I Suck At Reading

I finished my book today. It was called The History of the Eye, and I would not recommend it to the faint of heart. I saw it on the Penguin list of 100 best books of all-time, so don't judge me for reading about some teenagers having sex with and killing a priest. And cutting out his eye. Ow!
Now I have to find a new book, and I've decided it's inexcusable to just read gossip girl. So I went back on the list of classics to try to find something. Madame Bovary? Boring! I couldn't even get through that one in English. Les Miserables? Too long. And probably full of crazy 19th century vocab I'll never use. I already saw the play, so there's also no suspense.
I'm stuck between Pére Goriot and the Charterhouse of Parma, but I'm guessing I'll go with the former since it's Balzac and I can acquit myself of some guilt for not getting through some other Balzac novel about a crazy woman who only repeated one word. After going through this decision process, it struck me that I suck. Instead of delighting in the classics of literature, I tend to be really dismissive of something if I don't like it. Madame Bovary is presumably a pretty good book, but about half way through I just couldn't take her whining anymore. It was the only book I brought to the beach, so instead I just stared at the ocean, which was much more enjoyable for me. What am I missing?
I made a rule that I will only read French in France, but so far I've only read two books. It takes so freaking long to look up every word I don't know. I have been realizing that I only use a certain amount of words and phrases every day, over and over. This is probably true in English as well, but I have a larger vocabulary in English for writing and reading. In French it's just not there. Today I looked up the word "to lift". Then I looked it up again, because I forgot it within an hour. Ugh.