Do you feel guilty about putting down a book, halfway through?

[closeupready]

I like adventure/thriller books, and about five or six years ago, I purchased a Clive Cussler book (Lost City) from a Going Out Of Business sale. The cover is fun, lol, and it seemed like a fun story. So I put it on my bookshelf to get around to it whenever I get around to it (that's my standard practice - I read slowly and can't keep up with my book purchases, so I have all kinds of things to read, for every mood).

Long story short, I picked this up and have tried to get into it, but the story starts off kind of silly, and stretches suspension-of-disbelief to the limits - and without that, Cussler's books are kind of otherwise pointless when you could be reading biographies and classics and popular science...

So about halfway through, I'm going to put it in my "Really Bad - Discard" pile. But I feel guilty, as if I wasted all that reading time on nothing.

[shenmue]

1. Oh yes

I almost never stop before the end, unless I'm ill, the book has to go back to the library, or it just stinks so bad I can't rationally continue.

[closeupready]

2. I just have so many other more interesting books I want to get to.

For example, for adventure, I have H. Rider Haggard or Edgar Rice Burroughs - old but good stories that are classics (and often free, lol), and really defined much of that genre.

[enough]

3. Why feel guilty? Think of all the time you did NOT waste by reading through to the end. (nt)

[closeupready]

4. That's a good way of putting it, yes. Thanks.

I'd rather read childhood favorites like Roger Zelazny than schlock like this. Even if I get nothing more out of it than a rip-roaring good time.

[enough]

9. Re-reading good books is always a good idea. (nt)

[Wolf Frankula]

17. Totally Agree

Imagine the time and aggravation saved by NOT reading Atlas Shrugged.

Wolf

[Old Crow]

5. I very seldom give up on a book I've started. Here's why (a few reasons).

#1. Forcing yourself through a book can help you grow as a reader.
Sometimes the only way to grow as a reader is to force yourself to read material that you're initially resistant to. For example, I almost bailed on Trainspotting when I discovered the book was written in really... uhhh... committed Scottish dialect and laced with profanity. Example:

They cunts've goat the fuckin poppy. You're the cunt thits eywis fuckin gaun oan aboot killin the rich n aw that anarchy shite. Now ye want tae fuckin shite oot! Begbie sneers at Rents, and it's, likes, very ugly n aw; they dark eyebrows oan toap ay they darker eyes, that thick black hair, slightly longer than a skinheid.

Thank goodness I stuck with it: the book proved to be one of my favorite reads of 2013. (I was late joining the Irvine Welsh party.)

#2. Bad novels can sometimes teach you a lot, even if it's not quite what the author intended.
A couple decades ago, I was about to vacation on North Carolina's Outer Banks, so I was grabbing and reading just about anything that was either about the Banks or used the locale of the Banks. One of the books was a mainstream romance novel, written for--how shall I put this?--the lowbrow female reader longing for a good shtupp with a hunk. (Hope I haven't offended, but so help me God, that's the truth, as you'll see by what follows.) I hated it. Hated it! But I stuck with it and managed to have a bit of fun by changing my approach from "Reader Looking for Enlightenment" to "Anthropologist Trying to Figure Out Just Who Would Want to Read This Stuff." Toward the end of the novel, I hit paydirt: There was a climactic lovemaking scene where the heroine, in a postcoital haze, looks down and notices the glowing hands of the man's watch on the nightstand--and the author took care to inform the reader that it was a Rolex watch. No, I'm not making this up. Clearly, these were readers not just looking for a good shtupp with a hunk--they were looking for a good shtupp with a hunk who wears a Rolex watch. I still laugh whenever I think about that scene. That was the novel in a nutshell and had I thrown the book aside, I would never have come across that ridiculous little gem.

#3. One word: Closure.
I simply can't stand the feeling I get when I've stopped reading a book I haven't finished. This may sound overblown, but it's the best way I can describe it: It's like not having attended the funeral of a relative you weren't close to, but knew. There's always this sense of incompletion, and something undone, and it's unsettling.

