Books everyone seems to love, but you just can't

[Sacrosanct]

What books have you read, or more accurately, tried to read because everyone seems to rave about them, but you just couldn't get into them?

For me it has to be the Wheel of Time series and Tigana.

I had to stop midway through wheel of time book four. And forced myself to read 200 pages of Tigana, but I don't think I can continue.

Why? Both for the same reason. They just drag on and on and on. Reading them is very tedious. I just can't do it.

 

[Imaculata]

Raymond Feist's Magician. I could not get through it. It was the worst cliché fantasy, mixed with adolescent boy romance, and it discouraged me from ever reading any of Feist's other works. Why do people like this book so much?

 

[Zardnaar]

Raymond Feist's Magician. I could not get through it. It was the worst cliché fantasy, mixed with adolescent boy romance, and it discouraged me from ever reading any of Feist's other works. Why do people like this book so much?

Because I read it aged 15.

The Empire Trilogy is the best of those books IMHO.

For me

Lord of the Rings. Never made it through book 1.

And
Wheel of Time. Gave up book 7 iirc.

 

[turnip_farmer]

Raymond Feist's Magician. I could not get through it. It was the worst cliché fantasy, mixed with adolescent boy romance, and it discouraged me from ever reading any of Feist's other works. Why do people like this book so much?

Magician was for some time my favourite book but, as with Zardnaar, I read it when I was an adolescent boy, so perhaps that is the intended audience.

Been a long time since I read it, but I'd probably enjoy it for nostalgia's sake.

Try reading Faerie Tale, totally unconnected to his other works and with a very different feel (though bear in mind I'm also here recommending a book I read two decades ago).

In answer to OP, Asimov's Foundation. I read the first book, and came away with a distinct 'meh' feeling. This is really perceived to be one of the great sci-fi classics?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

After my Dad read it all, I started the Dune series. But I couldn’t get past the 2nd novel in the series.

 

[Dioltach]

Harry Potter: enjoyed the first three, quite liked the fourth, thought the fifth was a complete waste of time. Never got round to the last two. (Never watched the last two movies either.)
Dune. I've tried again and again to get into it, but I can't get beyond the first fifty pages.
Guy Gavriel Kay, Brian Sanderson. Wheel of Time also went downhill quickly after the fourth book, and I gave up a hundred pages into the tenth.
And Ed Greenwood's Forgotten Realms always creep me out, with all the impossibly beautiful young women spending lots of naked time with his ancient author avatar.

 

[amethal]

People seem to be complaining about series, rather than individual books, so I'll second the Harry Potter opinion.

I enjoyed the first four books (without ever seeing what all the fuss was about) but I found book 5 infuriating so I had to stop reading. A friend of mine who is a big fan of the series explained that my criticisms were (more or less) addressed later on in the book, but I'm not reading it again to find out.

 

[Zardnaar]

After my Dad read it all, I started the Dune series. But I couldn’t get past the 2nd novel in the series.

Dunes the only good one really. I liked God Emperor of Dune the rest were crud.

 

[DammitVictor]

Stephen King's The Gunslinger; not only does everyone love this, but I enjoy King's writing and the premise of this novel could not have been better tailored to my literary interests, but I've never even gotten a quarter of the way through.

There's a whole lot of Young Adult (especially Young Adult Fantasy) that I can't stomach because, in the vein of Roald Dahl, they take all of the worst excesses of how human adult authorities treat the (normal/lucky) children under their care and exaggerate them until they resemble something out of my childhood, which is a minefield of triggers for me, and then the child protagonists are forced to reconcile with these aberrant heaps of narccisistic idiocy with no consequences whatsoever, because of the importance of traditional family values and teaching children that keeping their family together is more important than protecting themselves from abuse.

There's a point at which my anger at these authors is wholly justified, but realistically speaking I am far, far past that point.

 

[aco175]

Dark Sun. Never could get into the feel of it. We played once and could only have a rock and piece of bone to defend myself with. Then one broke and I had to use a goblin weapon, which would have been so humiliating, but I was only a bald half-dwarf, so it was not that bad. I was told that was part of the fun, which it wasn't.

Maybe next year's release of the new 5e Dark Sun will be better.