# Does anyone...



## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 13, 2016)

Just a question. Does anyone have a book they keep trying again and again to read, because it sounds so good and you're convinced you would love it if you could get into it, but you can't ever get into it?


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## CupofJoe (Aug 14, 2016)

Like more than a few people that picked up this book I came to it after finding out how the Alien films referenced it so...
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
I get about a dozen pages in [if I'm lucky] and then stall. I've even tried starting at random points in the book just to get started..
I don't know about love. If it is it is a very bitter sweet love.
One day... One day I will get there!


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## Caged Maiden (Aug 14, 2016)

Swordspoint. I love Ellen Kushner's "Privilege of the Sword," and I know I love her style and tone and subject matter, but I can't get past the afternoon tea with all the gossip and politics. I've tried twice and every time I think about trying again, I just get anxious.


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## Ireth (Aug 14, 2016)

They're more examples of "tried to read once and got turned off forever", but: Game of Thrones, and Susan Kay's Phantom. I didn't get more than a handful of chapters into GOT before putting it down and never picking it up again. With Phantom, I very much enjoyed the first several chapters, but there was one specific moment that basically slammed my NOPE button and made me unable to read further.



Spoiler:  the NOPE moment in Phantom



It's when 12/13-year-old Erik is with the circus troupe/caravan (can't recall exactly, haven't picked up the book since 2008) and the leader of the troupe attempts to ... shall we say ... end his innocence.



What makes it even worse is, if I recall correctly it's written in 1st person. *shudder*


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## Aspasia (Aug 14, 2016)

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I don't know what it is about that book, I just never seem to finish it. It's not even that long!


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 14, 2016)

I was this way about A Wrinkle in Time before I was FORCED to read it for a book club and loved it. But I suppose that doesn't count because I eventually read it. I have so many of these. Like France's Hardinge's books...she's a YA author and I love her ideas and writing style but I have not been able to make it far in any of her books, despite having checked them out from the library multiple times.


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## Geo (Aug 14, 2016)

Aspasia said:


> Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I don't know what it is about that book, I just never seem to finish it. It's not even that long!



Funny, I read that in one weekend (the pages turned just fast...) 

I suppose it's a matter of personal taste or even the point in your life in which you decide to read a book. I'm sure there are many books I can't finish reading that would be easy for others to read, like Wuthering Heights (who knows how many times I've started that one and never passed half of it).


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## spectre (Aug 18, 2016)

I did, anything in the Wheel of Time, but I finally conquered it and I'm at the last two hundred pages of the second to last book. Finally reading the Lord of the Rings too.


Sent from my NXA8QC116 using Tapatalk


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## AElisabet (Aug 20, 2016)

_Name of the Wind_ and _Assasin's Apprentice_.  Both are well written; the prose is good, the characters should be intriguing...but...

I keep trying and trying and I get a little further every time, kind of like shoveling snow off the driveway.  But I haven't been gripped yet.

It might be I just can't get interested in the isolated boy with special powers coming of age kind of narrative.  I hate the Jon Snow chapters in ASOIAF, too (even with the TV show I used to fast forward through all the scenes beyond the wall until Hardhome.  Then when Sansa showed up in season 6 I was like, "yes!").  I think need a more ensemble cast and high stakes relationships to hold my interest.

Hobb's worldbuilding throws me off too.  Those names, of both people and places ... ugh.  One of the pleasures of writers like Tolkien and GRRM is their ability to just give a person or place the perfect name (although in very different ways - Tolkien is obviously an amazing linguist, but I think GRRM's naming abilities are underrated.)   

And I _really_ want to like Hobb's books because her writing and characterization is very good, but I just can't be on board with a castle named Buckkeep.


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. 

It's well written, has interesting characters, a deep world, yet somehow I have it lying on my desk for about a year now. Just started again a few days ago, hopefully I will get somewhere.


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## Peat (Aug 20, 2016)

No, because by definition, if I can't get into it after a couple of tries, I know its not actually for me. Doesn't matter what else is in the book, if it can't hook me then adios.


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

Peat said:


> No, because by definition, if I can't get into it after a couple of tries, I know its not actually for me. Doesn't matter what else is in the book, if it can't hook me then adios.



I'm too Dutch for that. If I bought it, I have to use it untill I can't gain anything from it.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 20, 2016)

Banten said:


> I'm too Dutch for that. If I bought it, I have to use it untill I can't gain anything from it.



That's why I don't buy books I haven't already read--too much risk! 

I love buying books though. Looooooooove it.


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> That's why I don't buy books I haven't already read--too much risk!
> 
> I love buying books though. Looooooooove it.



But... but then you've already read them. I'm also too Dutch for that. I Never buy something I can have for free.


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## DragonOfTheAerie (Aug 20, 2016)

Banten said:


> But... but then you've already read them. I'm also too Dutch for that. I Never buy something I can have for free.



But books aren't just for reading! They're for filling your shelves and making your house a home.


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## Ban (Aug 20, 2016)

DragonOfTheAerie said:


> But books aren't just for reading! They're for filling your shelves and making your house a home.



Oh, so *that's* why everyone stuffs their nice empty shelves with books!


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## CupofJoe (Aug 21, 2016)

Banten said:


> Oh, so *that's* why everyone stuffs their nice empty shelves with books!


And why the perfect number of books in a bookcase is "just a few more"... Speaking as someone with 100[?] books under my bed because the 6 book cases I have are already overflowing...


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## Peat (Aug 21, 2016)

CupofJoe said:


> And why the perfect number of books in a bookcase is "just a few more"... Speaking as someone with 100[?] books under my bed because the 6 book cases I have are already overflowing...



*consults catalogue* 150 I think, not including the RPG books. Although that's the stuff I want to sell.


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