Both books have some rough slogging in places. I never understood why Ayn Rand had to put those borderline rape scenes into those books as they did nothing to advance the plot. But a great many passages were positively brilliant. Though the Galt speech could have been shortened by 40 pages!
You are being generous. That speech is about 100 pages of beating a dead horse. I always thought it could have been condensed into about 20 pages or even less.
I love the book because it was so prescient but her Atheism shows through with the crappy love-type story.