For The L♥ve of Reading discussion

I am currently reading a book I'm not overly in to...however I can't seem to make myself stop reading. Part of the reason is it has good to great reviews and I wonder what I am missing and I feel bad not giving the book a full try.
Are you someone that has to read the full book no matter how bad it may be?
I keep telling myself life is too short to read bad books!

I really, really push myself and feel incredibly guilty if I want to give up on a book, so I usually finish them. Or leave them sitting around to glare at me dolefully until I finish them or put them at the very back of the bookshelf.

i rarely dont finish a book.it just...doesnt feel right

i equate finishing a boring, bad, uninteresting book to watching a bad movie. and completing a bad book is worse because it takes more time. if it is work, i give up. i have a shelf that is "couldn't finish" for this reason. books i couldn't quite complete: Catch-22
Dogeaters



there's more, but i can't remember because they were so awful.

a book i finished that was a lot of work and was realy not worth the read, Snow. awful. and totally unsatisfying.

this is another book i couldn't finish.
The Last Secrets of the Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Marco Polo by Horse and Camel

general rule: read the same amount of pages as your age, if the book isn't interesting by then, stop. reading should be for pleasure, not for work.

i don't like to read series either. and i am prone not to read certain books because i don't like to get caught up in series. i did read the first two books in the twilight series, but the second was so awful, i didn't want to continue. i was encouraged by my students to read them in the first place, but i just can't bring myself to finish them.

is that awful?

I've recently joined the camp of "there are too many good books to waste time finishing a bad one." The library helped, there's a lot less guilt when I didn't buy the book! However, the English Major in me still feels a personal failing when I don't finish a book. Not sure why I think it's MY failing and not the author's.

If the book is not good I don't waste my time. I have plenty of half read books sitting around. I figure that there are better books worthy of my time. Same goes for series. If they keep getting worse I just don't even bother finishing the series.

I will force myself to read all the way through the book, but sometimes I lay the book down for a few months and pick it up again later if I am really struggling with it. However, if I know it's absolute crap (i.e. Twilight) I can throw it at the wall freely and never pick it up again with no regrets. It is a rare book though, that I ever do that with, it has to REALLY suck.

Life's too short for bad literature. I don't waste my ADD attention span on bad writing. The reverse is true though. I will read a good book 3-4 times to skim all the goodness out and pick up what I've missed

I sometimes get weird looks from my friends when I say never finished the book. But really it isn't worth my time. We are only here for a short period of time. And I rather waste my minutes on a book I'll enjoy!

I agree, if I don't like the book I am not going to finish it. It make my reading for pleasure not so fun if I don't enjoy it. I can get through an ok book but if I really don't like it at all it's time to move on.

I forced myself to finish THE POSTMISTRESS. It had received such rave reviews I kept thinking that something would tie all the characters together. Ut never did for me and I felt cheated out of my reading time.

Did you know that there are TWO books called The Apothocary's Daughter? So, I was interested in reading one, and ended up getting the other - a romance novel - instead. My friend loaned me her Kindle to check out, and that was the book I chose on there. UGH. BUT, by the time I figured out it was only getting worse, I wanted to see how it finished. So, bad thing about Kindles, it was REALLY hard to skip to the end so I could just be done.

I normally have to finish a book once i start it, if I don't I get this feeling that really bugs me until I do finish it. The only time that I haven't is once for school, it was a group read and so only one person in the group really had to finish it, and I really was not into the book at all. Other than that there is only one I haven't finished and it was just because the language was a little hard to understand, and with that one I am planning on finishing the book eventually, whereas the one for school I don't think I ever will finish it.

The camp seems pretty divided on it. Honestley I used to be one of those people who HAD to finish but now not so much. I get almost all my books from the library so I never feel to guilty if I don't finish something. Like most readers though I will finish books most of the time. It has to be REALLY just horrendous if I can't finish it.

It's always my hope that I don't pick up books that I want to quit. But if they are so bad, I will stop without much thought. That does not happen often, though. I can think of maybe 4 or 5 times that I have done that over the last few years.

Julie wrote: "It's always my hope that I don't pick up books that I want to quit. But if they are so bad, I will stop without much thought. That does not happen often, though. I can think of maybe 4 or 5 times t..."

You're either REALLY good at picking good books, OR you're in our camp too. :)

I'm with you Julie. I try hard not to pick up books that I know I will mostly likely not be able to read.

I try to pick ones that I should like, but I often get lucky with those random picks. I guess I have good book karma from reading so often.

Thanks Everyone. I have gone to the camp of too many good books out there to read a bad one! Life is just too short! :)

I HAVE to know the ending of a book. That doesn't mean that I have to finish reading it though. If I decide not to finish it I usually just read spoiler reviews. Then I'm glad that I didn't waste my time on it because the books usually don't improve.
I do feel compelled sometimes and finish a bad book every once in a while. I avoid series too because if I don't like the first one then I have to wait to read any spoiler reviews. See the problem.

That is too bad that you are missing out on series. Yes, some are bad or start good and end with a horrible death. However, several out there have to be worth your time and effort. Don't give up!

*I sound like a bad shrink.*

❤ ☠ Elyssa ☠ ❤ wrote: "That is too bad that you are missing out on series. Yes, some are bad or start good and end with a horrible death. However, several out there have to be worth your time and effort. Don't give up..."

Oh, don't worry. I still read series. I have about four or five I'm in the middle of right now. I'm just always hesitant to plung into a series is all.

I have put down a book or two in my time but honestly only one or two. I am always worried I am going to miss something after I stop that would turn the book into something BLAH into something AMAZING!

Too bad it isn't always like that. I put a few down and never went back to them. However, I have also slogged through many for the amazing part and it just never really came. Ugh.

that is true!

I recently read a book that I didn't want to finish, but did anyway. I feel like I failed or didn't give it its full overview if I quit in the middle so I finished and still just thought it was okay.

It was Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum.

See review here: http://intheclosetbibliophile.blogspo...

there is a link in the post to how I felt 100 pages in. I didn't even like it til about page 300 then it got better. It only had like 400 pages, so that's a while to read for it to get better.

I hate not finishing books and I usually do finish them but there are those books that I just can't get into and they feel like a chore to read so I figure instead of putting all my time into it I'll move onto a different book. That usually doesn't happen though, thankfully.

Thankfully!

I finished one book I hated because it was a first reads.

I abandoned a book midway even though I was on a newspaper book review group.

I have 2 books on my 2010 reading list that I started and set aside. I just wasn't mentally in the mood (LOTR Two Towers and Uglies)

My daughter ditched a book part way thru, no qualms, I admired that LOL.