i've been thinking about this thread and the one book that scarred me with a boredom that has left me twitching even today is ETHAN FROMME. i can hardly type the name without falling asleep.

pair it up with the interminable EVANGELINE and i think one could do away with suicide capsules…

I read Ethan Frome years ago. I'll have to wiki it to see if I can remember what it's about. I don't remember hating it – it seems it might have been more of a character driven plot…

That reminds me (for some reason). I've got it. The one book I couldn't get through. One Hundred Years of Solitude. I tried, but man. I gave up.

we did EF in like 7th grade and, like evangeline, took FOREVER to get thru it! it's like shakespeare: teachers never seem to 'get' that they are plays that are meant to be heard, not read silently to oneself. the teaching method makes all the difference in the world.

Hate to dogpile on here but the Twilight books made me want to tear at least one eye out and beat it to a pulp w/my brain (or what's left of it). I couldn't imagine not one but two "immortal" beings wanting to spend ETERNITY w/the whiniest, neediest, most BORING female on the planet.

did you throw the book across the room at one point ( or many) i have a dent in my wall thanx to the 4th one and broke a lamp with the 3rd.

No but that woman owes me time back on my life

Okay i'm sure this is going to put a bullseye on my back, but the Dune books and the Chronicles of Narnia. I'd gotten a few of the Dune books as a kid, barely made it through the first one and desperately wished for a wood chipper or fireplace to dispose of the others. A couple of years ago I picked up the Chronicles of Narnia complete set seeing that CS Lewis was a contemporary and friend of Tolkein. Wow what a mistake. Boring would be an understatement, but then I suppose those books are meant for children reading not adults. Maybe I should've flip flopped the selections and read Lewis as a child and Herbert as a young adult?

I made it through the first 3 Twilight books. They weren't that good, but I didnt think they were completely awful,

but by the time I got to the 4th one I couldnt stand it anymore /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' /> (i was reading them back to back 2 summers ago).

I got about half way through the 4th and couldnt go any longer haha. Thank you Monk for telling me how it ended.

I'm just sorry you had to actually read it /laugh.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

thanks man, we can all pull through this wretchedness if we stick together…strength in numbers brothers and sisters!!!

Oh, here's one…

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I was really, really, really disappointed in that book.

That good awful, never ending camping trip which took up most of the book, and Snape

he deserved a far better ending then what he got /dry.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt='' />

**********POSSIBLE SPOILER ALERT***************************

Well, I'm not going to say you're terribly off course here. You're a smart person and I'm not going to blather on about literary device etc but I think both situations you mention were done intentionally to draw the reader in to the world a little more intimately. The desperation, desolation, isolation and doubt that was pulling at them and the strain it placed on their friendship while camping in less then ideal circumstances. Also, I think the less then glamorous offing of Snape was to show how warped and self absorbed Voldemort finally became. That he was so willing to sacrifice a "loyal" follower w/out remorse and even less compassion. Yeah it would've been cooler if Snape had a fighting chance, but it had to be that way and it cemented Snape's tragic hero status and made you love him even more for his sacrifice. At least that's how I felt when reading it. The parts of the deathly hallows that irritated me were all the lose ends left adrift and the whole final duel between V & HP. Personally, I firmly believe Eli Wallach's line from the Good, the Bad & the Ugly…If you're going to shoot, shoot, don't talk! I know they need some repartee during the duel, but come on! Personally, I would've loved a longer, more detailed account of the battle for Hogwarts, but that's me.

Well, you know i'm a Snape lover from the start, so I really felt like he got screwed.

I suppose if I'm honest, being that it was the last book, probably nothing would have

been "good enough" to me. I didnt want the series to end, so I was jaded from the

minute I read the first page.

The movies could set some of that right in terms of giving Severus his due, we'll see. But you're right, the last book wasn't going to please everyone. As I said, and have discussed w/Pynki in depth, my personal feeling is that some sort of companion work should be offered to give a little more detail to the glossed over aspects of the book, ie:the jump to 12 years later or whatever. A little lame i thought. The fan ficition was decent that I read from that one dude…the James Potter stuff no where near JK but you play the cards you're dealt.

/rolleyes.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':rolleyes:' />