I don’t write a DNF review for a book unless I’ve read about half of it, but there are loads more books that I’ve tried to read and ended up abandoning before the halfway mark. Generally I try to give a book a decent shot before giving up, but sometimes a book is so bad, or so boring, or just so not for me that I have to get rid of it quickly before I waste more of my time.
I don’t feel any guilt for abandoning a book, but sometimes I do feel weird because the book I’ve abandoned might be one that has been given a lot of good reviews. And then it’s like “What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I want to finish reading this book?” And “should I have stuck with it longer?” This is a completely different feeling from completely reading a book and not loving it (like with The Magicians), because at least I still finished it. But to not give the book a decent chance…? Okay, I do feel a little guilty.
But not guilty enough to keep reading it!
Anyway, I thought it’d be interesting to look at some books I’ve abandoned this year and see why I quit reading them. And then maybe, by putting this out into the ether, I’ll find some other people who have abandoned the same books and then I won’t feel weird and guilty any longer! 
Hopefully.
All of these are (I think) pretty popular, though some of them are maybe more popular than others.
- The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I’ve tried reading this at least three times before, and every single time I got bored around page 100 and found something else to read.
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. I actually only got two pages into this? And then I read a review where an issue with the book’s plot regarding race was discussed and I just felt too uncomfortable with the whole thing to continue reading the book.
- The Very Ordered Existence of Merilee Marvelous by Suzanne Crowley. Got about 30 pages in, then was so bored and so unconvinced by the dialogue that I couldn’t continue, even though it was such a short book.
- The Affinity Bridge by George Mann. About 50 pages into this I asked myself “do I really care about these people or what they do?” And the answer was “no.”
- Drood by Dan Simmons. Got one sentence in and then remembered how much I dislike Charles Dickens.
- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Crown by M.T. Anderson. Somehow both utterly horrifying and boring at the same time. Got 50 pages in and then I couldn’t stand it any longer.
- Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green. It’s a small book, so I thought I could push through the last half of it. Nope. I clocked out at page 105– it was so bad that I actually tossed it away from me in disgust.
I’ve abandoned more this year, but I can’t remember them! But anyway: have you ever abandoned a popular book? Did you ever go back and finish it? How did you feel?
Book Trailer Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by me, Anastasia. It’s very simple to play along: find a particularly awesome book trailer, embed it in a post, then proceed to coo all over it. Or, y’know, talk about whatever you want to talk about. Why did this book trailer catch your eye? Why do you want to share it with people? Did it make you want to read the book? Why was it effective (or not)?
Loading ...
