Some books are hard to read

I have loved to read ever since I learned how. At my peak I can read 2 or 3 books a week, sometimes though I hit a slump. Usually these slumps are due to reading a book I find hard to read. If a book is hard for me to read or if I'm just not that interested in it, it can take me over a month to finish it. Occasionally a slump can be caused by a book I'm really enjoying though, it's like I want to savor the book so I read it slowly to stretch it out instead of rushing through it.

What makes a book hard to read? Aside from finding little interest in a book, things that can make a book hard to read for me are not what you would probably expect. The author has a need to show off their vocabulary? Not usually a problem for me, and if I happen to not be able to figure out what a word means from the context I just look it up. Complicated sentence structure? No problem. Strange book structure, like no punctuation or paragraph breaks or 7 pages for one sentence that is entirely in italics with a open parenthesis that never closes? Been There.

What makes a book hard to read for me is when I can't pronounce the characters' names. This may sound strange, but if I can't pronounce the names, I can't follow the story in my head. I had a professor who said he would give nicknames to characters whose names he couldn't pronounce, but this hasn't worked for me. This is why I've been reading Doctor Zhivago for almost a month now and am only on chapter four.

What makes a book hard to read for you?