[closeupready]

7. Thanks those are some good points.

Closure, though, just go to wikipedia and get the plot summary,lol.

[Old Crow]

10. LOL... good point, actually, regarding Wikipedia

Wikipedia--and book reviews and essays--are often lifesavers if I'm in the middle of a book I'm really hating. Getting a firm handle on the plot helps a lot and sometimes a review will wake me up to some aspect of the book that was going over my head.

Oh, and one thing I thought I should add to my post above: Because I seldom quit books without finishing them, I'm usually careful about what I start. On GoodReads, I keep a To-Read list, which I limit to 10 books, and a Maybe-Someday list, which currently has 102 titles on it. For a book to get to spot #1 on my To-Read list, it usually means I've heard numerous good things about it from several sources over the course of about a year. So I usually find myself reading books I wind up rating 4 or 5 stars out of 5.

Of course, being human, I sometimes throw that careful procedure out and start reading a book just because. I did that with my current book, Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi, and it's proving to be quite a challenge. I'm 60% done and expect I'll be rating it either 2 or 3 stars. I can never get more than 5% through it in a sitting, and then only if I'm fueled up on a couple mugs of coffee.

[closeupready]

14. Factoid of the day: when I'm indecisive about what to read next,

I actually flip a coin! I split my book collection in half (North South, top half bottom half, whatever), and narrow it down to a single title.

[SheilaT]

32. At the risk of being picky,

I think the thing about growing as a reader would apply to someone in high school or college. At 66, I don't need that. I need to read books I enjoy. If they aren't working for me, then I need to stop.

Just as we all like different genres, whether or not to finish a book will vary. If you honestly need to know how something came out, then go ahead and read the last chapter. I can say that since I've taken up abandoning books I don't like, I don't ever wonder how something came out.

And truly bad novels cannot teach me anything. They really can't.

[scarletwoman]

6. Guilty over not finishing a book? No way.

If you're reading a book you really don't like, it's sort of like being in a dysfunctional relationship. Why make yourself suffer? Just cut your losses and move on.

[closeupready]

8. Thanks - I really resent being drawn in to this piece of crap book.

But I bought it, you know? And so I feel as if I have to push on, on some level.

Cheers.

[scarletwoman]

12. Donate the book to your local library, or a homeless shelter, or a 2nd hand store.

Giving it away is also getting your money's worth.

[Curmudgeoness]

11. With all the great books that I have yet to read,

and my favorites that I would love to re-read before I die, I cannot worry about stopping in the middle of a lousy book.

I used to be so compulsive that I would not stop, but as I have gotten older, I don't see why I should waste my valuable time. I am also a slow reader, so we are talking a lot of time saved by stopping when it is obvious that I should give up.

[fadedrose]

13. I so agree

It doesn't matter if I've read 10, 50 or 150pp, if it's hopeless, it wasn't a waste of time because I learned to appreciate the good books I've read even more.

And if you really like a book, let it rest, and pick it up a year or two later. You'll find it got better because you missed some things wondering what the ending would be.

[Curmudgeoness]

16. Ah, so true about just trying to get to the end

of a good book that you miss things.

Hi, there!

[SheilaT]

15. Never feel guilty about putting a book down.

With all due respect to those who always finish, because they feel in the end it's worth it, I'm on the "Life's too short to waste time reading a book you don't like" wagon.

The same way we have very different tastes in what we like to read, our inclination to finish or not finish is personal. For many years I'd always finish a book I started, until I turned forty or maybe fifty, and I realized that there is simply not enough time to read all the books I want to read, so putting down a book that's not working for me is the right choice.

I mostly get books out of the library these days, and try to restrict my buying to books I can't get from the library, or think I'll want to reread someday, or refer to in some way. Right now I have four books checked out, 14 on hold, two of which are ready to be picked up, and 122 on the "books I want to check out and read at some point" list. I also have somewhere upwards of a hundred unread books in my small home. Haven't the energy to do an actual count, but that feels like a good estimate. My biggest problem is that I read both fiction and non fiction, many genres, many topics. It would be easier to tell you what categories I don't read.

