400 books
—
163 voters
Gave Up Books
Showing 1-50 of 61,632
The Casual Vacancy (Hardcover)
by (shelved 178 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.31 — 338,983 ratings — published 2012
Wolf Hall (Thomas Cromwell, #1)
by (shelved 175 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.91 — 238,832 ratings — published 2009
The Goldfinch (Hardcover)
by (shelved 159 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.97 — 1,071,421 ratings — published 2013
The Book Thief (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 153 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.39 — 2,951,321 ratings — published 2005
Catch-22 (Paperback)
by (shelved 143 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.99 — 899,679 ratings — published 1961
Infinite Jest (Paperback)
by (shelved 142 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.25 — 104,508 ratings — published 1996
Outlander (Outlander, #1)
by (shelved 138 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.27 — 1,177,110 ratings — published 1991
A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire, #1)
by (shelved 136 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.45 — 2,791,564 ratings — published 1996
American Gods (American Gods, #1)
by (shelved 134 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.10 — 1,000,817 ratings — published 2001
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Mass Market Paperback)
by (shelved 132 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.12 — 1,136,034 ratings — published 1967
A Gentleman in Moscow (Paperback)
by (shelved 127 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.31 — 694,594 ratings — published 2016
A Little Life (Hardcover)
by (shelved 120 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.27 — 986,087 ratings — published 2015
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (Paperback)
by (shelved 120 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.88 — 260,820 ratings — published 2004
All the Light We Cannot See (Hardcover)
by (shelved 114 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.31 — 2,045,893 ratings — published 2014
Dune (Dune, #1)
by (shelved 111 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.29 — 1,684,559 ratings — published 1965
The Night Circus (Hardcover)
by (shelved 107 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.99 — 1,128,039 ratings — published 2011
Fifty Shades of Grey (Fifty Shades, #1)
by (shelved 102 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.67 — 2,910,767 ratings — published 2011
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (The Wicked Years, #1)
by (shelved 102 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.50 — 694,315 ratings — published 1995
Life After Life (Todd Family, #1)
by (shelved 93 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.78 — 246,969 ratings — published 2013
Lincoln in the Bardo (Hardcover)
by (shelved 92 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.75 — 183,099 ratings — published 2017
Life of Pi (Paperback)
by (shelved 92 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.94 — 1,777,948 ratings — published 2001
My Brilliant Friend (Neapolitan Novels, #1)
by (shelved 91 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.05 — 498,771 ratings — published 2011
Thinking, Fast and Slow (Hardcover)
by (shelved 91 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.17 — 608,435 ratings — published 2011
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1)
by (shelved 91 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.18 — 3,504,583 ratings — published 2005
Cloud Atlas (Paperback)
by (shelved 91 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.01 — 273,363 ratings — published 2004
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (Paperback)
by (shelved 90 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.33 — 1,309,042 ratings — published 2011
A Court of Thorns and Roses (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #1)
by (shelved 89 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.15 — 4,479,927 ratings — published 2015
Eat, Pray, Love (Paperback)
by (shelved 89 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.65 — 1,863,152 ratings — published 2006
A Discovery of Witches (All Souls, #1)
by (shelved 88 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.02 — 567,048 ratings — published 2011
The Magicians (The Magicians, #1)
by (shelved 87 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.53 — 281,696 ratings — published 2009
The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared (Hundred-Year-Old Man, #1)
by (shelved 85 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.82 — 309,397 ratings — published 2009
Pride and Prejudice (Hardcover)
by (shelved 85 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.30 — 4,952,436 ratings — published 1813
1Q84 (1Q84, #1-3)
by (shelved 83 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.95 — 346,495 ratings — published 2009
Wuthering Heights (Paperback)
by (shelved 82 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.89 — 2,259,076 ratings — published 1847
