Books with a slow start

[cia1018]

Yes you have to prepare yourself for slow starts. Most books turn around and you forget about the slow start. I have on rare occasion started to read a second book to entertain me until I reached the action part of slow start book. I have had a strict rule of "read one book at a time" since I was a kid.

[SuduNona]

It is not just the slow starts, though they are tedious enough, the author has to establish credibility quickly too in the first few chapters. When Ann Cleeves set her book Raven Black in the Shetland Isles, then admits she lives in Yorkshire and relied much on a Shetland Librarian for local knowledge I was not only put off by the dubious start but the clanking awkwardness of her clichéd descriptions of the islands. Having been there, lived with the people and experienced the landscape it was just so unauthentic!

[Adurna101]

Many a books have I encountered with a slow start. Reflecting on this though, I have come up with something rather interesting. Many of the books, were within a saga. Lord of the Rings (J. R. R. Tolkien), Saga of the Seven Suns (Kevin J. Anderson), were the first two that came to mind. In the case of Saga of the Seven Suns (which is one of my all-time favourite series), it is a different sort of slow start. Because of the numerous storylines, and different characters perspectives all going at once, it felt slow, because it was establishing all those storylines at once. Interestingly enough, it actually pulled you into the story, because you wanted to know what happened with this character, then you'd read the next chapter, and then want to know what is going to happen with that character, but it is so beautifully done, everything just flows perfectly. The way Anderson does it, really empowers the reader with knowledge of what is actually happening, through all the characters, where if you only had say, two characters, you'd never understand what was actually happening, and it would be incredibly clunky. Lord of the Rings is quite simply, just a slow saga all up. While absolutely brilliant, it is rather slow paced.

[tanya_demaskey]

Stephenie Meyer's book Host was a book with a slow start. Had I not been stuck on an airplane and refusing to pay airport prices for a new book, I don't think I would have finished it. Approximately half way through the book, it picked up, and I finished it in no time.

[LC Erickson]

Books with a slow start usually get put back on the shelf. Usually, but not always. I try to finish a book if I've started it, but if I can't get into it in the first chapter or two, I will usually move on.

Books that are confusing might get put back on the shelf, but if the story promises to be interesting, I will try to push through and make sense of it.

[Mark010]

HP and the Deathly Hallows. All. That. Camping. So unnecessary.

I second you. Just added up unnecessary things into the book to make it lenghty. I had a hard time completing the first half.

[BizzyLizzy]

Gillian Flynn's "Gone Girl" has been widely regarded as this kind of book. I'm in the middle of it myself and while I don't mind it, I can see where those complaints come up from -- the twist at about the middle of the book changes its entire course and to some may make the beginning parts feel like one big filler.
Then again, I don't think the twist at the middle would have been quite as "twist-y" if it hadn't been placed after 200 pages of "information".

[momwifelife]

I rarely not read a book from beginning to end but I will at least read the first half of a slow book before I move on to the next.

[jenniferhurley]

i always try to give books a good go even if they start slow, but typically if i'm not into it by the end of the 1st chapter i'll give up. i agree with original poster, i was put off harry potter when i first read when i was younger as they started so slow, it's now my favourite series. goes to show it is worth putting the effort in

[daley1984]

Hi everyone,

Sole Survivor by Dean Koontz started kind of slow, cause the entire first chapter seemed dedicated to describing how sad and lonely the main character felt after the loss of his wife and daughter, but this preamble was necessary to build up for the shock of the next chapter which introduced lots of mystery into the books, a shock which would not have had as great an impact without that preamble. Sometimes, in a good book, its necessary to describe many details of how good a person's life was before it gets thrown upside down. Only then do we feel the emotional anguish of loss, because we spent a lot of time building the relationships between characters.

Personally, though, I still prefer books which has the meat close to the beginning to capture interest right away. That's what I tried to do when I wrote my only Sci-fi novel.

[Hiram]

I have a difficult time deciding whether a prolog or introduction will help or harm. Guess it depends on the type of book.

[daley1984]

I think a prologue always help as long as it is well done. It should make the reader anxious to get to that part to find out what's really going on.

[ChantalE]

I've read a few books with a slow start. I read a series by Richelle Mead and every book starts off recapping every character from scratch and who they are and what their role is, but after that the books were awesome. Being bored with the first chapter for a few minutes is totally worth it if the rest of the book is captivating.

[Teesie]

When I find a book with a slow start, I tend to get bored with it and moving on to something else. Then I'll come back to it later on and usually the second time around I'm curious enough to push through the slow part. I think the slowest book I ever read was New Moon in the Twilight series. That one drove me absolutely nuts.

[Heaven Leigh Casteel]

To kill a mocking bird was hard for me to start but I loved it in the end . Just try your best to push through