Depends on what you mean by “hard”. I struggled through Greg Iles Natchez Burning because of the subject matter – I have yet to read the other two in the trilogy. There is another book that I started and I just had to quit reading it because the subject matter bothered me so much.
It is. Have you read any of his other books? The main character is featured in several other books but you can read the trilogy as stand alone. The first is Natchez Burning, 2nd is The Bone Tree, 3rd is Mississippi Blood.
When I was in eighth grade, so 13, I took advanced English. We had to read Les Miserables. Unabridged. The whole thing. About 40 pages a night. That was a really big challenge for me. The book is a little bit rough to read to begin with but I was younger and not prepared for the challenge. I want to reread it now
@Martine it was a very strange teacher. So yes an odd choice. I would expect it in my college English classes. Now I need to re-read it though because the Broadway production is coming to my area and I want to go since the theater sells $25 nose bleeds
Umberto Eco: Name of a flower. I couldn’t finish that book even though I tried few times. I have it on my shelf few years already, and it still isn’t finished, and I don’t know if some day will be ?
I cannot remember the title – the experience was that bad. It was by Barbara Taylor Bradford. I am not so big on romance but I was trying to stretch my horizons and I had managed to get through another one of hers “The Women In His Life” (Or something like that). What put me off was the rambling and the excess mushiness – there is a part where the couple’s kids are looking at a gecko on a garden wall and their Mummy is telling them about how we should love animals and be one with nature. This is all good but not when it goes on for pages and pages. I just gave up.
I thought Don Quixote was difficult. Moby Dick was an iceberg of boring, but I have more respect for the language now. The Sound and the Fury was also hard, but I respected the avant-garde approach Faulkner took with it.
Has anyone here read “An abundance of katherines?” To be honest, that book is so hard to understand, particularly the graphs? Aside from I am not good at math, I just don’t get Colin’s theorem. But I finised it, though.
World According to Garp. I’ve tried 3 times. It always seems ridiculous to me. I love books that are quirky but this one evades me totally. And I have loved many John Irving books
Atlas Shrugged. What put me off was the “greed is good” ideology that is celebrated so proudly. I did like the statement by John Galt that he would stop the motors of the world. I am not timid when it comes to length so long as the plot and characters hold my imagination but this novel is far too long and would have benefited from a serious editing. I have attempted the book three times. The last I got about half way thru. Just when something interesting was happening the story shifts to another character and the momentum is broken. It was very frustrating. I doubt that I would try it again. I actually did enjoy Ayn Rand ‘s novel The Fountainhead. It was long but the story kept fairly simple and straightforward.
I can’t think of one specific book, but what puts me off and this is for any book, is when the author has to stretch the story with to much description. Sometimes they can go on and on describing a landscape or someones looks etc…. and, I hate reading a book in the first person. I just cannot get through it. I usually try to suffer through a book if I not in love with it, but I have my limits and that’s when I have to just close the book.
I had to read The Brothers Karamazov for class, and had a very hard time getting through it. The professor assigned only certain sections to read. You’d think that would make it easier, but it left holes. When I picked it up a few months later, I couldn’t put it down. I still can’t get through Ulysses. I’ve given up on that.
The Crazy Ladies of Pearl Street. It’s a completely different writing style than I’ve ever read before that was a real chore to read. But worth it in the end.
Lord of the Rings. I’ve picked it up several times, but as soon as I get to Tom Bombadil I lose interest. He’s my roadblock, but I am determined to get past him this year. I love The Hobbit and love the movies. I even have 2 Tolkien tattoos! I have a list of 31 things to do before I turn 31 in March and LOTR is on that list.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. It had all the ideals of a goid book but turned out horrible. It moved too fast, was very confusing, and the end was horrible.
Anna karenina. I still couldn’t pass one third of the book. I don’t know why I still can’t find the chemistry with the book. Maybe I should watch the movie to find how’s it going on there.
Still haven’t read it but Diary of a Girl Anne Frank is giving me a hard time to continue. Started it a couple months back but haven’t revisited since. I think the topic and the ultimate end is what’s keeping me away. I can’t help thinking about what will happen to her as she yet doesn’t know in her diary.
Lolita…just…WTF?? Way too wordy, could’ve cut the book in half and gotten the point, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him? Really, don’t get why this considered a literary great.