Anna Karenina (Paperback)
by (shelved 82 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.11 — 957,217 ratings — published 1878
The Handmaid's Tale (Hardcover)
by (shelved 81 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.15 — 2,522,362 ratings — published 1985
Atlas Shrugged (Paperback)
by (shelved 81 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.69 — 410,720 ratings — published 1957
The Secret History (Paperback)
by (shelved 80 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.15 — 1,096,175 ratings — published 1992
The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)
by (shelved 80 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.31 — 742,565 ratings — published 2001
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (Hardcover)
by (shelved 79 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.00 — 776,253 ratings — published 2003
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue (Hardcover)
by (shelved 77 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.16 — 1,596,929 ratings — published 2020
The Elegance of the Hedgehog (Paperback)
by (shelved 76 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.81 — 204,310 ratings — published 2006
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children, #1)
by (shelved 76 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.92 — 1,374,520 ratings — published 2011
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Hardcover)
by (shelved 75 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.77 — 504,982 ratings — published 2018
The Overstory (Paperback)
by (shelved 75 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.11 — 205,748 ratings — published 2018
Gone Girl (Paperback)
by (shelved 75 times as gave-up)
avg rating 4.15 — 3,525,813 ratings — published 2012
The Luminaries (Hardcover)
by (shelved 74 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.75 — 87,131 ratings — published 2013
The Midnight Library (The Midnight World, #1)
by (shelved 73 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.97 — 2,608,701 ratings — published 2020
The Thursday Murder Club (Thursday Murder Club, #1)
by (shelved 72 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.85 — 841,852 ratings — published 2020
Milkman (Kindle Edition)
by (shelved 69 times as gave-up)
avg rating 3.53 — 72,789 ratings — published 2018
“To escape the Prison, I made myself mortal. Immortal as you are, but... mortal compared to- to what I was. And what I was... I did not feel the way you do. The way I do now. Some things- loyalty and wrath and curiosity- but not the full spectrum.' Again, that faraway look. 'I was perfect, according to some. I did not regret, did not mourn- and pain... I did not experience it. And yet... yet I wound up here, because I was not quite like the others. Even as- as what I was, I was different. Too curious. Too questioning. The day the rip appeared in the sky... it was curiosity that drove me. My brothers and sisters fled. Upon the orders of our ruler, we had just laid waste to twin cities, smote them wholly into rubble on the plain, and yet they fled from that rip in the world. But I wanted to look. I wanted. I was not built or bred to feel such selfish things as want. I'd seen what happened to those of my kind who strayed, who learned to place their needs first. Who developed... feeling. But I went through the tear in the sky. And here I am.'
'And you gave all that up to get out of the Prison?' Mor asked softly.
'I yielded my grace- my perfect immortality. I knew that once I did... I would feel pain. And regret. I would want, and I would burn with it. I would... fall. But I was- the time locked away down there... I didn't care. I had not felt the wind on my face, had not smelled the rain... I did not even remember what they felt like. I did not remember sunlight.'
It was to Azriel that her attention drifted- the shadowsinger's darkness pulled away to reveal eyes full of understanding. Locked away.
'So I bound myself into this body. I shoved my burning grace deep into me. I gave up everything I was. The cell door just... unlocked. And so I walked out.”
― A Court of Wings and Ruin
'And you gave all that up to get out of the Prison?' Mor asked softly.
'I yielded my grace- my perfect immortality. I knew that once I did... I would feel pain. And regret. I would want, and I would burn with it. I would... fall. But I was- the time locked away down there... I didn't care. I had not felt the wind on my face, had not smelled the rain... I did not even remember what they felt like. I did not remember sunlight.'
It was to Azriel that her attention drifted- the shadowsinger's darkness pulled away to reveal eyes full of understanding. Locked away.
'So I bound myself into this body. I shoved my burning grace deep into me. I gave up everything I was. The cell door just... unlocked. And so I walked out.”
― A Court of Wings and Ruin
“When you truly love or want what you are pursuing, holding on can never be harder than giving up.”
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