So anyway, if a book simply isn't keeping your interest after whatever you think is a reasonable point, then drop it and read something else. You won't regret it.

[closeupready]

25. Thanks - I did put it down, and

I won't be going back to it, lol. Now I'm on other stuff that is fun and while not really edifying, I appreciate the well-devised plot (pretty much missing from the Cussler book).

[Chemisse]

18. I feel a little guilty, but I do it anyway.

My evening reading time is really valuable to me. I don't want to waste it on something I am not enjoying.

[Enthusiast]

19. I seldom quit a book part way through.

Sometimes I find redeeming qualities in a book if I persevere.

[Goblinmonger]

20. I give a book 10% of the total pages

If I don't want to read any more after that point, then I'm done. My "to read" list is far too long to deal with books that don't grab me.

One exception, if it is a book I feel I should read as an English teacher, I give it 25%.

Life's too short.

[Tracer]

21. Your first mistake was buying a Clive Cussler book.

In a book market flooded with awful writers, Cussler has to be one of the worst.

I no longer have the patience to finish a book that bores or irritates me, and I don't feel the least bit guilty about not reading to the bitter end.

[closeupready]

22. lol, yeah - you know, like a lot of people, I do pre-judge a book

by its cover, and his paperback covers are so enticing. But yeah, I managed to throw it in my 'eBay' pile and I don't feel in the least bit guilty now. Frees up my time to either watch The Roosevelts, or else read the Teddy biography, Mornings On Horseback.

[oldandhappy]

23. Good choice!

Life is too short to read bad books! Move on. I am cheering for you.

[libodem]

24. Yes

I have spend good money after bad. My last one an horror story that was violent and gory.

[GOLGO 13]

26. No. Not in the least bit. And, I've learned several hard lessons along the way...

I learned by lesson with "Bonfire of the Vanities", that just because it was made into a move doesn't mean that...

Also, I painfully learned that Ann Rice & Laurell K. Hamiltion books are...NOT meant for me.

And finally, sparkly fucking vampires and werewolves that can't keep their shirts on are an abomination against all that is good & traditional about monsters in books.

[AngryOldDem]

27. Yes. Sometimes.

I know some readers have a "50-page" rule (I think Maureen Corrigan, who reviews books for NPR's "Fresh Air" has this) -- if the book doesn't grab the attention by then, it's time to move on. But...I feel that once I start, I've made a commitment. So it's hard for me to just walk away. I think that there must be something wrong with me that I'm not "feeling it," or "getting it," or I'm not in the right frame of mind, so more often than not, if I do stop reading something halfway through, I try again later on.

That said, right now I am in the middle of a huge, disappointing, absolute BORE of a book, "The Girl at the Lion D'Or" by Sebastian Faulks. I had been impressed with two other books of his -- "Birdsong" and "Charlotte Gray" -- but this one is so plodding I wonder if it's from the same author. Luckily, it's only about 250 pages so it's no big deal. But still...it does try the patience. I keep hoping the plot picks up but given that I'm more than halfway through, even that is looking doubtful. If this were a standard size. 300+-page work, I would be giving serious thought to bailing, despite what I wrote above.

[SheilaT]

28. I happened to like "The Girl at the Lion D'Or" very much,

which simply points up how we all have different tastes.

But back to the question of whether or not to finish something. I recently met someone through a writing critique group some of us are starting. That man is quite proud of the fact that he has several non-fiction books and one science fiction novel self published. We had a brief discussion about the merits of doing that, and I simply told him, as I tell everyone, that in my experience most self-published books are not worth reading. I've tried a few in the past, and they've invariably been dreadful.