I’m right there with you. I LOVE horror, and have read and been told that this is a landmark within the horror genre, but I could never get past the middle of it. It never WENT anywhere1
Yes….also war and peace…..just feel at this point in my life if I don’t approach a book because I WANT to …..Do not believe reading should be a competition or something that is turned into a ”should” or guilt trip….And to be honest, a lot of ”great” literature is at least a bit turgid and self important. Read for joy , or to learn what you want to or need to to do what your life requires. Don’t read because you are folllowing arbitrary literary or literatie snobbish expectations !
I remember reading through all the Lord of the Rings books as a kid and loving it. But shortly after the movies had dropped I tried again and realized just how slooooow the series was to get going. I put it down when they were still in the Shire after like six chapters… there was too much life going on for me to reinvest!
I don’t know if it was the hardest but Casino Royale by Ian Fleming was very hard to finish.
Depends on what you mean by “hard”. I struggled through Greg Iles Natchez Burning because of the subject matter – I have yet to read the other two in the trilogy. There is another book that I started and I just had to quit reading it because the subject matter bothered me so much.
That’s a trilogy? What are the other books and what’s the order they should be read in?
It is. Have you read any of his other books? The main character is featured in several other books but you can read the trilogy as stand alone. The first is Natchez Burning, 2nd is The Bone Tree, 3rd is Mississippi Blood.
Ok I have two of the three but have t started them and had no idea it was a trilogy lmao. I have the first and second
War and Peace. All those Russian names!
Game of thrones series. Read the first one but only just. Didnt bother with the rest. Too many story lines for me.
Same here. I keep going back and forth and I cant keep up
I love the show but really had a tough time reading the first book. I have all the books on my Nook but… don’t think I’ll be reading them anytime soon
Yeah I love the show
I stopped after the first scene. Just couldnt get into his writing style.
House of Leaves.
I’ve heard this is a really difficult read! So I’m reading it
It’s a mess.
That’s what my high school teacher said. But I like a challenge
I tried and failed also.
It’s a waste of time.
When I was in eighth grade, so 13, I took advanced English. We had to read Les Miserables. Unabridged. The whole thing. About 40 pages a night. That was a really big challenge for me. The book is a little bit rough to read to begin with but I was younger and not prepared for the challenge. I want to reread it now
What a strange bookchoice for an English class ?
Anyhoo, this is on my TBR for this year. Bit daunted ?
I’m reading it right now and am about 400 pages in. I’m hooked!!
@Martine it was a very strange teacher. So yes an odd choice. I would expect it in my college English classes. Now I need to re-read it though because the Broadway production is coming to my area and I want to go since the theater sells $25 nose bleeds
@Carly, I would expect it in a French class ?
Ooooh, the Broadway production must be really cool ❤️
A child called It, I have read a LOT of books in that genre, but have always struggled with that one.
This one was so hard. I would sneaky read it during class, well that meant I was crying during class…
The Man Who Loved Children. Sam
Gulliver’s Travels. It was way too descriptive and full of nonsense.
Les Miserables. Droning on and on descriptions
Tolstoy
Anna Karenina, I ❤ it but it’s just too long. I am going to reserve it to the time when I can already face the challenge.
I just finished it yesterday for the first time. Was too long
@Sol, I finally read Anna Karenina last summer – and loved it. Your time will come!
Yeah, thanks. Soon.
Umberto Eco: Name of a flower. I couldn’t finish that book even though I tried few times. I have it on my shelf few years already, and it still isn’t finished, and I don’t know if some day will be ?
Ulysses. So so soooo boring ?
A Clockwork Orange – the slang made it hard to get through
The Handmaids Tale was very difficult to read; I did finish it but I felt ill at times as to me it feels all to plausible.
Im reading that at moment and getting more disturbed as l go on.its rather cruel
The Alchemist.
The Bible – found the plot hard to swallow.
On the Road
Lolita
I never finished. Couldn’t get past his pedophilic behavior.
The Scarlett Letter
Boooooring
Devinchy code was awful to read
Da Vinci code by Dan Brown?It’s quite interesting to me
I cannot remember the title – the experience was that bad. It was by Barbara Taylor Bradford. I am not so big on romance but I was trying to stretch my horizons and I had managed to get through another one of hers “The Women In His Life” (Or something like that). What put me off was the rambling and the excess mushiness – there is a part where the couple’s kids are looking at a gecko on a garden wall and their Mummy is telling them about how we should love animals and be one with nature. This is all good but not when it goes on for pages and pages. I just gave up.
I thought Don Quixote was difficult. Moby Dick was an iceberg of boring, but I have more respect for the language now. The Sound and the Fury was also hard, but I respected the avant-garde approach Faulkner took with it.
