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When to give up on a book

F

Fenster

New Member
I wanted to get some input on this before I go any further. How often do the rest of you give up on a book?

I have a tendency to start reading and get bored with the book very fast, and then mope as to whether or not to continue it. At first I thought maybe I had ADD, but a professional I saw about this said no, it was more likely that I just wasn't finding reading material to hold my attention.

Sometimes I do find books that just pull me in, I can't put them down, etc. and I get through them in a matter of days. Others, like the one I'm reading now, I feel like, "Well, it's good, but not great."

Does anyone else have thoughts on this? :confused:
 
When you write a thread title like this one.

Seriously, if it's not good, chuck it. Unless you've read almost all of it before realising, in which case still sack it but keep it to go back to a bit at a time. Only finish a book you hate if your Grandma wrote it, or something.
 
I started giving up on books when I left university: if I don't have to read it, I'm not going to read it if I don't like it... However, the point where I decide whether I like it varies greatly and in a number of different ways... Sometimes it's a single sentence or phrase that makes me think "That's it, you've had your chance, if that's the best you can do I'm sorry but I don't have time for this." (See the thread "What will put you off a book" under General book discussion (yes, I will learn how to link)) Sometimes it's not even a single sentence, at which point I think "If you haven't come up with anything yet..."

I read a rule once (and it was on a "Librarian action figure", and I'm usually more generous, and occasionally regret it): If you're under 50 years of age, give the book 50 pages, then pass judgment. If you're above 50 years of age there's a scale: 51 years, the book gets 49 pages, 52 years the book gets 48 pages and so on.

Given that, my plan is to read all books. But I'm afraid I may not have the time...? :rolleyes:
"If I had more heads, I would read more books"


*mrkgnao*
 
I too abide by the 50 pages rule. I actually only got through about 47 pages of Jane Austen's Emma before I chucked it, because, man, that Emma is a snot. Plus the plot was boring and I could see through all the characters.
 
I'm starting to have this problem where everything I read is boring no matter what it is. I'll crack open a really interesting book and then get bored with it about twenty pages into it. I think I hit a rut in life where reading is now boring to me.
 
I give it about twenty pages or so and if it's not keeping me interested, I'll put it aside until I'm desperate for something to read. (unless it's a libray book, whereupon it goes right back to the library and is forgotten.)

I started a book that I'd bought last night and I kept getting distracted by subconsciously critiquing the style, and got bogged down in a scene of a meeting where I didn't understand what was going on, it was confusing although the writer seemed to think the reader would know exactly what she's talking about. I gave up after that, which is a shame because the book's blurb sounded interesting.
 
Pearl said:
I'm starting to have this problem where everything I read is boring no matter what it is. I'll crack open a really interesting book and then get bored with it about twenty pages into it. I think I hit a rut in life where reading is now boring to me.
Click to expand...

Oh no, the dreaded book slump! :eek: I've been in a few of those, but so far they all passed (knock on wood). The only thing to do is wait, and hope your luck will let you stumble on just the right book to get you to like reading again...


*mrkgnao*
 
Yeah, I gave up on it last night. For the record, it was Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. Ironically, I quit reading the same author's Starship Troopers a little while ago.

I was just getting concerned because the stuff written by the "classic" sci-fi authors just doesn't seem to hold my attention. I guess I was afraid that meant I had no appreciation for the really good stuff. Course, I often have a tendency to overanalyze myself.

I think I'll try a horror novel next for a change of pace.
 
Reply

I give up on a book when it loses its reality. Often the writer is attempting to jump to the next dramatic scenes, but the method he uses just does not make sense. I cannot cheer for characters that get knocked unconscious easily. Villians that always seem to be able to predict where the protagonist is going AND have the time to set up traps, bribe officials, etc. lose the plausibility of the plot. As long as a writer is staying within his mythos and keeping the movements of the characters realistic (according to internal physics of the universe the author has created), I will stay reading.

One thing, I don't get bored reading. I read to prevent boredom. It is a rare book that puts me to sleep (Asaro was the last author to do so).
 
if a book turns out to be crap I flush it

yes I really have flushed one
I had to rip it up but it did go down
what made me do it was that the main characters had a single argument for like a whole chapter
 
I generally browse a book before deciding to read it. Once I start, I almost always give the author the benefit of the doubt and finish the book. There have been only a few when, afterward, I hated myself for having stuck with them. And there have only been rare ones that I have abandoned, mostly in despair of their ever getting any better.
And though I read quite a bit, and many different kinds of books, there are whole genres that I simply pass up, especially after a few initial failures.
What I miss, I miss.
That's life!
Peder
 
I have only ever gave up on two books in my entire life. Moby Dick and 4 Blondes by the girl who wrote Sex and the City (which I should have never even picked up). I actually threw 4 Blondes in the trash, which is a big no no for me.

If I can offer a bit of advice that a professor once gave to me... Some novels are action novels and some novels are more character sketches. So when you pick a novel, expect something from it. Don't expect Vanity Fair to have the action of a Brown novel. If it is the character sketch type, take your time and pretend you are having a really indepth conversation with the character. It will be alot more interesting for you. Sounds dumb, I know, but it changed the way I read.
 
Pearl said:
I'm starting to have this problem where everything I read is boring no matter what it is. I'll crack open a really interesting book and then get bored with it about twenty pages into it. I think I hit a rut in life where reading is now boring to me.
Click to expand...

I'm so sorry that this is happening to you. Maybe you should pick up something that you would have never touched with a ten foot pole. Like if you read romance, pick up a sci-fi or something like that. It might jolt you out of your rut.
 
Believe me, I Have tried everything. A few months ago I found a book I was really interested in and read straight through (Ironic it was nearly 1000 pages!) then nothing after that could get me going, then I picked up a romance and breezed through it, now I'm stuck again. I've tried other romances but it just won't go.

Talk about depression.
 
I give up on a book when I start skimming over parts other than the descriptions of landscape. If I'm that eager to get it over and done with, I might as well do myself a favour and just bin it. I still feel guilty a bit, because I used to always read to the end no matter what, but now that my TBR has grown to be so long I just don't have the time to be reading books that I'm not enjoying.
 
If I don't start to like a book by about 25 pages in, I'll skim the middle and last few pages and give up. I used to try and finish every book, until last year it occured to me that I had way too many books to read to be wasting time on one I didn't enjoy.
 
Ronny said:
If I don't start to like a book by about 25 pages in, I'll skim the middle and last few pages and give up. I used to try and finish every book, until last year it occured to me that I had way too many books to read to be wasting time on one I didn't enjoy.
Click to expand...
That's so true!

Stewart - what about Notes on a Scandal by Zoe Heller?
 
I try to finish everything, but lately I'm finishing a lot of books and thinking, sheesh, what a waste of time.

So now, I generally try to read until I realize that I don't care what happens next or what happens to the characters. Then, I quit.
 
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