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Books You Had to Put Down


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Has anyone put a book down, either during the reading or after finishing, because something in the pages you just read was a little much for you to continue going at that moment?

So far I have two. The first was a couple different moments from A Game of Thrones. I’m currently on my second which is Fairest by Marissa Meyer. When reading the other Lunar Chronicles books you know Levana was married to a guy named Evret and that she loved him very much. Hoo boy it’s worse than that since she’s manipulating him, brainwashing him, wearing his recently deceased wife’s face and forcing him to sleep with her (if you catch my meaning here) and that’s before she marries him. I’m at the point where she’s broken him down enough to force him into the marriage and it only took her a couple weeks to do it. This book was written so that readers could understand and feel sympathy for Levana but it’s made me more horrified of her if that’s how she treated the only person to show her kindness. Oh and during all these scenes she’s 16 so she’s a devil child as well. I’m going to keep reading this book (it’s only 222 pages and I’m literally halfway) since I want to know what happens to her sister Channery and her death, how she went through with trying to kill her niece and how she started as queen.

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The Red Wedding is an awful lot to bear each time I read it, even when I knew it was coming.  That's the only example I can think of at the moment.  I don't normally put down books due to being disturbed or upset.  I have put plenty down due to not being into them though.  Lord knows I've cut off plenty of books in my time.  

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15 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

So are we talking like 'put the book down and return it to the library' moments, or just 'lemme put the book down and go cry in the corner for a good 15 minutes' moments? 

Cuz I got both.

More the second.

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13 hours ago, NottTheBrave said:

The Red Wedding is an awful lot to bear each time I read it, even when I knew it was coming.  That's the only example I can think of at the moment.  I don't normally put down books due to being disturbed or upset.  I have put plenty down due to not being into them though.  Lord knows I've cut off plenty of books in my time.  

I’m dreading getting to that chapter since Lady’s death got to me and deaths don’t normally make me more than pause for a few seconds (when I read Hedwig’s death in Harry Potter I didn’t even register it until a couple paragraphs later)

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1 hour ago, Draginon said:

I’m dreading getting to that chapter since Lady’s death got to me and deaths don’t normally make me more than pause for a few seconds (when I read Hedwig’s death in Harry Potter I didn’t even register it until a couple paragraphs later)

Yeah, I'm not usually like that either, but the red wedding is rough.  Harry Potter got me in the movies a couple times, but oddly the books never really did.  The last book especially has so much death in so short a time that I barely registered most of it the first read through.

RE Wheel of Time:

i'm to start that series right after I finish WoR (should be soon!).  Interesting to know I have something to look forward to, in a devastating way, lol.  That chapter by itself is longer than the first Harry Potter novel!  Crazy to think about.

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2 hours ago, NottTheBrave said:

Yeah, I'm not usually like that either, but the red wedding is rough.  Harry Potter got me in the movies a couple times, but oddly the books never really did.  The last book especially has so much death in so short a time that I barely registered most of it the first read through.

RE Wheel of Time:

i'm to start that series right after I finish WoR (should be soon!).  Interesting to know I have something to look forward to, in a devastating way, lol.  That chapter by itself is longer than the first Harry Potter novel!  Crazy to think about.

It was sad reading who died that first time reading. I’m not a “read a 800 page novel in 1 day” person but I read that final book in 2 days. Don’t know how I managed that.

WOT was a long read for me. Took me a couple years to actually get to the Sanderson ones, mostly because 1. I needed a breather a couple times during all that 2. by the time I reached Fires of Heaven, the start of the longest summer, I was going through summer myself so it was not fun to read about the heat 3. The ‘middle’ books were quite slow to read through. I couldn’t believe how long that one chapter was myself when I looked at the table of contents. I couldn’t believe that there was no place to split it up into multiple chapters.

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Sarah J Maas' Crown of Midnight is a book I DNF'd. I started reading it because I was looking for a "strong female character" book and it was right around when I discovered Sanderson (I can't remember if I was looking for a heroine that satisfied my criteria like Vin eventually did that year, or a hero that copied what I found in Vin). The first one was fine. I could ignore the love triangle and I rolled my eyes at the MC, but continued on. The second one...I just had enough. She felt like the definition of Mary Sue to me. She's clearly the lost fairy princess or whatever, is the best assassin in the kingdom despite her never having to kill anyone (character shilling aka telling and not showing), everyone who knows her loves her, and it felt like she was right 99% of the time. I even tried picking it up a couple years later, and I couldn't get past two pages...

