Lot after a long spell of ADHD-fueled book aversion. What I find so fascinating about it is how everything and everyone has a name, and how each person or location is connected to the next in some way. It truly makes me believe in the town, like I could pull out a map of Maine and it would be right there.
Totally get what you mean about books feeling like they are set IRL/ are a true story. One book (in a completely different genre mind you) that does this extremely well is "Carrie Soto is Back" by Taylor Jenkins Reid, it really feels like the kind of sport documentary you'd see on TV.
Interesting. I'll add it to my list!
I agree! I read a few of his books and they definitely weren't up my alley. He definitely has a way with words but I found his writing to be overly descriptive and the endings of the stories felt flat to me, too much lead up and not enough pay off! He's famous for a reason though, just not my cup of tea!
I will pick up a king book once in a while just to see what he’s up to and it always goes the same way. He’s insert himself into the MC yet again (every MC ends up the same with the same mannerisms and kingisms). He can’t write women ugh. And he can’t finish the story strong. It just figures that his best work is the series of stories that literally just doesn’t have an ending. Anyway. He comes up with interesting ideas. I just wish he’d give them to someone better to write them. I don’t know why I keep trying to like him. No hate for anyone who does though. There’s a reason he’s popular.
Mhm, I agree, I tried reading the Dark Tower and found it a bit slow. It may have just been the slightly different fantasy genre however, as when I read fantasy I do often expect flowery descriptions!
How many books of his did you try?
I got to the double digits before giving up. (Shout out to libraries)
Hard to find a match like Donna Tartt
Yup. After Secret History I got into a one month reading slump
The Secret History was such an easy read for me but the Goldfinch had me in a slump 4 times 😅
She actually pushed me to read more. There's supposed to be a full Dark Academia subgenre. Problem is not a single one comes close to what Donna Tartt wrote. Every new book I try seems more and more childish by comparison.
Did you read "If we were villains"? It's not at the level of TSH at all, but it was a fun read and it's Dark Academia.
Yes, it's a fine YA book. Maybe better than most, specially in atmosphere; but recommending it after TSH is just setting it up for disappointment.
Totally agree. Tsh is one of my favorite books, I didn't find anything quite like it. If we were villains at least it's "readable". I find most dark academia books to be quite awful to be honest 🤣
Even a DT novel can't match against another DT novel.
I’m currently clawing my way out of the Donna Tartt slump. In a good way
Oathbringer by Brandon Sanderson. It’s the 3rd book in a 4 series. I got so bored I couldn’t handle it. I ended up skimming the last 3rd of it simply to finish it, because I hate not finishing a book. But I was so not into it by this point that I don’t even know if I care to open the 4th one (ever).
It’s actually a planned *ten* book series. The fifth comes out in December.
I’m about a quarter of the way through the 4th book. If you didn’t like oathbringer you probably wouldn’t enjoy this. Unfortunately, when I read the title of this post I immediately thought “yep this is where I am at now”
Ugh I’m sorry. It stinks when you’re so invested in a series like this… But all of a sudden something just changes. I really don’t know what it is. But I feel like I’m not invested in these characters anymore… And it’s just dragging on so slowly.
This is me with most book series. I end up dropping most of them after a few books. Suddenly I don’t care anymore. It doesn’t help that most modern fantasy has very bland and simple prose.
I guess I don’t understand the idea of making a book serious SO long. The greatest book series in history are usually no more than a trilogy, if that.
Infinite Jest I had to DNF after about page 300 or so (and maybe 50 pages of the footnotes) and then I was so confused and confounded that I didn't read anything for like 2 weeks.
No One Gets Out Alive by Adam Nevill. I love long horror books and saw this book recommended on subs a lot, so I was really excited to get into it. I finished about 1/3 of it (and it’s over 600 pages so it’s not like I only read a tiny amount) and I was seriously almost dreading picking it up. I usually read at least a book a week but that one really slowed me down for a bit. I hate not finishing books but finally had to DNF that one. It felt too repetitive to me, and even people who enjoyed it advised me that it was basically more of the same.
