Highly rated book you DNF

Grrr... I guess I need to work on formatting. Let's try this again
1984 by George Orwell
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Dune by Frank Herbert
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
LESS NOTABLE:
Black Sea Gods by Brian Braden
Mythos by Stephen Fry
Smallworld by Dominic Green
The One by John Marrs
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
- I couldn't finish Dune either. I'm sure the story is great, but the writing IMO is terrible.
- Grrr... I guess I need to work on formatting. Let's try this again
  1984 by George Orwell
  Catch-22 Joseph Heller
  Dune by Frank Herbert
  East of Eden by John Steinbeck
  Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
  Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
  The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
  The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
  The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
  LESS NOTABLE:
  Black Sea Gods by Brian Braden
  Mythos by Stephen Fry
  Smallworld by Dominic Green
  The One by John Marrs
  The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
  You can use the markdown list feature.
  - unordered list
  Or
  1. Ordered list
  
  Danke schoen.

The colour of magic isn’t highly rated by anyone. Most discworld fans will tell you to skip the first two books and don’t really count them. I hope you didn’t skip discworld based on that. If your willing to give it another go, most fans suggest starting with Guards Guards! as the feel of discworld is well established by this point and the Watch sub series is a fan favourite.
There are 5 main sub series; the Witches, Death, the Watch, Industrial Revolution and Rincewind. Rincewind is the least rated. You can read them in pretty much any order but each sub series is recommended to read in the reading order:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Discworld_Reading_Order_Guide_3.0_(cropped).jpg#mw-jump-to-license
- I found the humor in the first several chapters of the first book to be juvenile. The kind of humor you can see coming from a kilometer away so it's just too obvious and not really funny.
  
  Every discworld fan will agree. The first two are terrible. They are straight parodies of the fantasy genre in the 70–80s. The rest of the series are more adult satire of real world issues and institutions and the stories have actual characterisation and pathos.

I was also bested by Dune. I never finished "To Kill a Mockingbird" in high school, and have never had any desire to pick it back up. The most embarrassing/shameful is... "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring." I love the movies, and I love learning about the lore on YouTube, but I just cannot make it through that book. "The Hobbit" was such a fun and silly little story, and I loved it! Fellowship just reads like those chapters in Genesis that you tend to skip over.
- That's humorous.

Well, I don't feel so bad now that I've never finished Dune. My mom raved about that book, and I tried... I really did.
- I've read half, I'll read the rest in time for part 2.

Infinite Jest
Dune
- I've started infinite jest several times, the last time I thought I'd try on my kindle to make the constant footnotes a bit easier to get back and forth from. Still only got 100 or so pages in. One day I'll get there.
  
  @Confuzzeled @nandeEbisu highly recommended. So funny
- Infinite Jest as well. I just don’t get it 🤷‍♂️ I don’t get the hype, or the humor, or the plot—I feel I’m missing something in order to ‘get’ this book.
  
  Need more byzantine erotica

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I heard so many good things about it but I could not make myself read it.
- Awe. Sorry it wasn't for you. I enjoyed it. Very touching for me. I just checked out the follow on book from my local library. I heard it's pretty emotional too.
  What's the most emotional book you've read?

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
I usually try push through to the end with most books, but I couldn't do it for this one.
Even after it won the Hugo I was never tempted to go back to it. Found it to be so formulaic. I read just past halfway and it felt like a novelisation of a daytime movie.
- Same here, the first chapter is really good, then it becomes this slow story where nothing interesting seems to happen.
- Agreed. Sometimes I can't understand why some books win hugo and other awards, besides politics of some sort. I mean some have been good, but not that much.

I'm pretty stubborn when it comes to finishing books generally, unless they're just generic trashy NYT bestseller stuff.
One on my list bugging me though: Three Body Problem. I got it on audiobook, but its too dense for that format. I need a physical copy.
- I just finished the three body problem on audiobook a few days ago, it definitely would've been better to read a hard copy of it but I still found it to be absolutely amazing. As a huge space nerd, certain parts of that book created amazing visuals in my head that fascinate me, I've gone back and reread certain scenes multiple times just because they amaze me to think about.
  Almost done the 2nd book and it's a lot more boring than the first but the end picks up quite a bit at least and I hear the 3rd book is great.
  
  Books creating visuals and ideas that are fascinating and demand further exploration and thinking are my favorite thing about books.
- I enjoyed 3BP, but you are right.

War and peace is my white whale, I’ve tried a few times. I’ll put it down for a while as I often do with books but when I pick it back up I’m completely lost in who is who and where I am.
- Eek. I've absolutely no desire. Good luck,
  I've been known to document characters and connections between people while reading a new book. It really helps.

Between Two Fires by Chris Buelhman
I had heard good things about the book, and while it is fantastic, its very dense and plodding and very depressing. There are chapters that leave me in awe but then there are 4 chapters of slow depression that bring the story to a grinding halt.
I only have a third of the book left so I might finish it later but man it's rough to read sometimes
- I read that book after reading The Blacktongue Thief, really enjoyed them both, but Between Two Fires was a dark tale of misery.
  
