Losing Interest to keep reading! Light help me!

[Vince Black]

Hi all,

May the blessings of the Light be upon you.

Im halfway through book 4, shadow rising, and i regret to say in starting to lose interest. I find myself skipping large chunks of chapters just to see if it gets interesting.

Not good.

Maybe im just in a slump? Does it get better?

I dont want to give up this series! Someone motivate me!

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

Gets better then much worse then a bit better then ... Well.

 

Good luck!

[Graendals favourite]

It could get interesting depending on who you are, but I'm guessing if you thought the beginning was interesting but now are skipping, you're gonna have to read it anew and find new things interesting if you're gonna find the rest interesting. It seems to me it's gonna evolve into what might not be interesting if midway fourth book is not interesting but before then has been.

 

It get a lot more deeper, natural enough, might be looking in, the story, looking in depth at some stuff at some point, and a lot harder or tougher, as Moiraine said, "remember this when the journey gets hard" but the same kind of thing as in the very first books you don't necessarily get.

[Sabio]

Honestly I felt the 1st 6 books were the best.  Yeah RJ could drag stuff out but I liked those books the best.  So imo if you are only on book 4 and struggling, you are in  trouble.

[mb]

there have been similar threads in the past.

though the problem with those thread starters was some specific character/characters.

 

like it has been told in such threads, better/worse/etc pretty much depends on reader opinion.

 

the chapter summaries at the Encyclopaedia site tell what happens in the respective chapter; though the notes at times contain spoilers.

[szilard]

Im halfway through book 4, shadow rising, and i regret to say in starting to lose interest. I find myself skipping large chunks of chapters just to see if it gets interesting.

Not good.

Maybe im just in a slump? Does it get better?

I dont want to give up this series!

 

Look, If the atmosphere/characters/(sub)plots is/are not what you're interested in then stop reading the series now. There is nothing wrong with that. I mean it. Don't waste your time.

 

Or take a break (6-8 months), then go back to the first book, and start rereading the books. Who knows? 

 

 

Honestly I felt the 1st 6 books were the best.  Yeah RJ could drag stuff out but I liked those books the best.  So imo if you are only on book 4 and struggling, you are in  trouble.

 

Exactly.

[Orderofolde]

It can be tedious reading through all the perspectives.  Skip the boring ones.  Be forewarned that the girl segments tend to drone on with much description and posturing.  If you can't stand it skip it the first time.  Rand's arcs and those of Perrin and Matt especially are good reads.  I went back and reread the series after waiting on books seven and eight, and added those chapters back in giving me more content and understanding in the few chapters I skipped.  More was revealed and I had a batter understanding.  Once you are done, you can go back and follow the arcs of your favorite characters for an interesting and perhaps more rewarding read.  

 

If it drags out for you and is torture, then unfortunately it is one of those things that you will have to move on from, but as a fan I suggest you read on!  Have heart!

[Cosmic Champion]

Hi all,

May the blessings of the Light be upon you.

Im halfway through book 4, shadow rising, and i regret to say in starting to lose interest. I find myself skipping large chunks of chapters just to see if it gets interesting.

Not good.

Maybe im just in a slump? Does it get better?

I dont want to give up this series! Someone motivate me!

 

Vince Black

 

You are almost at the same part in the story that had me contemplating on quitting it too. I just was not really digging it that much. However around this part in the story, I noticed that Jordan's writing had improved remarkably, plus, this is the part in the story where the main characters really start to make there own paths, and not to be led by other people or following the paths of prophecies; though this does not stop completely. But here, the story really breaks out and starts to show Jordan's genius at storytelling. This is also where Jordan starts to show his fantastic humor, and continues it for the rest of the series. The very next book: 5 tFoH ended up being the most humorous book that I have ever read. Looking back, I find it hard to believe that I almost quit this story after three books, but now, I would love to reread the whole story continually for the rest of my life. Not even Tolkien's works had me wanting to do that. Now that's saying something!

 

For you, I would just recommend that you at least finish book 4.  After that, you should definitely know if you want to continue it.

 

Good luck

 

It can be tedious reading through all the perspectives.  Skip the boring ones.  Be forewarned that the girl segments tend to drone on with much description and posturing.  If you can't stand it skip it the first time.  Rand's arcs and those of Perrin and Matt especially are good reads.  I went back and reread the series after waiting on books seven and eight, and added those chapters back in giving me more content and understanding in the few chapters I skipped.  More was revealed and I had a batter understanding.  Once you are done, you can go back and follow the arcs of your favorite characters for an interesting and perhaps more rewarding read.  

 

 

Yes. For me, since I am a big Perrin fan, I have read his sole plot arc three times already, I believe. And as soon as I finish my second series reread, I will re due his arc again.  The two great things about Perrin's story arc, is that any of his plots that seem to drag a bit no longer appear that way, which makes it a breeze and a nice quick read through. The second thing is that starting at book 3 his own arc is pretty much solely contained within his own POVs, right until the beginning of the last book: aMol.

 

I would love to also do this for Mat, however since his plot intermingles with other main characters, it would be much more difficult to do.

[bigdoug1971]

I'd really hate to see you miss out on an awesome fantasy epic, because there will never be another like it.  But people above are right.  If you've not ready them before, you will miss so much of it by skipping around that it may be better for you to either stop or put it down for a few months and come back to it.  I ready it through more times than I can count and I caught stuff every time through where I had missed it before from either boredom, daydreaming when I was reading, or in the excitement and push to fin out what happened. 

No shame in putting it down for a couple months and coming back to it later on. 

[dawnflower8]

"Gets worse before it gets better."

While there is a point in the series where it gets worse, that doesn't really happen until around books 7-8, arguably 6. Book 5 is one of my absolute favorites. 

[bigdoug1971]

I liked the first 6 books the very best. 

[Cosmic Champion]

.

Well, IMO, I certainly wouldn't even use the word 'worse' for the later books in the series; they are just not as freaking fantastic as the earlier ones.

 

I like to look at it this way through another type of artistic analogy.....I consider books 4, 5, 6 as Jordan's Sgt. Pepper, Dark Side of the Moon, Who's Next or Led Zeppelin 4 .  The ones after I would use Let it Be, The Wall, Houses of the Holy and Quadrophenia for their examples. While the following ones sure are not the grand slams as their predecessors, they are for the most part an enjoyable read. Sadly, book ten is kind of a bust though, which is the only one of Jordan's that gave me trouble on my reread.  I do have to admit though, that now, the later ones are kind of blurring together for me. LOL

[dawnflower8]

Hey, just because I think they are worse doesn't mean I think they are bad!

I loved every book in the series. Except book 8. That one was just...okay. Not bad. Okay.

[Zander?]

Hi all,

May the blessings of the Light be upon you.

Im halfway through book 4, shadow rising, and i regret to say in starting to lose interest. I find myself skipping large chunks of chapters just to see if it gets interesting.

Not good.

Maybe im just in a slump? Does it get better?

I dont want to give up this series! Someone motivate me!

 

 

[Elsalvador]

When I opened this topic I was expecting it to be the typical doldrums of books 7-9 - I have to confess I'm surprised TSR is getting you down - it's one of my favourite books in the series and I think generally viewed as a contender for one of the top 3. Sticking with it is a good idea IMO - books 5 and 6 are amazing, 7-9 are not fantastic but not bad, 10 is pretty slow but it's where things start to sort of begin coming together and the series really ramps up again by book 11 (Knife of Dreams) and by that point I (and I imagine MANY others) were desperately hungry to read more and more and more and more and more...