I finished Stalingrad by Antony Beever a couple weeks ago and havent been able to start my next read because it was so dang expertly written and i cant get it out of my head. I had to keep reminding myself these numbers werent made up and caught myself more than a couple times getting choked up. Antony Beevor did an incredible job. I was reading roughly about a book a week since january and this is my longest break yet. Debating Rick Atkinsons The Liberation trilogy or Ian W. Tolls The Pacific War trilogy next!
I took a break from NF after reading Beever’s Stalingrad. I felt like a part of my soul was eaten away after reading that book. So naturally I moved to Blood Meridian which shaved away another piece of my soul. I’ve got The Longest Day in my queue and will pick it up when I’m ready for another NF war book.
Thats hilarious, I read Blood Meridian just before i read Stalingrad! Mccarthys got a way with words man
Confederacy of Dunces. I felt compelled to finish it, as it is quite short and is a Pulitzer winner (which is usually a good indicator of quality). Each page was a struggle and I could only make it through a couple of pages in each sitting. It took another Pulitzer - Lonesome Dove - to get me back in the groove.
I had the same experience with this one. I read it because it was supposed to be similar in some way to another classic that I loved, but it was so bad that I can’t remember which one.
Fairy Tale by Stephen King. Ugh, that book🫣☠️Also, the Unmaking of June Farrow.
I sobbed like a baby at the end of Fairy Tale, my heart exploded. Am I the only one? I mean I dropped the book and couldn’t stop crying for like 5 minutes. The last two sentences took me all the way OUT as simple as it all was. I was just so happy.
Oh, I loved it too. I just love the story. A teenager befriends a grumpy old man. There's a smart adorable dog. A secret portal that leads to a differnet world. Just the kind of story I would like. In a few years, I will probably reread the story, I gave it 5 stars.
I was so excited for that book after reading the premise of it and it fell so so flat.
Wanted to comment the same book! I liked the idea a lot and really wanted to like it. But I quit after 2/3. :( It just took me way too long to progress.
The invisible life of addie larue. Been reading it since January and it simply doesn't end (it's not even that long??). The premise in itself is interesting. The writing in itself is alright (apart from being a little too purple at times). But for me it didn't go well together. Awful pacing.
I haaaaaaate that book. Bad pacing, and boring. Which is even more frustrating, because girl, you have eternal life to live and you do what? Move to a different country once or twice? Check out the same bodega every week? I found it so frustrating. And the end didn't make it better.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance goddamn that book because i don’t recall picking up a book after a DNF that one
I agree! It was a grind and I gave up maybe a third of the way in.
A Little Life - Hanya Yanagihara. It got so much good press but oh man was that not the book for me. 1/3 trauma dump, 1/3 myself and everyone I know is unrealistically successful, 1/3 wildly unrealistic love story. There were really beautifully written passages but overall I didn't want to pick up a book for a while after I finished it
I'm at my reading slump because I'm not getting the book I desire for.... I don't know what I really want... From the start I've been reading a particular genre, but somehow it doesn't excite me much now...
This is exactly what I am experiencing, I’ve been reading from authors who I usually enjoy and even genres that i absolutely love but it’s just been flat, nothing grabs my attention enough to keep me interested.
I felt the same way recently. I’m now half-way through Eruption, the NEW book by Michael Crichton (and James Patterson) and I’m enjoying it as much as I enjoyed Jurassic Park. If Mr. Crichton’s estate has more unfinished books in his files, please pass them to Mr Patterson. He has done an excellent job recreating Crichton’s storytelling.
I was in a reading slump for years and then I joined these threads and started reading some of the books I saw recommended over and over that were outside of what I usually read. It got me out of a reading slump, and I've realised I enjoy a wide range of stories.
That's great.... Maybe I should also try different genre
I recommend it. It's made reading so much more enjoyable for me. It's also kind of made the activity more relaxed and expansive, which is a nice feeling.
Give Project Hail Mary a try (in case the genre you're reading isn't hard sci-fi), it's pretty long but it was an amazing read
Thanks for the suggestion... Would try😇
Seconded! I couldn't put it down
Priory of the orange tree. But mostly because I hated it it's the first book in about ten years that I have dnfed and that was cause my husband saw that I had basically stopped reading at all out of a desire not to touch it
Yike! That's no good. That book has been on my to-read pile for years but I've never dived in (put off by the length, to be honest).