  Yeah I got up to act/part 3, but decided to take a break and now it's been a couple months. I started reading some other stuff so I just haven't had the time to go back. Really well written, just also really slow to pick up steam lol

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, I hated how Death keeps spoiling everything. And when it was clear it was going to stay that way I dnfed halfway through. Otherwise, the novel would have been fine.
Any book by Neil Gaiman. Just can't vibe with his style and in turn couldn't get past ch 1 of Good Omens even though I like Terry Pratchett.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has never finished Good Omens. I've picked it up several times. What I've read of it, I enjoyed. But I never felt compelled to finish it. Put differently, I guess it's just not engaging...?

I got to a really early point in Dune where a character was thinking about the various ways to be manipulative (not necessarily evil, just politicking) with their expressions and words and body language and I just got tired of it.
Also gave up on Wuthering Heights. Was it revolutionary in its day to draw back the gilded curtain and display naked domestic abuse for what it was? Sure. But…I don’t need that curtain drawn away, as I’ve seen far better depictions of DV, and, well, I go out in public, too. So it was just tedious removed and being cruel to each other until I stopped reading.
- Hehe, sounds horrible. I'll put it on my keep away book list.

Edge of Darkness by Brent Weeks.
I just couldn't finish it. Got to the point where Kylar got his hand back and was like okay I guess the story is over now? Felt really weird that there was still around 3/4 of a book left. I just couldn't bring myself to keep reading after that.

- It's not that complicated at all. It has a decent pacing and the description of the world is beautiful. The one thing that bugged me is the way they handled inner monologue, it was a little too much for me at times.
- I gave up because I had to keep looking up every apparatus with a foreign name to see what the hell they were talking about. It just got to be too much and was no longer enjoyable for me.
  Loved the recent movie though! I mean like a lot!!

The Once and Future King by T.H. White.
Look, I'm a big fan of Arthurian legend. I've read modern retellings by Andrew Lang and James Knowles, and reimaginings like The Mists of Avalon. I've also read Thomas Malory, and even some original Welsh and Middle English legends (in translation of course). But I can't stomach White.
Yes, I know it's the basis for the Disney movie (which is great). Yes, I know White came up with the neat idea of Merlin experiencing time backwards. I know several modern fantasy writers were influenced by it. But it's just so incredibly boring. Every time I've tried to read it (yes, it's been multiple tries) I can't ever get to the part where he pulls the sword from the stone. Why? Because I looked ahead, and it takes twenty-two chapters for the sword to even appear, and another chapter before Arthur finally pulls it out. The only writer I know of that took longer than that to get to that point was Geoffrey of Monmouth, but only because he was supposedly writing the entire history of England.
And it's not just that it takes that long to get to the good part. It's that nothing interesting happens on the way there. None of it is fun to read. It's just a slog. Maybe it gets better later, but I'll never know, because I've just given up.

Interesting. I to almost abandoned Ove. The guy was too much of an asshole. Just over the top. But for some reason I stuck with it and finished the book.
I mean I'm a grumpy, foul mood person most of the time, but I'm not an ass about it. I'm still nice and kind to people.
Haven't read any others by the same author.

Red Rising. Felt like a ham-fisted, beat-you-in-with-the-class-warfare-moral imitation of Hunger Games, complete with a manic pixie dream girl. I still don’t understand how it’s so highly rated.

Piranesi: I could not get into the book, got to around 80-90 pages in. Just was not for me probably, might retry another time though.
Quiet the power of introverts: the beginning was informative and relatable but after that it become to much historical which wasn’t for me.
- Just out of curiosity what was it about Piranesi you didn't like? I've heard it recommended on the books subreddit so many times so I'm curious.
  
  Uncertain to be honest, it’s been a while. But I remember, I just couldn’t get into the story.
  Perhaps I was not in the right mood or it just wasn’t the kind of book for me. Could be the genre as well. Honestly can’t remember.
  Might retry it a long while later.
  For example, I prefer to read quite the emotional books such as:
  The Words We Keep
  The Midnight Library
  Before The Coffee Gets Cold (currently reading)

I searched the annals of the books subreddit way back when and could quite literally only find one other user besides me who couldn't stand A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman. I tried two separate times to read that book and just couldn't do it. I understand the premise of crusty old guy is soft and mushy on the inside, but ffs he is SUCH a massive prick in the beginning I just could never get past it. I also read Anxious People by him and couldn't stand it, so I think maybe this author just isn't for me.
Super noteworthy wise I quit A Tale of Two Cities on like page 4 lol, but that was more because I didn't understand that style of English than anything else.
- Interesting. I to almost abandoned Ove. The guy was too much of an asshole. Just over the top. But for some reason I stuck with it and finished the book.
  I mean I'm a grumpy, foul mood person most of the time, but I'm not an ass about it. I'm still nice and kind to people.
  Haven't read any others by the same author.

Orwell was a snitch anyway.