The thing is though, I REALLY wanted to like this series. It's female written fantasy that's super popular. I wanted to see what others see in it. But I couldn't. I heard it gets a lot better after book 3, but I don't think I'll ever get there. 

Recently I put down Queen's Shadow. It's a Star Wars book following what happened to Padme after Episode 1, detailing her transition from Queen to Senator. Again, I wanted to like it, but I just couldn't get into it, and it ended up killing most of my motivation for reading new books since. I read Claudia Gray's Master and Apprentice, but I haven't read anything new since, and I feel bad about it. It's a slump, and I'll get over it, but it hurts nonetheless. 

 

Other books I've put down like OP originally intended...last year I started reading Lonesome Dove. But two young characters I really connected with were killed by a serial killer unceremoniously in the book, and something in me kinda broke, and I haven't had the urge to finish the book since. 

And it takes me months before I get back to another Malazan book, but that's more due to exhaustion and burnout from the journey than anything in the books themselves. 

 

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8 hours ago, Draginon said:

It was sad reading who died that first time reading. I’m not a “read a 800 page novel in 1 day” person but I read that final book in 2 days. Don’t know how I managed that.

WOT was a long read for me. Took me a couple years to actually get to the Sanderson ones, mostly because 1. I needed a breather a couple times during all that 2. by the time I reached Fires of Heaven, the start of the longest summer, I was going through summer myself so it was not fun to read about the heat 3. The ‘middle’ books were quite slow to read through. I couldn’t believe how long that one chapter was myself when I looked at the table of contents. I couldn’t believe that there was no place to split it up into multiple chapters.

I really look forward to this series so much.  I really hope I get into it as much as I'm hoping I do!  It seems really rewarding!

I've put down a lot of the new EU Star Wars books.  I used to adore Star Wars so much, and I still do in a lot of ways, but the books have become so much less than what they used to be.  

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15 hours ago, Wander89 said:

Probably going to get lynched but Malazan, I just cannot get into this at all. I don't know if it's the scope, the confusion at the start or what but I just do not get the hype for this at all.

I dropped Malazan halfway through Deadhouse Gates. There were so many characters that it was just so hard for me to follow(I could follow Wheel of Time, which has over 2000 named characters).

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On 6/8/2019 at 4:10 AM, NottTheBrave said:

I really look forward to this series so much.  I really hope I get into it as much as I'm hoping I do!  It seems really rewarding!

I've put down a lot of the new EU Star Wars books.  I used to adore Star Wars so much, and I still do in a lot of ways, but the books have become so much less than what they used to be.  

It is such a great read, it just gets a bit long in the tooth on a couple plots later on in books 6-9/10. 

I’ve been trying to get as much as I could on the Disney Canon and the EU (I don’t consider the Disney Canon part of the EU to be honest) and I’ve only read one book so far. That one was From a Certain Point of View where A New Hope was told from the POVs of the other characters that appear in the background or just characters who happened to meet/interact with the major players. The stories there I’m not 100% sure are supposed to be serious since one focuses on a gay romance with Grand Moff Tarkin who isn’t even hinted at swinging that way in every other piece of material available and another has a Force sensitive Tuskan Raider which in both continuities shouldn’t be possible. At this point the Disney Canon is just more an authorized fan fiction line so that’s how I’m viewing everything that’s not Episodes I-IX and the Clone Wars stuff.

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Absalom, Absalom!  By Faulkner was the toughest book I’ve read.  His paragraphs are pages long and then he’ll add these half a page long parentheses that make you have to go back and reread the original sentence because you forgot what it said.  Interesting book though, and I’ll probably go back to it.

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1 hour ago, Orlion the Platypus said:

Fine, I'll say it. 

Calamity by Brandon Sanderson, in the "this stopped being enjoyable halfway through Firefight" sort of way. 

I had to put Steelheart and Way of Kings down on my first attempt. Currently not picked Reckoners up since, could not get into it at all.