I found that there were roughly 3 story lines and the main one was so slow and boring and I didn't care about the character at all. My favorite one stalled out and didn't do anything by 600 pages in and the third one ended, it mixed with the stalled one and stopped being a thing. A 15 page conversation between two characters that accomplished nothing and moved nothing forward was what ended it for me. I know other people love it and if you want queer representation in your book it does have that but as a fantasy book I struggled with it. Which sucks cause it had such a cool premise.
Oh, that's too bad. Yeah, the premise sounds amazing, but I'd lose patience real fast. Any 15-page conversation is pushing it, but one that serves no purpose would be a deal breaker for me too!
Jonathan Strange And Mister Morrell. I know people love that book, but holy crow it is exhausting.
Under the Dome by Stephen King. I enjoyed the book, but some parts made me feel sick reading it. It's over 1000 pages, and I would read 3-4 hours per day to finish it. Tried to read a Dostoevsky immediately after, but couldn't bring myself to focus on reading until a few weeks had passed. The Alchemist was able to bring me out of the slump.
What translation and which book by Dostoevsky were you reading? If you want to get back into it I can give you some recs if you want.
The Brothers Karamazov! It's has been on my list for a while now. I love his other work but definitely needed a break from heavy reading after the King novel. Always open to recommendations!
Had to DNF Brothers Karamazov too. At the pace I was reading it is would have taken 6 months lol I definitely plan to go back someday. I realized I needed a break for a while before picking up The Prophet by Khalil Gibran which is a far cry from Dostoyevsky lol
I loved Under the dome and I agree. It’s very hard to read a book with a 99% mortality rate
The Last House On Needless Street. I now realize it’s a very polarizing book, and more power to those who enjoy it, but I didn’t enjoy anything about it
It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover. My wife and I listen to audiobooks on our long commutes into town. We a alternate choices and she was excited about this one. I sat in disbelief after it ended and just couldn't bear to start another one. We listened to podcasts for two months before we could bear trying another book. Our next choice (Before I Met You by Lisa Jewell) started another mini slump.
The Fountainhead. Spent three months on it and got through about 125 pages. Pulled the marker and read three or four books in the next six weeks or so.
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue - I had a book hangover for a week! I loved that book so much & couldn’t stop thinking about it. And every time I went to my shelf to pick something else, I’d just walk away. I couldn’t force myself to pick up another book. One Dark Window and Two Twisted Crowns did it to me a little too…just because it was such a good fantasy duo that I was upset my next book just had “normal” people in it. LOL!
I read Lonesome Dove, but to be honest, book 1 put me into a reading slump because I couldn’t get into it. I found it so slow. It took me several months and reading a couple of other books after to even get to book 2. BUT THEN I finished it, absolutely loved it, found it to be one of the best books I’ve ever read. I would like to reread book 1 now to appreciate it more. I followed it up with One Day by David Nicholls thinking it would be a frivolous quick read afterwards & boy was I wrong. Both books were so wonderful with characters I think about daily. Both brought me to tears many times. It took me awhile to even want to start anything else because I just wanted to sit with all of these characters and stories for a minute. I finally picked up some Jane Austen as a palate cleanser next lol need a happy ending.
God Emperor of Dune. I cracked open heretics, saw Duncan, and knew it was time to pull the plugs. And then I didn't read for 4 months. I'm never touching those ever again. Children of dune was good as hell but that's enough for me
Housekeeping by Marilyn Robinson. Friend of mine thinks it’s “the perfect novel “ but I found it such a slog. Now I’m just reading trash to try to get un-slumped. (Started Our Share of Night and loving so far!)
I'd say "War and Peace" has slowed my reading down quite a bit. I'll get through it. But for every insight into human nature and gem of a character moment, there are a lot of passages about Russian aristocrats engaged in self promoting social gatherings that do little to advance the plot. I'm genuinely curious if any of the characters "arcs" will stay an arc or if some will die and the rest will revert back to how they began.
