I’ve been interested in reading it but i wasn’t sure how much i would actually enjoy it. As an option i just googled breakdowns and summaries on it
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It’s absolutely worth a try. It took me a couple of attempts, but then I grew accoustomed to the style and discovered an enormously rich set of stories that I probably admire more than LOTR.
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My reaction to the book was less nuanced. I just kept shouting at it “DO SOMETHING!”
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From: Saturday Morning Breakfast Cerial
Okay, I give up, I can’t get the image itself to display here. I pasted it, I ‘uploaded’ it two different ways. It’s just not displaying. Sorry.
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The Book doesn’t live up to the hype.
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I’m glad somebody found value in it. I read the whole thing and very much wish I’d stopped on page 1. I’m still not sure how it managed to be simultaneously both dull and pretentious.
This describes my experience with Wallace’s Infinite Jest. I can read three Pratchett or Hiaasen novels in a day, easily enough, but it took me years to trudge through IJ. I kept expecting it to go somewhere interesting and it just didn’t. And yet, David Foster Wallace is a brilliant author, whose other work I greatly enjoyed.
Don’t bother with Infinite Jest. The joke’s on the reader.
Me too. I have only stopped reading two books without finishing them that I can recall.
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I’ve had to give up on Greg Bear’s “City at The End of Time” and Sheri Tepper’s “Plague of Angels”, both when ~50 pages in. The characters and situations didn’t resonate at all for me or promise anything better. Nothing from them. Zip. And Bear has been my go-to for 30 years (still is) and Tepper is my more recent go-to (still is).
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Wizard and Glass is the second weakest installment in entire the series after the Gunslinger; pity that you quit right before the narrative finally picks up the pace with Wolves of the Calla.
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Drawing of the Three is my favorite in the series 
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But have you remembered any of that book? I’ve never even heard of Zoo City and so am asking because I find that if you remember a book, any part of it, there is probably something of worth there. You see, there are a lot of books that I really enjoy, but that later on, I will have no strong memory of, or even ANY memory of. Forgive me, for I have sinned! I cannot remember most of the Elmore Leonard’s. Nay, not even the Agatha Christie’s (well, the more minor ones). Uh, this is an odd plus because one can reread them as if new (altho with an odd sense of deja vu). Still, I find that books that cause memory are intriguing and I do not use this phrase lightly. Vladamir Nabokov was famous (read: feared) for his insane questions about Tolstoy. They were at a level that who could possibly fucking know the answer. I am pretty sure my Russian lit prof was a student of his because his one question on the final concerning ‘Anna Karenina’ was: Twice in the book, Anna states, “I am very, very happy.” State when this occurs and what it means each time. Well, I fucking looked at that in despair for a moment and then went dearfuckinggod I actually KNOW the goddam thing!!! That was the thing about Tolstoy. You remember the details and you’ve no clue as to why. This is a hallmark of good writing I think. It took me about a year to finish ‘Blood Meridian’, sometimes I simply could not take it (it verges on transgressive biblical) and sometimes I had no access to it. But I could always pick up where I left off. ‘Infinite Jest’ was the same altho it took 5-6 years to finish. Point is, these books stayed with me powerfully enough for me to take some, even a lot, of time to finish. And so I guess that a sign that an author is doing it right is if you retain something is the point I was going for…?
I remember it, and it still pisses me off to think about the ending. I find that more disappointing than a bad book. I had heard of the book because when it initially came out a few websites i frequented were talking about it, it happened to be part of a Humble Book Bundle for cheap so i jumped at the chance… so glad i didn’t bother buying a physical book. I do say that the book might be great in other people’s opinions but for me it just did not work.
As far as remembering good books i actually have a pretty good memory, sometimes details might not come to me easily at first but if something sets me on the right train of thought i can recall a surprising amount of detail. I’m the same with movies, i can easily quote things i’ve only seen once. On the flipside my memory for other things is utterly garbage.
I see your point and I’ve probably been there, but off hand I can’t think of a book that did THAT to me. Perhaps I’ve buried it 
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Damn you!!! Now I remember all the God Damned fucking Ayn Rand books I read. DAMN YOU!!!
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i read “gravity’s rainbow” aloud on tape for a friend of mine. it seemed so much funnier out loud than in my head. i’ve read “finnegans wake” 3 times. i can only claim to understand about 10% of it, but i did enjoy the energy of it.
i think the 50 page rule is too restrictive, i read 400 pages into “les miserables” before i realized how great it was.
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Occasionally I want to read this goddam book. If i want to read it, but it’s just not happening it becomes a crapper book wherein I read it 4 or 5 pages at a time while on the crapper. My first crapper book was Footfall by Niven and Pournelle. My current is The Assassination of Julius Caesar by Michael Parenti.
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Lol, I was trying to read GoT first book on vacation and it was so painful that I read The Peripheral instead. It was like fine wine to me after GoT.
My rule is 100 pages.
I’ve started it and really like LesMiz but I don’t have a hard copy and find reading on the laptop awkward. But Hugo is a lot like Tolstoy,. I could go back with no problem 
But then, I love me some Dickens. I lucked out and was never ever forced to read him:)
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