What’s your personal style/philosophy? How often do you decide not to finish a book?
Do you finish any book you start, no matter how little you’re enjoying it? Or, if you get a little way in and it’s not grabbing you, do you have no problem putting it down? Do you have books that you keep trying and re-visiting? Are there specific things that turn you off enough to want to abandon your book or are clear indicators from the beginning that you’re not likely to enjoy it?
Does it matter what kind of book? Like, are you more likely to finish fiction vs nonfiction or mystery vs. romance?
The books I buy or get from the library I almost always finish. I might have the wrong opinion of it, or they may pull it out. Traditionally published books have some reasonable minimum of quality.
OTOH, I received over 180 books for a contest I was judging. I finished very few of them. Boring over the first five or ten pages, forget it. For sf books, howlers (like not knowing the difference between a star system and galaxy, surprisingly common) gone. I had only a few finalists I could choose, so if the book did not make it to that level, gone (though I read a lot more of them.)
Doing this was very educational, in that I could see what a lot of people were doing wrong. My wife (also a judge) and I even gave a talk about it. So we read more like an editor or agent would read, not as a consumer.
I used to insist on finishing anything I started. That was in my 20’s. Along the way I decided if I make it half-way through, I’ll finish it, but if it doesn’t keep my interest, I’ll drop it. I find it easier to quit earlier on e-books than I did on paper published tomes.
I just decided to stop reading a Nero Wolfe mystery by Robert Goldsborough about a third of the way through. He almost has the flavor, but it’s just off enough to annoy me.
For the vast majority of books if I don’t like page one I’ll never read any more of it again. Occasionally I’ll get through a few more pages before I realize I’m wasting my time.
Once past that point I will rarely if ever give up on a book entirely, with the caveat that I may never put any effort into starting reading it again. But if I randomly run across it, which happens more often now because technology, there is a real chance I will resume reading it, and give it greater consideration on the second attempt just in case I made a mistake not reading to the end the first time.
I read nearly everything with a Kindle and get books from Amazon where it’s possible to download a free sample. If I don’t like the sample, I don’t buy the book which is about half the time. If I like the sample and buy the book, it’s rare not to finish it.
I get al of my books from the library. Can’t remember the last time I bought a book. I read 55-75 books in an average year, pretty evenly split between fic/nonfic.
I have a strong urge to finish any book I open, but I will not read poor writing. Sometimes I can tell that I won’t like a book within fewer than 10 pages. Most recently pulled the plug quickly on some piece of crap from the bestseller’s list which my wife had brought home. The Happy Place or something.
I’m usually pretty good at choosing books or myself that I do give up so easily. I got one recently called Beware the Woman. I think I saw a favorable review in the paper. Not sure it is a bad book IMO, just that I was not the target audience.
Other times I’ll be halfway through, and just decide it isn’t worth getting through to the finish. Can be fiction or nonfiction. But if I’m not enjoying it/learning something, I’ll cut my losses.
With fiction, sometimes I’ll find myself slogging to the finish - or skimming - if they hooked me enough that I just want to see how it ends.
Sometimes with nonfiction, it will begin to impress me as too dense for my non-scientific brain, and I’ll realize I’m sorta skimming it instead of understanding it. So I’ll put those down.
The one good thing about Battlefield Earth is that it taught me that, no, a book really can be that bad, and it’s OK to not stick it out to the end.
Nowadays, though, I tend to be a bit pickier about what I even start, so not finishing a book is rare.
The last book I started without finishing was a collection of short stories by various authors. That one isn’t really in this category, since I do intend to finish it eventually, in gaps between other reading.
Other than that, I think the last book I actually abandoned was Frankenstein. It just took way too long for anything to actually happen.
I usually finish a book I’ve started, but a couple of years ago I attempted to read “Moby Dick” and just couldn’t get through it, once again. I’ve had the same edition since college, 50 years ago, and couldn’t get through it then either.
A number of years ago my wife gave me a copy of “Swann’s Way” by Marcel Proust. (It was sort of a joke which would take too long to explain.) I tried reading it at least three times but never could get beyond page 35 or so. (If you’ve ever read Proust, 35 pages amounts to about 8 loooooong sentences.) I finally donated it to a book sale.
I’m really bad at finishing books, even books I love. Statistically I probably finish 50% of books I start.
