Crime and Punishment and Les Miserables.
I had to slog my way through these in high school. I tried to like them. Heck I eventually learned to like James Joyce. But these two books, I pulled each page out and burned them.
Boo
I actually read
Les Miserables in a week, thought it was a roaring good read.
Someone mentioned that almost
anything that you're forced to read is going to be torturous. I think that's true, as I've gone back to Faulkner to re-read
As I Lay Dying, and found, upon reflection, that it is insightful and strangely relevant to modern thinking.
That said, I absoloutly abhorred
In the Wet by Nevil Shute. I never read
On the Beach, but the idea seemed like an interesting one, so when I saw
In the Wet for a quarter, I bought it.
Spoiler alert: About a full third of the words in this pile are dedicated to unneccessary and dull descriptions of calculating the fuel needed for a flight leg, or the fuel used for a flight. N.B., at no time is there a dramatic chance that the amount of fuel is going to insufficient, the author merely assumes that the reader is
very interested in calculating fuel loads. The beginning of the novel holds promise, but there is
zero plot development.
Nothing. Ever. Happens.
