The one that comes to mind for me is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. I found it dreadfully slow and just wanted him to get ON with it which of course ended up being so important to the book itself, and I'm so glad I continued despite being ready to DNF it. Easily one of my favourite books of all time.
On the other hand I recently gave up on Underworld by Don DeLillo. I'm so disappointed because it's very highly regarded and "on paper" it should be exactly the kind of book I would love: multiple eras, the Cold War etc. but I just couldn't get through it or make myself care. I think DeLillo's prose just didn't agree with me even if I can objectively appreciate that it was well written.
Curious what were your experiences (near DNFs or DNFs that you can't let go of!)
by zajirobo
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The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson was a real slog for me at the beginning but I absolutely loved it by the end, and I am now almost done with the third book of Stormlight Archive
The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer. I bought this in HS and could not get into it. I was going to return it but was too lazy so I gave it another try. It’s now one of my favorite war novels. It’s about a troop of US soldiers in the Pacific. It has a structure sort of like the TV show lost: you focus on a particular character sometimes, and then flash back to their pre war life. I’m glad I had the attention span back then to force myself to read something I wasn’t immediately into
*Still Life* by Sarah Winman. No quotation marks really threw me and I almost dumped the book out of principle. In the end I got used to it, and it was actually a lovely book.
I really have to try War and Peace again. I want to want to read it, but I’ve never gotten more than half a dozen chapters in.
I adore long books, I love complex stories, on paper this should be my absolute jam.
And yet.
Cloud Cuckoo Land turns into a brilliant commentary on the nature of knowledge passing through generations but the first 50-100 pages deter a lot of people.
Too many to count. I’ve been reading a lot of Progression Fantasy and LitRPG over the past few years, and most of it has either never seen an editor or was published by a relatively small press. In the past, I’d usually give a book a few chapters to hook me. But after the second or third time I DNF’d a book only to pick it up later during a reading slump and realize I actually really started enjoying it by the end, I’ve started giving series at least one full book to capture my interest (unless it’s really atrociously written).
None.
I have a very keen sense of what I can read and what will waste my time, and my time is very precious to me. When I was younger, I tried to push myself to persevere – but there was never, ever, ever a single book that was worth it in the end.
The feeling you get at the start – the general feel, not the plot, not the characters, not even the writing style, just *the feel* – is usually right. Ever since I learned to trust it, I haven’t read a book I regretted wasting my time on. ure, I’ve read books that made me upset, angry, or disgusted – but none that weren’t worth it.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig. The narrative switches between about four topics from chapter to chapter and I tired of suspending each thread before I was ready to leave it. Several topics were also fairly deep cognitively and often required more effort than I preferred. The first time I read it, I set it aside less than 10% from the end. Years later I re-read it, and found that I was much more engaged by Pirsig’s passion for inquiry and his pursuit of the person he no longer was. Today, it’s my favorite book ever.
Lonesome Dove. It’s wonderful but he really sets up everything for the first third of the book. After they steal the horses, that’s when everything starts moving.
Reamde by Neal Stephenson also takes 200 pages for the plot to start but once it does, what a story.
I had skimmed Don Quixote in college a few years ago and put it away very unimpressed / unhooked at the time. Browsing through these threads, I picked it back up after another redditor recommended it and described the plot and characters in a much more appealing and interesting light.
In my second read-through I was pleasantly surprised by how funny and poignant the story is, and how characters endeared me despite their ridiculousness. I’m still somewhere in the middle – reading a little here and there – but it has been oddly such a fitting read to get back into for me this year. The themes of friendship and perseverance (and a little delusion) to get by in life make it surprisingly modern and relevant in a way I wouldn’t have thought.