Reading books...

[sleigh]

On Melinda's most recent post, she mentioned that her reviews are almost always four or five stars since she rarely finishes a novel she doesn't like. That makes perfect sense to me: like Melinda, if I start reading a novel, put it down for the night and it doesn't scream at me to pick it up the next day, I leave it down. A novel in which I lose interest part of the way through, or which for one reason or another I find annoying to read, I don't finish. I'll usually give a novel 50 pages or so, but if after that point it hasn't grabbed me, then I move on to the next one.

Life (and spare reading time) is too short to finish a piece of fiction I don't enjoy. (It's different for non-fiction; then, I'm often reading more for information than entertainment, and so I'm more likely to finish the book -- but even then, I've stopped reading research books halfway through as well...)

What about you? If you're reading a novel, do you feel compelled to stick with it all the way to the end, no matter what? If so, why?

Comments

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

I used to finish everything. I also used to only read three or four genres of books, so I was likely to be pretty attached to something about it before I even picked the book up.

That changed when I widened my choices. I read about 150 pages of a fictional book about people during the French Revolution and never got into it. I put it down and there were still over 500 pages left. I just couldn't get into it and I had time galore back then.

Now I have no time for any reading out side of text books and stuff on the kids. La! At least when I go back to recreational reading there will be lots of stuff I want to read from the past couple years.:)

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

It's good to have a big stack of "To Be Read" -- at least, I hope so!

[kerinda.livejournal.com]

I am compelled to finish if it is a review book. Obviously, if I am going to write it up and be honest with my editors and the readers, I need to finish. This can be good or bad for an author. If I start out completely hating the book but they manage to pull it together in the end, it can be the difference between one or two star ratings and a three. But, if a plot point or the writing style annoy me through the entire book and don't redeem it at all, I'm generally pretty harsh.

I haven't put down a "choice" book in years. Because my pleasure reading is limited by my review reading (and, let's face it, my lifestyle), I generally pick up books I know will be great reads, and I'm far enough behind on my pleasure reading that I have a list of recs a mile long. :) I'm hoping to start on N.K. Jemison's soon.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

A review book may indeed be a different case -- in the same sense that I feel obligated to read all of my students' work, even though the stories are (frequently) riddled with issues. It's my job. :-)

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

The first book I didn't finish, I didn't finish because the dog ate the last 12 pages. At first I was sad, but then I realized that I didn't care what happened in those last 12 pages. It was a happy release. Now I feel free to not finish books or decline to go on to the next book in a series. Previously to the canine intervention, I had been taught (I think in school) that one must always finish every book one starts. As you say, life is too short.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I love the story about the dog!

[hrimcealde.livejournal.com]

i feel compelled to finish books, even the ones that are groan-worthy or sleep-inducing. Usually the reason that books are bad is not really the idea that inspires them (otherwise I wouldn't read it), but instead the writing itself is usually the painful part. I want to know how the story turns out, even though the writing is bad. However, if the book is part of a series, I certainly won't go on and read the rest of the series. Usually in that instance, I'll just read the wikipedia page about the series and get my resolution that way.

[barbarienne.livejournal.com]

I don't think I've ever said, "Ugh, this book is awful, and I'm going to stop reading it right now!" Okay, maybe once; see below.

I stop reading because a book doesn't compel me to pick it back up. It's put-downable. The two most recent books I've done this with are Bujold's The Hallowed Hunt and Anne Bishop's first Black Jewels book, Daughter of the Blood.

I took two shots at the Bujold, because I was enjoying it in general. But both times, around page 100, I put it down and just never picked it back up again. It was enjoyable, but not compelling. I didn't care what happened next. Stuff happened, it was interesting, but it felt slow. I was on page 100 and it still felt like the story hadn't really begun.

It's slightly different with the Bishop. I started reading it, but each time I put it down, I never felt compelled to pick it up again. I kept trying, though, because to go by synopses and reviews, I should be the target audience for the book. But it never felt...solid? It's almost the opposite of the problem I had with the Bujold--I felt as if I had missed some chapters somewhere. I was on page 50 and in the thick of the story and had no idea what was going on. I like in medias res and letting the reader figure out what's happening, but there wasn't enough inclueing for me.

I'm usually willing to take a second or even third stab at a book that doesn't grab me initially. I know that sometimes the problem is my mood when I tried, or the book's style doesn't match with my current (but changeable) tastes. But sometimes a book is just obviously not for me. That's the case with Bujold's Sharing Knife series. I started the first book and around page twenty I said, "Yeah, no, just not my thing." It smelled too heavily of schmoopy romance, and that's just not appealing to me.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

Good point to clarify -- it's the same for me. Not finishing a book doesn't necessarily mean that the book's terrible; it means that for whatever reason, it wasn't compelling enough for me. It didn't yell at me to pick it back up. I've stopped reading books with perfectly serviceable prose, with decent characters and plots, simply because they were just under that threshold where I can't not finish it.

And I've finished a few books where the ending just left me cold and unsatisfied, as well.

[lizziebelle.livejournal.com]

I used to stick with books until the bitter end, but lately I've stopped reading any that didn't grab me. Sometimes I haven't made it through the first chapter before stopping. Like you said, reading time is too valuable these days.

[gryphart.livejournal.com]

Mostly, it depends on how bad the book is and whether I have something else to hand - but as criticism goes, I would think I'd have more interesting things to say about novels I didn't wholly care for than ones I thought were genius.

[slaynsoul.livejournal.com]

I'm the type of person that once I find an author I really like, I read as much of their books or series as I can. Lately, one of my favorite authors has taken to, as a friend of mine calls it, unnecessarily torturing the main character. This has really bothered me. I really loved her first series and was excited to see her continuing in the same world with one of her previously minor characters. So I kept giving her the benefit of the doubt. But after finishing the book with a bitter taste in my mouth, I've started to rethink reading her more recent stuff.

Given my current monetary situation, I have to really like a book in order to buy it, so I will definitely try to finish it if I've bought it. Otherwise I take advantage of the library and if I can't get into it, I don't feel as bad.

[kythiaranos.livejournal.com]

I used to be compulsive about finishing books I started. As I've gotten older, I've decided that life's too short to be wasted on books I don't like. That said, there are quite a few I put aside to try later, because my tastes and interests change over time. But stuff I find myself mentally editing goes right to the second-hand bookstore these days.

[kk1raven.livejournal.com]

I finish most fiction that I start because I generally never start the books that I'm not likely to enjoy. I don't feel any compulsion to finish a book if it isn't interesting to me though. I don't just have a to-be-read pile. I have a to-be-read mountain that is taking over my house like an erupting volcano of books. If I start a book and get bored or frustrated with it, there are plenty of books that are likely to be better to replace it. Non-fiction is more likely to get set aside unfinished because I tend to buy it because the topic looks interesting and writing about an interesting topic doesn't necessarily give the author good writing skills.