He (rather graciously, I think) forwarded a copy of it to me via email. I fully intended before I started to read the entire thing, but I got twenty pages into and stopped, because it simply isn't very good. At the very beginning there's clumsy exposition of the As you know, Fred sort. Then there was a villain who was so totally and stupidly evil that I simply couldn't believe it.

Worse yet, the author doesn't really want to do critiquing in this just-starting group, nor, so far as I can tell, put out his stuff to be critiqued either. He just wants to talk about writing generalities. As someone who wants to be published in the old-fashioned way, just sitting around discussing writing abstractly, isn't going to help me. What does help is to have readers point out what I've done wrong, or where I've left them confused, or whatever.

So in any case, whatever the format, whatever you might have paid for a book, other than something you have to read for school or work, don't bother to finish a book that's not working for you. How long you need to give is variable, but time wasted reading something that you don't like, is time you'll never get back, and time that could have been better spent reading something you do like.

[gratefultobelib]

29. Absolutely no guilt!

I have WAAY too many books on my lists to spend time on a book that I just simply don't like. I do give these books a fair chance, I believe. It helps that one of my daughters is a big reader such as I am, and she agrees with me on this!

[llmart]

30. I'm 65.....

I don't have enough years left on this earth to waste on bad literature. If I keep plodding through a book I'm not enjoying and have to force myself to pick it up just to finish it, what good book am I setting aside to do that?

When I was younger I'd make myself finish a book I started but I no longer do that. And I don't do "guilt" any more. It didn't serve me well in the past in many respects.

[bigwillq]

31. Nope

If a book sucks, I'm not going to waste my time.

They should have made it better in the beginning/middle if they wanted me to finish it.

[Susannah Elf]

33. No guilt

I think of books the same as I do about people. If a book starts to feel like one of those unpleasant people who bring you down the more time you spend with them, I say, why bother? I wouldn't make a nightly engagement with someone I dislike or who bores me. I love that feeling of anticipation you get when you approach someone/something who gives you something to think about and whose company you enjoy.

[hippywife]

34. I used to, but like others have mentioned,

with age comes the sense of time and what it's worth. When I was a lot younger, I could not for the love of me get into Tolkein's Ring Trilogy. I tried a couple of times, just could not do it. Then one day I found myself sick in bed, nothing else in the house to read, so I tried again. Voraciously read all three books and loved them. It's not that they're poor literature, so I guess I just hadn't been in the right frame of mind to appreciate them until then.

I'm in the midst of one now that I'm absolutely not enjoying, but I've got some time constraints this week preventing me from being able to start and get into a larger book, so as I mentioned in another post, this one is working as my current sleep aid.

Recently I took another one back to the library unfinished, it was due back and had holds on it so I couldn't renew it for one thing, but for another, more than a hundred pages in, with nearly 300 more yet to read, I wasn't enjoying it in the least. That one really surprised me because it was John Cleese's autobiography, So Anyway.... I love Monty Python, I love wry comedy, but I could not love this book. He seemed to ramble around quite a bit, and that far into the story of his life, he hadn't even reached the point of being out of school yet. Imagine the most boring, monotone person you know talking incessantly about his childhood for hours.

Another that I almost stopped reading was Dearie:The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz. Almost 600 pages and the first quarter of the book seemed to be mostly about her ancestors. I don't mind the background information, especially if it's interesting and sets up the rest of the book well. This just seemed to go on and on and on, and nothing in it made me really care about her grandparents or great-grandparents, and was somewhat confusing to boot. I did persevere and finally got past that, and it got better. But had I not had the patience at the time, I would have returned that one unread, too.

[Paladin]

35. Not unless it's a book on loan from a friend.

If it's a library book which doesn't warrant any further time and attention, back it goes, without regrets.

[raccoon]

36. Nope. I'm in the middle of one right now, a loan from a friend, and I don't think I'm going to

finish it.

I may look in the back of the book to see how it turns out. (Stephen King says that's a big no-no, I believe
it was in his book ON WRITING. LOL)