Stop reading if you’re miserable.
I’m in this massive reading group on Facebook and a question I always see being asked is, “when do you stop reading if you aren’t liking the book?”
Once upon a time I was a finish-no-matter-what kinda girl. I struggled through books I’d have rather thrown in a fire because I didn’t want to feel like I’d completely wasted my money.
Then one day I was about halfway through a book when I suddenly thought to myself, I’m so miserable, why am I still reading this?
Reading isn’t supposed to make you hate reading, and if it is put that book down and forget it exists.
So, when this question pops up and I see the answers vary from, “25%,” “50%,” to “I just finish it,” I wonder why it’s so important. Maybe it has to do with the fear of missing out – like if everyone loved a certain book and you’re just not enjoying it, if you push yourself to finish it then you’ll see what they loved about it.
And that’s just wrong. I’ve never read a book where the first half is like running in waist deep water and the second half is so good that it redeems the first half. Sure, books that have better beginnings or better endings can make the not so enjoyable parts easy to overlook, but not if you’re miserable through the bad parts.
A book with a slow beginning can be hard to get into, but if the writing is still solid it’s not an entirely miserable experience.
But if you’re not liking a book because of the wiring style, plot, depth-less characters – get out now.
Like, right now.
Here’s an example: my friend’s favorite book is The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. We made a deal where I would read this book and she’d read something by Jane Austen. Well, It’s been months and I’m still only in the first few chapters of her book. I’m not use to the writing style and in general it’s not in my top favorite genres, but I’m not miserable reading it. I know that giving it more time I’d read it a lot faster, but I haven’t actually gotten into it yet, so I don’t mind the slow pace.
But when a book makes no sense, every conflict is resolved with a flick of a wrist, and I want to bang my head into a wall I know it’s not me, it’s the book.
My answer to this question of when to stop reading is – if you have to even ask, then you better stop now. Stop when you are miserable. Stop because you’re just wasting time, and most people don’t have a lot of free time to read anway.
Memoir of a Writer 
Agreed. I’m a “toss that trash and make it kindling” kind of person. I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad quality!
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Same!
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Thank you for this. I recently had to learn this lesson. My go-to stopping point is when the narrative starts making me feel nauseated. Like I never thought books would make me want to puke, but the ones I REALLY don’t like do and it’s kind of awful.
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i’ll stick with a challenging book, like Moby Dick. I’ll stick with a new author’s first book to see if there are beginnings of greatness we’ll see in the author’s second book (and also to give feedback and leave a review for a newbie). But I won’t stick with silly, shallow books from experienced authors, blech. Fortunately, you can tell early on, like page 10, if it’s a blech book.:-)
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Right! I’ll always stick with a classic. It was tough to get through Bleak House by Dickens (really, really tough) but I was glad I did. I find with those kinds of books that it’s the language that im not used to, but once I can get use to it and pay attention to what I’m reading, it’s fine.
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Depends a lot of the book, but truthfully, some have given me a frightful headache. The worse book I ever tackled was Ben-Hur. Someone told me once and I don’t know if this was true of not, that Wallace wrote the book when he was afraid Billy the Kidd was out to kill him. Except for one decent movie, Billy might have done the world a favor if he had. The book was almost unreadable and about as interesting as a migrane headache.
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Yikes. While a book has yet to give me a headache, one has made me so angry that I was actually furious for days for having spent time reading it.
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I refused to read Woolf’s The Years in grad school—and confessed to the prof how I felt about it. She agreed that it was a step down, and told me to take that night’s class off. One of my favorite writers, and one of my favorite professors.
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Well said! No matter what a person reads, it should enrich them in some small way, and if this is not happening, ditch the book! After all, so many books and so little time 😉
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I’m too optimistic. I always think it’s going to get better. At least it can’t get any worse, right?
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Haha oh but so often it does get worse 😅
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Couldn’t agree more. I DNF books that can’t hold my attention all the time. I used to be a completionist as well, but there are too many great writers to read to waste your spare time on mediocre books.
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Exactly! 😊
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I give myself permission to toss a classic aside too if it starts to feel too much like homework. Sometimes the timing is off, not the book. Reading order matters too. I think of mysteries as palette cleansers, for instance. A dab of sorbet and then on to the next piece of literary fiction.
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Yeah, I allowed myself to give up on Oliver Twist when I just couldn’t get used to the language. I’m always trying to become more “well read” but I have to slip in easy books or I might go crazy. For me my palette cleanser is usually a nonfiction work.
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Yes! I used to finish no matter what. I don’t anymore.
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I have stopped reading my fair share of books that are just not giving me anything but… on the flip side… I HAVE actually forced myself to read through some books and have found the ending to be profound enough that I’m glad I powered through. How I know the difference, I don’t know!
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The only time I’ve been glad to have powered through has usually been with a classic. Except once I had to read The Sun Also Rises and was miserable the entire time and even in the end didn’t feel glad to have it.
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With a million newly published works every year, why suffer at all? A thousand words and no joy? I’m out. Or 50k in and my suspension of disbelief is shattered – color me gone. The library exists to provide variety and choice — something I take to heart.
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Yes!
There’s too many great books in the world to get caught up in the bad ones. Or ones that just don’t suite your taste.
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Usually, with very few exceptions, I have closed a book after the first few pages and there have been some that I can tell it deserves to be closed after a couple of paragraphs. I do not force myself to continue on. This is no reflection on the author, it’s just not how I am captured to continue into their world. It could be as simple as sentence structure, plot, or character development and it’s those same reasons I have continued with others and become a follower of each book they release. The same book I might close others could be raving about, it’s all a matter of taste.
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