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When do you give up on a book?
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It’s definitely easier to give up on a book with an e-reader, but the great thing is that thanks to free e-samples you get to read 5-10% of the book before buying it. That really works well for me, since I would never read that much of a book standing in a bookstore! (I’m not a particularly fast reader, anyway.) I’d say I give up and delete maybe 50% of all free samples I download from Amazon. I just love being able to do that.Even then, of course, there are books that went south on me after the sample convinced me to buy it—I’m looking at you, Ray Bradbury's Death Is a Lonely Business!
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If you are age 50 or younger ... you should read at least 50 pages before giving up (at least for now)
If you are over age 50, subtract your age from 100, and that's the number of pages you need to read before setting it aside. I'm 68; so I can give up after page 32.
Nancy Pearl jokes that is you are 100 you can judge a book by its cover!
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That being said, I have given up after just six or seven pages if it's particularly bad. I've also plowed through because a book met a particular challenge I was determined to finish.
Ooh I hadn’t considered the free previews - that’s great advice! Hmm I’ve only ever given up after a few pages if I found myself dreading picking it up again, but I find I rarely have the drive to finish a book I’m really not enjoying after 50 pages - especially if it’s quite long. The last one was The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt and I was determined to finish it because of its acclaim... ended up hating all 620 pages!
I do generally follow the 50 page rule. It also depends on whether I paid for the book or if I got it from the library. If it's free from the library, I give up quicker than if I spent actual money on it.That being said, I've stuck out things that paid off in the end, and (unfortunately) things that never really lived up to my expectations.
*looking at you "The Woman in Cabin 10*
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Lately I've given up if books..."
At my age life is too dang short to be wasted reading crappy books. Some books that are mysteries, I'll skip to the end. Some books I skip chapters, some books I throw across the room!
Bethany wrote: "I do generally follow the 50 page rule. It also depends on whether I paid for the book or if I got it from the library. If it's free from the library, I give up quicker than if I spent actual money..."Haha I felt the same way about that book... It never quite got going and then was suddenly over.
Kimberly - with mysteries I'm always waiting for THE TWIST and sometimes convince myself a bad book will suddenly be good after that... but you're totally right, I could just jump right to the end and save myself a lot of pages!
Most books I put down I consider paused, the reasons I might not like a book are usually about my mood, stress level, how busy I am at the time etc. I figure at another point I may feel differently and can pick it up again. Sometimes if I really want to give a book another try I'll get it in a different format (usually e-book or audiobook rather than print)I'd say once or twice a year there is a book that is making me miserable reading it and I'm learning to just stop reading and let those go.
All that being said, in my opinion life is too short to spend it reading books you can't stand for any reason.
I think if a non-fiction book hasn't given me a sense of where it's going by the end of the first chapter, it's fair to dump it. I had one absolute stinker which was basically the author angrily raising and responding to hypothetical questions from the outset without ever directing the book towards its supposed thesis. If the author won't sift out what they think their good ideas are, I'm not going to do the work for them. They don't even have to actually *be* good ideas, the author just has to care.For fiction I'm in there for the whole ride, even if the book's absolute unremitting intolerable trash. I just tune down my attention to the level I feel the book deserves. I read so much non-fiction for work anything with dialogue and scene descriptions and internal monologues feels like a break.
I've got plenty of good books on pause that are just too much work too. "The Road to Reality" and "The Golden Bough" which are just very dense and where chapters need a lot of digestion. I didn't *not* forget to go back to those.
Hi Alex, like many others I am reading a number of books at the same time. The book I'm struggling with is Faust (Parts 1 & 2) by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Part one had a "plot" I could somewhat understand (Faust making a pact with the devil), but part 2 is all over the place. I need to use Cliff Notes to give me a hint as to what is actually going on. The book is written in poetic form and is a tough read. I have a hundred pages to go and am determined to finish it, but when I read 10 pages and do not have a clue as to what's going on, I am tempted to ditch it and move on to something that will be of more value to my time.
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Oh! I just picked up a copy of "The Golden Bough". It looked interesting from my perusing of it, but nothing that I'll sit & read in one sitting or continually through...