Silmarillion…. just cooked my swede
War and Peace….too many characters.
Has anyone here read “An abundance of katherines?” To be honest, that book is so hard to understand, particularly the graphs? Aside from I am not good at math, I just don’t get Colin’s theorem. But I finised it, though.
I liked it, but it was my LEAST favorite of all John Green’s novels.
World According to Garp. I’ve tried 3 times. It always seems ridiculous to me. I love books that are quirky but this one evades me totally. And I have loved many John Irving books
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell.
The story goes back and forth in time spanning hundreds of years from different points of view from different characters.
I loooooove that book! ?
Master and Margarita. So bizarre and frenetic.
Amitava Ghosh books! Oh God! Wanted to pop my own eyes out trying to get through
Atlas Shrugged. What put me off was the “greed is good” ideology that is celebrated so proudly. I did like the statement by John Galt that he would stop the motors of the world. I am not timid when it comes to length so long as the plot and characters hold my imagination but this novel is far too long and would have benefited from a serious editing. I have attempted the book three times. The last I got about half way thru. Just when something interesting was happening the story shifts to another character and the momentum is broken. It was very frustrating. I doubt that I would try it again. I actually did enjoy Ayn Rand ‘s novel The Fountainhead. It was long but the story kept fairly simple and straightforward.
I can’t think of one specific book, but what puts me off and this is for any book, is when the author has to stretch the story with to much description. Sometimes they can go on and on describing a landscape or someones looks etc…. and, I hate reading a book in the first person. I just cannot get through it. I usually try to suffer through a book if I not in love with it, but I have my limits and that’s when I have to just close the book.
Twilght… Only made it halfway… It physically hurt to keep reading…
Loved it initially but can’t go near it now haha
Well, if you mean language wise, I’d say The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer. I still hate that book all these years later.
The Hobbit. The slowest of the book and too much description
Ugh yes. But I loved LOTR
The Hobbit, yes. Ugh! I treated myself to a glass of champagne after finally finishing that ?
I also loved LotR but just could not get into “The Hobbit”.
James Joyce, Hunter Thompson, Ayn Rand
Night Circus. The time jumps gave me a literal headache.
Hated it and couldn’t finish.
Good to know I’m not the only one!
Let the great world spin by Collum Mcann
The gunslinger by Stephen king. I’ve tried to read it 3 times and just couldn’t get into it. I’m a huge fan of his too.
Same here! Love everything else he writes. This series? I cannot get beyond the first book.
Yeah. Nd I’ve heard that once you get past that first one the others are amazing
It’s so very true!!!
I’ve heard that, too. Maybe I’ll try the second one.
There’s a very important detail in the gunslinger that you need to know going forward in the series
I think I’m just going to have to give it another go ?
Dr Zhivago. The length, the story within the story within the story, the lack of plot movement
Russian novels
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, the formatting of that book is just crazy hard to read.
Pride and prejudice. That ancient writing style. Never read anything older than Kirk Douglas since. Maybe not even Michael Douglas.
Truman by David McCullogh- too much information
I had to read The Brothers Karamazov for class, and had a very hard time getting through it. The professor assigned only certain sections to read. You’d think that would make it easier, but it left holes. When I picked it up a few months later, I couldn’t put it down. I still can’t get through Ulysses. I’ve given up on that.
The Crazy Ladies of Pearl Street. It’s a completely different writing style than I’ve ever read before that was a real chore to read. But worth it in the end.
Lord of the Rings. I’ve picked it up several times, but as soon as I get to Tom Bombadil I lose interest. He’s my roadblock, but I am determined to get past him this year. I love The Hobbit and love the movies. I even have 2 Tolkien tattoos! I have a list of 31 things to do before I turn 31 in March and LOTR is on that list.
Thank youuu ???
Finneagans Awake, by James Joyce. I suppose nobody can understand it!!
No one can !
I agree, but I plan to try to tackle it one day.
@Julie Wish you best of luck!
The girl with the dragon tattoo. I tried so many times to read that book, I could never get past the second chapter.
First 100 pages is a slogfest. The rest is nirvana.
Thomas Pynchon and James Joyce. Incomprehensible egotistical nonsense !
Infinite Jest —what is up with the footnotes and what is happening??!!
The Sound and the Fury. Stream of consciousness from unreliable and mentally unstable narrators.
The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry. It had all the ideals of a goid book but turned out horrible. It moved too fast, was very confusing, and the end was horrible.
House of leaves… format, and possibly confusion
Heart of Darkness
Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor. So many characters that I could not keep them all straight.
