I’m becoming more and more willing to give up on books that are not doing anything for me after the first fifty or hundred pages. One reason blog reviews are so useful: they indicate for me whether or not I should persevere in hopes of finding something worthwhile.
Full Dark House–Fowler. Recommended by author Anne Perry.
Homestead–Lippi Recommended by Carrie at Mommy Brain.
Housekeeping—Robinson. I loved Gilead, but I couldn’t get into this one, her first novel.
Inheritance of Loss–Desai. Strange people, and not because it’s set in India.
Night Inspector—Busch. A Civil War sniper, post-war, obsesses over his war experience. Maybe something else happens later?
Raising Demons–Jackson Recommended by At a Hen’s Pace —in a comment here. I found the first half of the book amusing, but I just lost interest along the way.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel –Susanna Clarkson. I found that I couldn’t face a thousand plus pages of bringing magic back to Britain. Is there something else there that I missed by not finishing?
Confederacy of Dunces–Toole Recommended in a comment here. The main character was a dunce, and I don’t suffer fools gladly. Well, maybe what’s-his-face had something to teach or say, but it didn’t reveal itself in the first one hundred pages.
The Man With the Red Bag by Eve Bunting. In my quest to read children’s fiction published in 2007, I picked up this book at the library. It was predictable, and I didn’t finish. I didn’t really care what the man had in his red bag, and I knew from about page three that it wasn’t a bomb.
You’re saying you started & didn’t finish these?
Let me encourage you to give Homestead another shot. It is the best book I’ve read this year. Beautiful writing, engaging story…. And hey, it isn’t all that long, anyway!
Yes, I didn’t finish any of these books. Sometimes I think the worng book comes to one at the wrong time. Maybe I will try Homestead again.
I didn’t like Housekeeping at all after reading Gilead, either. I just finished English Passengers, and I am so disappointed I didn’t give it up after 100 pages. It took me way to long to read (because it is 440 pages and because I wasn’t really into it), and my to read pile just got taller and taller. Think of all the books I could have been reading.
Thank you for this post. I’m about to give up on a book that many others liked. Its on my Saturday Review of Books Challenge List, too. 🙁 I’ve decided that life is too short to struggle with a book when there are so many other great ones out there!
I can understand putting a book down if it isn’t speaking to you. Life is too short and there are too many good books waiting. I put The Poisonwood Bible down after 100 pages, even though everyone said it was so wonderful. I didn’t like it at all, so I moved on. There have been times when I have persevered and been glad I did; there have also been times when I wished I had given up instead of finishing a book.
I agree, too, that you sometimes it is simply timing.
I’m working on Strange & Norrell now. I understand your sentiments here. I can see it’s fun and funny but I’m not getting into it. But it’s one I will continue to read. I’ll let you know if it’s worth getting back into.
And Raising Demons, I liked it but it doesn’t change. If you didn’t find it funny enough to finish it, you won’t find it rewarding to finish it.
I admit JS&MN is probably not for everyone. I did enjoy it, mainly because I found the characters fascinating. I also thought it was interesting to see how Susanna Clarke interpreted English history for the purposes of the story. I just posted my review of it today (it is very short).
I think I mainly loved JS&MN because I am a sucker for footnotes, revisionist history novels, and anything involving the faerie world. It’s not a book for everyone, that’s for sure.