Definitely, it's full of fascinating detail and I'm sure is an excellent resource for research, but you really can feel that it's an abridgement of a multi-volume scholarly work if you try to read it chapter by chapter like I did one summer. Considering I picked it up soley because it was name-dropped in a Lovecraft-based videogame I really can't hold that against it!
Ok, I might be strange, but I don't ever give up on a book. If I start it I have to finish it. Even if I suffer through each and every page. For example it took me 4 years to read A Million little pieces.
Amanda wrote: "Ok, I might be strange, but I don't ever give up on a book. If I start it I have to finish it. Even if I suffer through each and every page. For example it took me 4 years to read A Million little ..."Wow! That is absolute dedication and total commitment to finishing what you started. It's an excellent trait in my opinion.
Amanda wrote: "Ok, I might be strange, but I don't ever give up on a book. If I start it I have to finish it. Even if I suffer through each and every page. For example it took me 4 years to read A Million little ..."I used to be that way. I find that as I'm getting older my tolerance level is getting lower. I just deleted a book that was simply ridiculous. No point whatsoever. 5 years ago, I'd have plodded through it because someone took the time to write it and put their heart and soul into it, etc. Now I'm like... Good job. Not for me. Next!
Amanda wrote: "Ok, I might be strange, but I don't ever give up on a book. If I start it I have to finish it. Even if I suffer through each and every page. For example it took me 4 years to read A Million little ..."To each their own, but I'm very impressed with your resolve!
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A friend from a long time back wrote a book, a Hot-Sexy-Romance... I couldn't even get through the first chapter.
Some time later, I was discussing it w/ someone I knew from the Library. She now has the book, I never did find out what she thought about it!
I bought the book, hardcover to support my friend.... When she asked what I thought about it, for once in my life, I didn't have the courage to tell her.... But I could honestly tell her: "Oh someone I know wanted to read it, so I lent it to her"
That's tough! I usually end up skimming past the boring parts and trying to at least read the last chapter in full. When I skim through, I still try to at least focus on some dialogue here and there so I don't miss too much of what's going on.
Initially I had started this thread because I was working through Foe, which has some good buzz, but wasn't resonating with me.I was inspired by some of the responses here and pushed through! It was a fairly short book. So... all in all I ended up being disappointed with the book, but I'm glad I stuck it out. I think my new rule will be stick it out if it's more or less 300 pages, chuck it after 50 pages if it's 400 or more.
I usually try my best to not give up on a book. I also try to pick up the books that I know I will read.50 pages rule is good and I follow it at times but most books get better around that point. I avoid non fiction. I had to force myself through The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. I was excited to read it for months but when I actually started it, I just couldn't keep my eyes open. Such books seems pretentious at times.
On the 17th page of an e-book and my eyes are drooping. I forgot the title and author name. I am beginning to read sentences over and over on every page, every paragraph, I haven't got a stream or flow of the wording and I begin to push myself to read my reading. Nine times out of ten I'll check how many pages this book has which is usually in the number of hundreds that I didn't think books come instead of the Oxford Companion. I never count pages and I'll say to myself, "I guess I am not compatible with this book." This is one conversation for which I am nowhere apart.
If it purports to be a factual book, I give up when it starts telling me too many alleged "facts" that I know to be untrue (I'll tolerate a couple, but...)If it's fiction, I usually give up only if it is so incredibly poorly written that the actual reading process is painful, or if the plot is so transparent that I know it within the first chapter or two (and verify my guess by looking ahead)!
I start with the e-book free sample. E-books are my go-to. I love to hold a book in my hands, but the convenience of e-books get me every time.I try to give a book the benefit of the doubt. Some times I end up terribly disappointed and other times I'm pleasantly surprised. I also agree that it depends on my mood when reading a book.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Foe (other topics)Death is a Lonely Business (other topics)
Lately I've given up if books don't seem interesting after the first 50 pages. I'm interested to know if others force themselves to push through, or if there are just too many great books out there to spend time on one that seems lackluster. Does anyone with an ereader find they give up more easily?