# Why do you stop reading? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 17, 2005, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114 "2005-09-17T16:23:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114/61 "2005-10-16T19:25:22Z")
My most recent close call (although I did stick with it) was Stephen White’s _Privileged Information_. His plotting isn’t bad, and character development is decent, but some of the writing… ::shudder:: I don’t have it here in front of me, but it was chock-full of sentences stylistically kin to “Her eyes slid off the supervisor’s face like a raw oyster on a greased cooke sheet”; or “The chugging of the air conditioner tugged his thoughts out of the harbor of routine paperwork out into the bay of decomposition labs and on out into the choppy seas of opportunity and Officer Jones’ time-of-death tables”. This is one post that really requires my signature line, I think. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114/62 "2005-10-16T23:13:13Z")
I’ve read 400 pages of _Ulysses_. I got to page 400, put it down for the night, and never picked it up again. I’ve moved three times since then and have dutifully lugged it along with me, with the bookmark still at page 400. I am still undecided on what to do with it. Should I pick it up and continue reading? Maybe it’s been so long that I should start over again? (I don’t think I could bear that, though, honestly.) Should I put it in the bag to take to the used book store? I don’t know. I’m pretty sure Joyce was pulling a prank on readers, though. If he were still alive he’d probably be delighted and amused that his gobbledeygook is considered great literature. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114/63 "2005-10-17T19:16:09Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I don’t have it here in front of me I do now. Actual quotes follow. > [@](#): > > His forehead was the size and shape of Nebraska, like a great expanse of plains ascending to curly, faintly red hair. > [@](#): > > Eyebrows dominated his face and framed well-rested eyes. The thick blond shrubs perched over irises blue like coral, bright but without much depth. > [@](#): > > A wide mouth and open grin quaked across her face. ---
**Author:** ![unwashed\_brain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/a9adbd/32.png) [@unwashed\_brain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/unwashed_brain)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114/64 "2005-10-17T20:15:04Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I dumped [_Haunted_ by ChuckPalahniuk](http://a1204.g.akamai.net/7/1204/1401/05062108011/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/9830000/9830098.jpg). I don’t believe I have a soul, but if I’m wrong, this book was doing it harm. > Simply nauseating. Hehe - I finished it. I wasn’t sure I would after the first short story about the guy in the pool…but luckily that was the worst of them. Nowadays I read Chuck mainly because I really enjoy his writing style more than for the content of his novels. He had a real opportunity here to flex his writing muscles and speak in ~23 different voices, but they all ended up sounding like himself. I thought the idea of the book and the format of it were really well conceived, but lazily executed. ---
**Author:** ![SusanStoHelit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ab992/32.png) [@SusanStoHelit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SusanStoHelit)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114/65 "2005-10-17T21:29:17Z")
> [@koeeoaddi](#): > > I dumped [_Haunted_ by ChuckPalahniuk](http://a1204.g.akamai.net/7/1204/1401/05062108011/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/9830000/9830098.jpg). I don’t believe I have a soul, but if I’m wrong, this book was doing it harm. > > Simply nauseating. > [@soulmurk](#): > > The other was _Crime and Punishment_ by Dostoyevski. Interesting story and characters, and very well written, but there were so many things either lost in the translation that required paragraphs to explain via footnotes, or referenced places and people and events that also required flipping back to the indices to understand. Actually got about 3/4 of the way through it, but I put it down for a few days and just haven’t been able to pick it back up again. > [@FutileGuesture](#): > > We’re supposed to accept a futuristic society where people live for centuries, society is totally rearranged, everyone’s liberated and at it (a popular Heinlein theme), yet where it really matters it’s still the 1950s down the all-male golf club, yucking it up about the little women and their peculiar little moods. > > Ditched. Wow. Between the three of you, you’ve hit every author or book that have ever hit my wall with a satisfying “thud”. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2005, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114/66 "2005-10-17T22:15:58Z")
Generally, I stop when any of the following occurs: 1. The book starts getting like an uphill slog through steadily-increasing snow (See “Beyond Apollo” by Barry Malzberg) 2. I cannot “get into” or lose touch with, the protagonists (“Cerulean Dreams,” by Laurell K. Hamilton) 3. The author posits entirely too many far-out coincidences or unlikely happenings one atop the other until the entire situation is like hitting the lottery again and again and again (Can’t think of a book right now, but look at the CSI franchise for some really good examples of what I’m talking about) 4. The author insults my intelligence (See “Angels and Demons” by Dan Brown) 5. The author is on his/her own ego trip (See some of Clive Cussler’s later efforts…I mean, Dirk Pitt has a classic auto race against CLIVE CUSSLER??) 6. A once really great concept just becomes a franchise operation (Like a lot of the latest novels by Tom Clancy and company. and company. and company) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-you-stop-reading/322114.md?page=3)