My first attempt at reading Pride and Prejudice was exactly the same! I think I was around 13/14 and my English teacher suggested I tried “the classics” as I was a keen reader. I couldn’t get through the first chapter as Mrs Bennett was so annoying. A couple of years later I watched the BBC adaptation and the penny dropped…I read it all the way through then and loved it!
My first Shakespeare experience at school was Julius Caesar. Just a bunch of men making convoluted speeches about honour before running on their swords. Totally failed to connect with me as a 14 year old school girl. Fortunately the next year we did Macbeth, which saved Shakespeare for me!