The first one yes, the sequels are abysmal.

Yeah that book is rough, really good but it’s a slog.

My English teacher read this to the class, it’s was total silence from everyone each day she opened it.

The hobbit. I read a lot as a kid but that was the first serious book I read. Thorins death killed me, and it was just a fun book.

The poppy wars. I read the first book, but will never touch the sequels(which to me still counts as I did not finish the story). Everyone recommended it, said it was amazing and to it’s credit it’s very original, but it sucks. The author handles her characters in the worst ways possible. Example a character bullies the protagonist, dies, then amazing he survived, and there is this moment were it’s implying “he has powers” and he will end up friend or lovers with the protagonist but nope dead again in 50 pages. Far from my only issue with the book but it’s just poor story telling.

The author of Styx. If you have not read it, don’t read it. Starts as a fairly simple Greek mythology story, then you get explicitly detailed scenes of the male protagonist getting gang raped over and over for hundreds of pages, not even the same dudes each time, and his father sends him to get tortured to for no apparent reason. I was not prepared and the author clearly has some issues. It’s a wild book.

Basically we should be taking bets on who will finish the series because it won’t be George rr Martin. I could see Joe abercrombie doing it, he has the same grimdark feel to his books, though I don’t know if he is as politically savvy.

Maybe I am a psycho but I had a lot of good laughs out of it. Especially where they build the canal that had to be rebuilt as soon as it was done. Russia is wild. Book does have a sad tone to it alot, but the sheer incompetence of socialists is often hilarious.

I have bought almost all the books I have read. But I read most things twice.

If this is an honest concern my advice is don’t read or stick to the kids/YA section.

Wesley snipes wrote a novel. I didn’t read it but I saw it at the store and was highly amused

Fellowship is by far the slowest, it gets better. I used to skip the Tom bombadil stuff.

Gulag archipelago, it’s really good but I have been known to read 1000 page novels in day, all 3 volumes of this one took me 6 months. It’s a heavy read and you basically need to be on Google the whole time to keep up with the slang in it.

Try “tress of the emerald sea” it is ridiculous, whimsical, and surprisingly wholesome. I grinned like an idiot the whole time I was reading it. Guaranteed to make anyone who reads it feel better.

Honestly I could read any Greek mythology any day of the week. I don’t have a specific favorite but they were all good.

The only ones that bother me are the ones used repeatedly in the same series. I finished a trilogy earlier this year(I forget the name) but every fight scene I’m it a parent dies, all the younger generation have plot armor but all the old people die. It got very predictable, and happened at least 10 times.

Moby dick. It’s a supringly good story, I cried, but the story is only like a fourth or less of the book. The rest of it is a how to guide for whaling, that you can’t even skip past because the story is spread out in the middle of this at random.

I have definitely finished books prior to the class but it’s never bothered me. I either like it or don’t, the fact that the class takes forever has no bearing on it for me.