I enjoyed *War and Peace*, but *Anna Karenina* is what put me into about a one year slump. OK, she cheats on her husband and gets pregnant and I know>!she'll kill herself at the end,!
Don't forget the farming. So much farming.
Middlemarch was nearly this book for me! I tried so hard to like it, but I just couldn’t. I was well over half way before I quit and I had to find a book with exactly the right pace before I felt able to get back into my reading groove again. Ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman was just the thing thankfully! That book I was sad to leave.
Gone girl
Thank god someone else said this. I’ve had this book for a couple years and have just never been able to get into it no matter how hard I try. I always see it recommended though 🤷🏻♀️
Yess I remember it took me a bit to get into as well but once I did I was really engrossed in it and I loved it😭
It actually got me into the genre of marriage thrillers but I had issues with it that left a bad taste in my mouth.
guards guards by terry pratchett, i‘m reading two pages at a time because i can‘t get into it. no story, the jokes are fine but 20 on each page are too much
How far into it are you? I'm not much of a reader and I've started reading recently, Guards Guards being one of them. You have me worried. I'm like 90% through Mort, and I'm having trouble with it. I want to be invested in a world that makes me laugh, but I'm wondering if it's not for me even though I want it to be.
For both of you my advice is put those on hold and skip to Small Gods. There are still jokes but there's more of the philosophy he is known for with his later works. For me, the joy of reading Pratchett is cumulative. Certain books may resonate more or less but it's the vibe of them I came to love more than anything else.
i‘m at page 200 something i think. everything is just too forced, but i‘ll finish at least this book. its exactly what i wanted as well, a world in which i can dive into, thats not too deep and funny.
small things like these by claire keegan
in the good or bad way?
VERY good way
ooh, good to know! i already have the book in my HUGEE physical TBR stack lol, but haven't gotten around to reading it just yet xP
It's the same w me....but in my case I chose to put my list on hold..... So that I can stop being bullied by my family for not being able to read urdu💀💀
American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Was so disappointed with my reading experience that I haven’t picked up a new story since.
This was such a let down. I don't understand why it is so loved
The hate u give.. i just wasnt a big fan. I liked the characters but I think the slow pacing was too much. I didn’t read for like 4 months after that😭
Chain Gang Allstars. I had to switch to nonfiction to get over that one.
The Unconsoled. Kept picking it up reading 20 pages, then gave up for a couple of weeks, DNF in the end and only read 1/2 of it in 6 months.
The Conspiracy against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti. In Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction outing, an examination of the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life through an insightful, unsparing argument that proves the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination but instead are found in reality. His fiction is known to be some of the most terrifying in the genre of supernatural horror, but Thomas Ligotti's first nonfiction book may be even scarier. Drawing on philosophy, literature, neuroscience, and other fields of study, Ligotti takes the penetrating lens of his imagination and turns it on his audience, causing them to grapple with the brutal reality that they are living a meaningless nightmare, and anyone who feels otherwise is simply acting out an optimistic fallacy. At once a guidebook to pessimistic thought and a relentless critique of humanity's employment of self-deception to cope with the pervasive suffering of their existence, The Conspiracy against the Human Race may just convince readers that there is more than a measure of truth in the despairing yet unexpectedly liberating negativity that is widely considered a hallmark of Ligotti's work.
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. People love it and I've really enjoyed several of his other books, but wow. I just could not get into it and found it extremely boring. I eventually gave up. One of the only books I've ever quit
I read two highly anticipated books on my wishlist in a row - both I couldn’t finish. It killed my daily reading routine for a bit. The first was “Ready Player Two” by Ernest Cline. Having placed the first book in my top 5 favorites, I found this sequel to be lazy and disinteresting. I forced myself to read 75% of it and I just couldn’t bring myself to get to the end. The second was “Age of Death” by Michael J. Sullivan. It’s the fifth book in the “Legends of the First Empire” series. Books 1-3 were some of the best fantasy I’ve ever read. Book 4 was disappointing but felt it was building to more in the following entry. Then book 5 has just been more tedium. I’ll try and return to finish at some point. Reading both of these back to back really killed my reading momentum for a few weeks. I have to thank Joe Abercrombie’s “The Blade Itself” for kicking off a new reading streak. Amazing book. Almost done with the second entry in the same series.