I get so easily pulled into the idea of the next book that I’ll forget the one I’m reading. Sometimes, though, I will come back. I’ve come back to Dune and The Count of Monte Cristo twice. I’m probably done with Dune, still reading The Count. Didn’t get far with Don Quixote. Yet you look at some of the books I do finish and you wonder. I read all of Bleak House in a matter of weeks, which is one of the longest books I’ve ever read. I’m even so bold as to enthusiastically recommend books to other people that I never actually finished.
I used to joke that I had “book ADHD.” Turns out I had “whole life ADHD.” I was diagnosed at age 34. I assume this problem of mine (if it is a problem) is a result of my neurological wiring.
Is it really a problem if I don’t want to waste my own time reading things that no longer interest me? I have a finite number of words I get to read before I die.
I also abandoned Frankenstein. A snoozefest, I believe is the accepted terminology. I was surprised to discover how very dull it was.
I don’t feel any embarrassment, or shame, or pangs of regret these days if I don’t finish a book, or if I don’t feel like finishing one. There are too many books out there that grab me to use up my book time on books that don’t.
(True, this isn’t foolproof as there are still books I finish and don’t like. The most recent was a novel called Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke. It kept feeling like something important and interesting was just around the corner, only it wasn’t, but by the time I gave up on the novel it was too late and I was already finished with it.)
That makes three of us. I tried it a long time ago, read about 10 pages and put it back on the shelf, very disappointed. A couple of days ago I was looking for something to read and considered trying it again. No, I said to myself, just no.
Instead, I decided to re-read Jack Finney’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” Now that’s a good read!
The last book I quit about halfway through was The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. I didn’t love it, but I enjoyed it enough to keep giving it a chance, until suddenly one day, I was just over it.
The other book I knowingly quit reading (I’m on team sometimes I get distracted and don’t finish rather than intentionally quit), I’d forgotten how many icky things happen in the book (I’d not read this book, but it’s the latest in a series, and it’s been twenty years since I read the others). (I’m not telling you the author for this one-- it’s a known problematic author that I loved as a teen/twenty something).
I guess you haven’t had to read a batch of self-published books. Lucky you. You might have looked at books in the quality basement, but I’ve seen some in the quality coal mine.
In my talk I used an example of the first page or a bit less of a sci-fi book (I use that term advisedly) which had well over a dozen errors of science and logic, and was also horribly written.
And the books I saw were ones where the authors were so sure of their excellence that they paid an entrance fee to have their book submitted. I’m sure there are worse ones out there. shudder
In my younger days, I used to make it a point to finish every book. Now in my 70s, with more books in my not yet read pile (hard copy and Kindle) than I can get through in five years at the rate I’m going; with library books I take out when the book seems intriguing but I don’t want to buy it; with already read books in a series where I’ve just bought the latest and feel as if I should go back to recall enough to enjoy the new one; with previously read books in my library I’d like to reread at some point – well, I no longer feel compelled to finish a novel (all I read these days) if it isn’t holding my interest.
I currently am almost through a library book, with the next in series to be picked up when I return it along with two others. I have — lemme see – four active books partially read on Kindle that I’ll probably get back to (three of them part of series with more to go). I have two or three others on Kindle I doubt I’ll ever try to finish. I’m partway through hard copy book four of a seven-volume fantasy series, each book of which is well over 600 pages, so I dip in and out of that and have taken to skimming here and there to make progress.
So many books; so little time; a book has to grab me and keep hold of me to make it worth finishing.
This is also worth mentioning. Many of the books I read are self-subbed on Kindle Unlimited so of course I’m not going to finish many of those. I will put a book down in the first paragraph when necessary. You gotta sort through a lot of chaff.
I apparently follow the pattern to date pretty well. When I was young, I like most was an avid reader. And lacking transportation to the local library on my own, anything I got was normally purchased new or more likely used. So anything, even pretty mediocre stuff was finished, and often even re-read.
As I got older, I still finished most things out of habit, but anything that was barely passable went to the used bookstore. Anything decent was kept to be reread.
And by my 30s, if it didn’t grab me by around page 100, it was likely to sit on my shelf as a “I’ll try it again if I run out of stuff to read” which translates as never.
I made and make exceptions for authors I have historically liked, but even then, sometimes I’ll grudge finish a book that if it was anyone else, I’d have dropped.
Neal Stephenson is a big example of this, I think his popularity lead to him putting out several books that had hints of his prior glory but were otherwise buried in navel gazing prose and deep sidetracks that all but stalled his story.