We all have at least one: the title(s) that you still haven't finished weeks, months, even years after you started reading it, but nevertheless you are determined to finish... someday.

Let's commiserate. What's on your stuck book list?

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[–] yakko@feddit.uk 6 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Consider Phlebas has me stuck. I can tell it's going to be good, but it's not grabbing me

[–] Ruthalas@infosec.pub 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This may just be me, but I've read a handful of books by Iain M. Banks, and found them all to have uneven or odd pacing that can make it easy to get stuck. If you like the overall vibe it's worth pushing through, and it's not just you!

[–] yakko@feddit.uk 4 points 1 week ago

Thanks! That does help to know. It came so highly recommended and I think I've had about three false starts with it over the last year.

[–] SEND_BUTTPLUG_PICS@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I read that one and a few of his other books but I don't really love his style so I don't think I'll read anything else by him. I can't really put my finger on it but the few books that I read had endings that came out of nowhere and left me unsatisfied.

[–] toddestan@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I also thought his books tended to have weak endings. It seems to me that he likes to keep the reader guessing, so he'll introduce characters and entire plot lines that in the end are irrelevant and since they never get tied into the ending they are just loose ends left hanging out there. Some of it can be considered world-building, which I do have to say he's pretty good at, but other times it's just a chapter of gratuitous gore with characters that you never see again and where everything that happened doesn't advance the plot or even matter.

I have to agree with the pacing too, particular in Consider Phlebas where the final act

spoiler

with the underground train system

just seemed to drag on and on.

[–] Rooty@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Gave up at the hungry cannibals bit and now I've forgotten the plot entirely.