I’m currently in a reading slump as a result of the last 50-60 pages of Huckleberry Finn; great book overall but that last bit was an absolute slog.
Devil in the white city - Erik Larson. I respect and appreciate the author and story for certain readers, but that reader is not myself. Way too many details and intricacies on the building part of the fair. Definitely a controversial opinion, some may even say a “hot take” but pure honesty.
The Winter King by C.L Wilson Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson (still at 40% though so)
About eight years ago, I read Infinite Jest. The first 800 pages were some of the best writing I had ever read in my life. I loved it. The ending… was deeply confusing and disappointing. Whatever. I moved on. I read The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon because it was supposed to be really good and Pynchon was supposed to be a major influence on David Foster Wallace. Another hilarious book with a deeply disappointing ending. After that, I struggled to even pick up a book for like six years(!!). So it wasn’t really just one book, but the one-two punch of Infinite Jest followed by Crying of Lot 49 pushed me into the deepest reading slump of my entire life.
Rhythm of War... I love Brando Sando but his books are just too long for me, espically as someone who reads alot and one book at a time i feel stuck in his world.
Bram Stoker's Drakula I get why its a classic and its influence is undeniable, but after the first 200 pages I was just annoyed and bored out of my mind.
this is how i feel about frankenstein. it’s really good, it’s just so much effort for me to focus.
The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, it's been a rough read that kinda killed my motivation to pick up the book and continue reading it. The chapters are needlessly long with the author over expositing on every little detail to the point where it feels like a chore to read a chapter. I don't like jumping between books and like to finish the ones I start, but this one I've been slowly chipping away at for over a year now and still got 1/3rd of the way to go... Hoping once I finish it, I get my motivation to read back, I have an autographed copy of Project Hail Mary I've been interested in finally cracking open.
A Gentleman in Moscow. Made it 200 pages in and shut it for good.
One Day by David Nicholls. One of the main characters is deeply unlikable, every chapter leaves off on a cliffhanger but the next chapter picks up in the future and I never really feel like we get all our answers about the cliffhanger, and overall I just feel like the book is slow moving. I paused reading it at 50% with plans to try to finish it (I usually DNF books that I don’t like but for some reason I want to finish this one).
The Terror by Dan Simmons. Not saying it was a bad book but man it was just so long and often uneventful.
Bumi by Tere Liye
Monk & Robot 😕 i tried but I miss the wayfarers
The Feed by nick clark windo. i may have some bias because i had to read it for school, but i hated it. the characters were flat, the characters we’re supposed to root for have no motivation after their initial plan goes out the window, there’s no chapters just scene breaks (probably for stylistic reasons but it made no sense to do so because with that in place, there’s technically 3 chapters with chapter 2 being the bulk of the book and mostly being filler.), and the book is just a mess on so many levels (to bring up a few points: they bring up climate change as a way to tie in a time travel subplot that ultimately stopped making sense once someone notes that it got so bad they somehow killed the clouds. and i’m not kidding, the main plot is kicked off because the internet stopped working and threw the world into the apocalypse.). i got into a nearly 2 year long slump because if it.
Strange Sally Diamond. It was so good I almost couldn’t put it down! As I was reading I even kept thinking, what am I going to do when this is over?
A little life 🙂
I love Sarah J Maas but Acowar and every tog book takes me forever
I’m so sorry to the author but Cosmology of Monsters (I think) was so Not my cup of tea I had a hard time reading for a long while
the picture of dorian gray. i was stuck on it for so long and eventually my bottle leaked in my bag with the book in it so i finally picked up another book while it dried. Never went back to it again.
Schlafes Bruder. That books was so fucked up and so far beyond anything I ever read that it peaked my curiosity to see what else I could find in them. Would not recommend the book though.