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3 hours ago, A@r0n said:

Absalom, Absalom!  By Faulkner was the toughest book I’ve read.  His paragraphs are pages long and then he’ll add these half a page long parentheses that make you have to go back and reread the original sentence because you forgot what it said.  Interesting book though, and I’ll probably go back to it.

I heard The Sound and the Fury was supposed to be his most difficult book. Faulkner always intimidated me though in the sense that I don’t feel that the payoff would be worth the effort. It’s always seems to be one of those “perhaps one day” type things in regards to the author. 

In regards to the original question though: Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I put it down and never picked it up after this mother forced her daughter to sell her virginity for money and she came back in tears (with coin) and they both wept together. 

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On 9.6.2019 at 11:46 PM, Ammanas said:

In regards to the original question though: Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky. I put it down and never picked it up after this mother forced her daughter to sell her virginity for money and she came back in tears (with coin) and they both wept together. 

What, I ... do not remember that scene. Well, it's a long book ... There's another tough scene in there though that I will never forget, in the first third of the book (don't know how spoiler sensitive people are on here, so I'll hide it nonetheless), when he

randomly finds some drunk and abused girl and is so shocked that he just gives her all the much-needed money that he previously stole by desperately murdering his landlords.

That's one of the most impactful scenes I've read.

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The third Night Angel book, Beyond the Shadows. I liked the first two, especially the villain in the second book, Godking Garoth Ursuul, but the third feels super rushed, with months going by in the span of pages. There was a Deus Ex Machina near the end and it was really poorly done, by introducing a new character and promptly dropping them 5 pages later for the sole purpose of telling the MC Kylar where he needed to go. One scene I had been waiting for since the first book was completely glossed over for more wacky Durzo/Kylar antics which were getting kinda dull at that point. Some characters from the second book didn't even get a line in the third one, just showing up in the background, and one of my favorite characters was basically forgotten about. It was a mess.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I usually really like his books, but Anathem was way too convoluted and hard to follow.

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20 hours ago, Zurvanite said:

The third Night Angel book, Beyond the Shadows. I liked the first two, especially the villain in the second book, Godking Garoth Ursuul, but the third feels super rushed, with months going by in the span of pages. There was a Deus Ex Machina near the end and it was really poorly done, by introducing a new character and promptly dropping them 5 pages later for the sole purpose of telling the MC Kylar where he needed to go. One scene I had been waiting for since the first book was completely glossed over for more wacky Durzo/Kylar antics which were getting kinda dull at that point. Some characters from the second book didn't even get a line in the third one, just showing up in the background, and one of my favorite characters was basically forgotten about. It was a mess.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I usually really like his books, but Anathem was way too convoluted and hard to follow.

Years and years ago, I bought the night angel trilogy as they were being published.  I read half the first one but put it down.  I was in I think 8th grade, and I just got busy.  They sit on my shelf even now.  I was planning on getting to them sometime this year.  

However,  every time I hear someone talk about them, I feel like I should just give up on the endevour and start lightbringer instead.

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On 6/9/2019 at 2:00 PM, Draginon said:

It is such a great read, it just gets a bit long in the tooth on a couple plots later on in books 6-9/10. 

I’ve been trying to get as much as I could on the Disney Canon and the EU (I don’t consider the Disney Canon part of the EU to be honest) and I’ve only read one book so far. That one was From a Certain Point of View where A New Hope was told from the POVs of the other characters that appear in the background or just characters who happened to meet/interact with the major players. The stories there I’m not 100% sure are supposed to be serious since one focuses on a gay romance with Grand Moff Tarkin who isn’t even hinted at swinging that way in every other piece of material available and another has a Force sensitive Tuskan Raider which in both continuities shouldn’t be possible. At this point the Disney Canon is just more an authorized fan fiction line so that’s how I’m viewing everything that’s not Episodes I-IX and the Clone Wars stuff.

There’s two key problems with current Star Wars books.  Either they use the movie characters, but have fluff and useless stories, because they’re so afraid to tell a story that adds to the lore in fear of it going against a future movie.  Or they tell interesting stories with fan fiction tier original characters who are grating and irritating.

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