I did the same thing.

I had no tolerance for it when I was forced to read it younger. I tried it again much, much later and was really taken by it. The atmosphere is absolutely haunting and I never tire of seeing a film/tv adaptation now. I never get sick of the story. I really encourage you to try again. Certainly move on to something new…

I can only recommend *the* greatest novel in the history of great American novels, and that’s Moby Dick. Seriously.

I love anything by Virginia Woolf: Mrs Dalloway, To the Lighthouse, A Room of One’s Own... her diaries are also fascinating. If you like Faulkner’s stuff, the Snopes trilogy is not as well known but very good.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is good. I also loved The Brothers Karamazov (honestly, if you want to get into the Russians Dostoevsky > Tolstoy).

Pa Chin’s Family

Count of Montecristo

All The Pretty Horses—the writing is so great and the story is understated in this way that makes it even more powerful. Also, East of Eden, because well, Steinbeck.

Cat’s Cradle, or literally anything by Kurt Vonnegut. Hilarious, profound, and life-changing.

Love in the Time of Cholera. Lush, romantic, riveting.

Crime and Punishment. It’s just an amazing book.

I love The Grapes of Wrath. Steinbeck’s lesser known short story collections (The Long Valley and Pastures of Heaven) are so good too—bizarre and beautiful. Flannery O’Connor’s collected short stories. Also, I think I could safely call Lonesome Dove a classic at this point, right? One of my favorite books ever. You…

This might be on the late side but- what are your feelings regarding Dostoyevsky? Crime and punishment is still one of my favorites. I like the intensity as well as questioning what really is fundamentally right or wrong. Then again I like wordy writers who take forever to get to the point. (Dickens is another…

I think you might be ‘just’ a hero. Every woman who survives this male shitshow is a hero.

like so many others, i loved Anna Karenina, and ended up reading War and Peace after.. it turned out to be a really great book

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers is an absolutely incredible book. Also seconding someone else’s recommendation of Edith Wharton - House of Mirth and Ethan Frome are both excellent and heartbreaking (seriously, block off a few hours/days for wallowing after you finish them).

HA HA!!! I got your message from jinni.

Starring Sally J Freedman as herself, great childhood novel and somehow still holds up. Judy Blume is such an amazing writer.

OMG! A woman after my own heart! I was going to suggest this one, too. Put in two votes for Middlemarch.