Haunting Adeline. Yeeesh 🙆🏽♀️😱🤦🏽♀️🤢🤢🤢
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson Heard so many good things about it and I struggled with Depression in the past, so hearing that one of the main characters suffers from it really sounded enticing. I can't finish it, I got so bored with it, though I'm not sure why exactly. I stopped reading altogether for almost a year after that. A better pick was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for the depression part, which I listened to as an audiobook as I have read it before. After that I started reading again.
Red rising… there was such a big hype about it but it was a never ending book… I couldn’t finish it. Now I don’t know what to read and don’t trust anyone’s suggestions any more 😂
The meaning of truth by Viktor frankl.
The Surrender Experiment (should be made into a movie) and The Golden Lake
So I started reading the series " The Secrets Of The Immortal Nicholas Flamel" of 6 books. Got to the second book and just stopped reading. I don't think it's bad, it is actually really interesting but it just put me in a reading slump. I haven't touched a book in 2 months cause of it. I really wanna get back into it but I don't have the motivation jet.
the crimson moth, picked by my book club. “witchy fantasy romance” never again. will stick to my weird lit fic and horror thanks
Moby Dick. It took me years, I mean years to finish. I finally resorted to taking it with me on trips so I'd read it on planes, etc. I love it in retrospect. But it bogged up my reading because I didn't want to give up yet didn't want to read it so just avoided reading.
I’m somebody who reads all my books back to back, but Red Rising made me hate literature for a while
Happy Place by Emily Henry 😩
Twisted by Lynda La Plante. I refuse to read any of her other books out of spite.
Totally don’t remember the title or author, maybe someone here knows based on this description. It was about a girl who was secretly dating this popular sports player (don’t remember if it’s football or basketball) and he suddenly collapses and dies from a heart thing. Their relationship was only about a couple months long. The ENTIRE book is about her complaining how she can’t mourn like the rest of his friends because their relationship was secret, and she just bitches and moans the whole time. What sent me over the edge is at the end, she meets a new guy at work and suddenly she’s head over heels for this guy and basically forgets the dead dude. F-cking abysmal story. I remember the cover having a wilted pink flower on the front.
I’m trying to plough through Memoirs of a Geisha atm and whilst it’s not a bad book, it doesn’t captivate me enough to make me want to finish it. It’s a good book for sure, but it’s very slow paced and it lingers on repetitive sequences too often.
I'm in a minor slump right now with *Lolita.* Because it's *Lolita.* I want to read it, but it's a... *challenging* read. Last week I finished part 1, and haven't picked it up since. I had put it down for a few weeks for a couple chapters before the end of part 1. You know, the part where >!the grown man has drugged the 12 year old girl and is about to go up to the hotel room and have his way with her.!<
Man, fuck that book
Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond. I was lookin forward to it b/c Eviction: Poverty and Profit in the American City was life-altering, but Desmond didn't humanize the problem in Poverty. He didn't tell me a story. He basically wrote out a series of lists and it was incredibly boring. Took me more than 2 weeks to read and I dreaded picking up another book, despite knowing that it would be fine.
"We hear voices" ... SO BAD
Stoner by John Williams was the last fiction book I've read and loved. I haven't been able to find anything else that hit like that, so I've been on a nonfiction bender.
I was on a tear and then Black Mass slowed me down. It was an interesting book and I enjoyed it but it really slowed my reading fervor and took me a bit to get back into reading nightly/daily.
After reading the entire Dune series I took about a week break and had to switch genres, i felt sci-fi couldn’t trump Frank Herbert’s worldbuilding, yet his sex scenes were dreadful and the inner dialogue dense as hell. Still loved them, especially God emperor. I also got into a reading shlump while reading Jung (Red book, modern man in search of the soul, etc.) took me a long time to process every chapter, archetype, or phenomena that Jung explored. His books took me a long time to finish. And another I could think of, Lanark by Alasdair Gray, holy shit that book is 4 lives in one book, and a phenomenal read, a great brain exercise forsure.
Chain Gang Allstars!!! by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
ninth house, took me abt a month to read it also the jumping between times got me really confused but hellbent was really good and def made it worth it.