Les Miserabe
Well it is about 1500 pages lol
The witches
Ulysses by James Joyce
It’s schizophrenic.
War and peace. Way too wordy!
“Principles of Mathematics 10,” too much math, 🙂
“Too much math” No such thing…lol
Not sure this is the hardest but I just couldn’t get into lilac girls.
I couldn’t get into either
Anna karenina. I still couldn’t pass one third of the book. I don’t know why I still can’t find the chemistry with the book. Maybe I should watch the movie to find how’s it going on there.
Remembrance of Things Past, Proust. Very dense and very long.
Snooze fest
The Fellowship of the Ring was the hardest.
Ulysses by James Joyce
To kill a mocking bird. I’m half way down and I put it off. ?? And I feel bad about it because it has good reviews.
I’m a little shocked, but no judgement… everyone has different tastes ?
@Karen I know right! It is such a great book but I’m having trouble getting hooked to it ??♀️
Maybe you should try to watch the movie and see if you are at all interested??
@Karen sounds like a great idea to me! Thank you so much ?
Maham, no problem… I think sometimes it’s easier to follow a story when you have visualization to go with the story ??
Same
@Menna and here I thought it’s just me ?♀️
Nope , I found it really hard to get through it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pygmy by Palahniuk
Homer The Iliad
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (I might have gotten the title wrong)
I absolutely loved that book ! So funny because I often think about rereading it ! We are all so different !??
Every book isn’t for everybody. Good thing there’s so many different books 🙂
Robinson Cursoe, it was very boring, it was also for a college class.
Moby dick. I just struggled to read the way the story was written if that makes sense.
Godel Escher Bach. I didn’t have time to do the exercises.
Ancient Evenings. Just too long & Moved too slow. Never did finish it.
Freud’s Future of an Illusion. I found that I could read the sentence left to right or right to left. Didn’t make any difference. I put it down.
Little women…It just didn’t end the way it was so obviously expected to end. And the plot twist was just senseless and utterly frustrating.
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco was the most difficult book I’ve ever read because I had to keep looking up words in the dictionary
That’s my favorite book! I had to read it twice….
@Angela I loved it too!
The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike. Got halfway through and realized I didn’t like any of the characters.
Sophie’s Choice. I felt like it dragged on and on and it felt like I read a hundred pages when I had really only read like ten.
The Devil in Jerusalem by Naomi Ragan. It’s about horrific child abuse and based on a true case.
Freaking the Dwarves. Im only barely half way through and I bought the book years ago. Its horribly written and it coukd have been so good.
Also, The End if Alice. I was physically sick to my stomach after reading that. I don’t know why anyone agreed to publish that.
Still haven’t read it but Diary of a Girl Anne Frank is giving me a hard time to continue. Started it a couple months back but haven’t revisited since. I think the topic and the ultimate end is what’s keeping me away. I can’t help thinking about what will happen to her as she yet doesn’t know in her diary.
Lolita…just…WTF?? Way too wordy, could’ve cut the book in half and gotten the point, and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him? Really, don’t get why this considered a literary great.
How Hard Can It Be? by Allison Pearson
House of Leaves….. I’ve attempted four times, and I’ve failed.
I’m right there with you. I LOVE horror, and have read and been told that this is a landmark within the horror genre, but I could never get past the middle of it. It never WENT anywhere1
War and peace just the sheer size
Daughter Buffalo. Ive been trying to read it since college….almost 20 years now. I just can’t do it.
Me Being Me is Exactly As Insane as You Being You by Todd Hasak-Lowy. It’s really hard to read. DNF
Le Mes. I gave it a good go. Never finished.
Yes….also war and peace…..just feel at this point in my life if I don’t approach a book because I WANT to …..Do not believe reading should be a competition or something that is turned into a ”should” or guilt trip….And to be honest, a lot of ”great” literature is at least a bit turgid and self important. Read for joy , or to learn what you want to or need to to do what your life requires. Don’t read because you are folllowing arbitrary literary or literatie snobbish expectations !
I started War and Peace years ago and I still haven’t got through it.
Lizzy Place How many years did it take you?
Lizzy Place This is probably what I’ll have to do to finish it. It’s so different to Anna Karenina which I whizzed through.
I remember reading through all the Lord of the Rings books as a kid and loving it. But shortly after the movies had dropped I tried again and realized just how slooooow the series was to get going. I put it down when they were still in the Shire after like six chapters… there was too much life going on for me to reinvest!
Childhood’s End and Texas.