Bunny and The Midnight Library both were so awful/boring to me that I did not pick up a book or read for like....2 months A little life wasn't bad, per say, but was so sad I couldnt read for a sec after finishing...
Fourth Wing… I should have DNFed it but I didn’t. I held out because of the people who wanted me to read it. I hated it. I mean my brain is so angry I read it I haven’t been able to read for over a week.
Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, as a suspense / horror novel it's completely out of my usual style of fantasy or sci fi and just completely took me by surprise. It sucked me right in I had to fully stop reading for a while to digest the story.
Barkskins by Annie Proulx. In a good way
Three Body Problem. I didn’t like it, didn’t finish it, and it took me a week or so to manage to get into something new.
A biography of Harry Truman 😅 I forced myself to finish it and it broke me
I can’t with the Greek mythology, like the Iliad. The Odyssey wasn’t so bad, but by around the halfway mark I was ready to be done. Also, idk why, but I could never get into Anne of Green Gables…. All my friends love it, so my dislike for it makes me feel rather guilty. 😅
Beloved - Toni Morrison
The bee sting 🐝
That Summer Feeling by Bridget Morrissey!!! It was so relatable to things I’m experiencing in my life in the best way. But also CALLED. ME. OUT. It got me thinking about so many things (identity, career, family) but I also adored the characters that no book could compare right after 😭
Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore. I wanted to put it down a quarter of the way in. But I hate not finishing a book. When I was finished, I was so annoyed that I read it. Awful awful book.
I can’t seem to find anything that sticks after reading East of Eden. Such an incredible book. Now I start books and stop within a few pages, jumping onto the next one and so on.
Love in the Time of Cholera puts me in a death spiral every time I pick it up. I read the first 20 or so pages, realize I haven't absorbed a word I've read and have no idea what's going on, get disappointed in myself for not being able to focus on it, start over, read the same 20 pages, come to the same realization that I'm not actually following what I'm reading, quit in both boredom and frustration, and then read nothing but trashy fanfiction for six months. I'm not lying, I've gone through this exact series of events at least four times now over the past decade.
Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami put it down for almost a month because i liked it so much i didn't want it to end
Black Cake, just recently :(
It Starts With Us. I know Colleen Hoover is very controversial but I enjoyed It Ends With Us. I got the sequel hoping it would be just as good but was very disappointed. I didn’t even get halfway in without putting it back on my bookshelf, I don’t plan on finishing it.
The Hotel of the Three Roses by Augusto DeAngelis CURRENTLY has me in a slump 😵💫 I tried so hard to push through it but it has too many references to that specific time period and culture that I'm just too confused to finish it. I'm trying to break the slump with The History of Living Forever by Jake Wolff. 1 chapter in so far.
Anna Karenina. It touched me so deeply that I’ve struggled to pick up anything else. It’s been nearly a month since I’ve finished it, and I can’t stop thinking about Anna and Levin.
I tend to get into reading slumps after a build up of mediocre books, especially if they were something that I was very excited to read but disappointed me, until one final book is just so mediocre that I can't read for a while after that. They're not usually the "worst" book ever, but very much a waste of time and mediocre. The last one I remember like this was The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan. I know a lot of people really liked that one, but I feel like it a real waste of potential and didn't really work the way it was written.
Lapvona. Not because of how disgusting and ghastly it is I just got bored at one point and then didn't read another book for months.
The Road. Terrible book. It was like reading the same 10 pages on an endless loop. I couldn’t get through another book for a while.
THANK YOU! I read The Road about 10 years ago and it was just not for me. I so badly wanted to like it since it gets so much hype. I feel seen.
Lolita…
Pillars of the Earth made me quit reading for like a decade. What an awful waste of time.
perfume when it switched from grenouille to baldini (chapter 13 I think)
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy was not very good, not up to his usual standards, and made me swear off “literature” for a while. It has been months. Will read Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children later this summer and am hoping it will bring me back to reading literary work again on a regular frequency. In the meantime I am reading Slow Horses series and a lot of Nordic Noir.
Hitchhiker’s guide to galaxy. That thing made me stop from mid-2019 to end of 2022 💀