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Julie
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May 09, 2012 09:11AM
How many pages will you give a book before you put it down? Are you one of those people that will finish a book no matter what? Despite the fact we are told literary agents can tell if they like a book in the first paragraph, maybe love it by the end of the first page, I've read many a slow starter that ended up a fav. I always give a book to page fifty, often will give the book to page one hundred to decide. What about you?
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I'll give a book until I realize I don't care about the character(s) or what happens to them. Once that realization sets in, I see no point in going on. So how many pages for me is not so much the question as do the characters keep me interested.
Great question. I agree with Michael. If the story is just slow or I'm not totally feeling it, I'll continue to read because I've been surprised many times. However, once I just don't care anymore, I cannot continue to read. At that point it becomes a chore and I like to read for entertainment, not work.
When I'm perusing for new books, I'll read a few pages to see whether it's my kind of book. I should be able to get a feel for the book within those pages (as well as hopefully a hook).I rarely stop reading a book once I've begun (thanks to my screening process) - the only exception is Catch-22 which was meandering and pointless (and quite long), but that's for another conversation.
You can't judge a book by its cover, nor the first fifty pages or so. But some literary agents do; that could be why there are many great books passed up by traditional publishers and agents that go on to be successful indie titles.With that being said, to answer the question, I will continue to read a book until, like Kevin and Michael, I become indifferent about the characters. If I am moved by one of them -love, hate, anything- I will press on. Sometimes, if a book has stellar reviews, even if it's crap I will continue to read hoping it will get better.
I usually make it all the way to the end, but I'm a pretty easy sell! Unless there are heaps of typos or blatant plot holes, then I just get annoyed and shove it aside and won't pick it up again.
Michael wrote: "I'll give a book until I realize I don't care about the character(s) or what happens to them. Once that realization sets in, I see no point in going on. So how many pages for me is not so much the ..."This is me too.
I normally give it about 40-50 pages... I can't stand the fact that there are so many books that I want to read and here I am wasting time on one I don't even like.
Some of the books I give 75-100 pages if it's really driving me crazy a little less, but I get stubborn and try to get through more.
Ottilie wrote: "Some of the books I give 75-100 pages if it's really driving me crazy a little less, but I get stubborn and try to get through more."That's me exactly. I usually really want to like a book and will give the author every chance.
Exactly! The author took their time to wrote the book and to get it published, I'll give it some time.
I'll usually go 100 pages as long as the writing is good. If it's not grabbing me by then I usually give up and move on to the next one. Too many books to read and not enough time.
@Michael and @Kevin What if you like the characters, care about them, but don't like the plot. What if the characters are so damned interesting you think about them even when you're not reading the book -- but even you can come up with a better plot than the one you're reading about these super interesting people?
I'm asking because characters are my forte, plotting my downfall. I get these great ideas and I populate these really nice "worlds" but then the strategic logic of the conflict kind of falls short IMO. I have high standards for myself. I write Romantic Suspense and want to appeal to the same market that also reads milfic (since 20% of all romance readers are already male, this crossover is not or should not be all that difficult but milfic readers are far less tolerant of stupid plotting than are romance readers).
Oh and I'm assuming everything else--world building, characters, writing quality, even the editing/proofreading--is all up there, top notch. Just the plotting that comes out flat. Or rather, the CONFLICTS fall short. The build up of conflict is not my problem, the RESOLUTION of conflict is.
I either just kill everyone (and apparently I kill too many too quickly) or I resolve everything with magic chicken waving tactics. I'm not a soldier so I can't use personal knowledge and military guys I know don't mind reading the sex scenes but they don't want to help me write killing scenes hahaha, I can't imagine why not! LOL
-sry
@webbiegrrl
p.s. To answer the original poster's question :) for me a book has to be well-written. I don't have to like the characters, but I have to believe them. If the characters--or plotting--contradicts itself, I put the book down. If there's head-hopping, I put the book down. If the women are too ridiculously male fantasy fulfillment bimbos, I put the book down. I'm somehow okay with idiot jock Alpha Males who walk around half naked (hahahahah) kidding, well, half kidding...the half that's naked, probably.
I have some turn offs, which I will not go into at the moment. If I come across one of my absolute turn offs, I will stop reading immediately. Other than that, I will give a long book 100 pages; obviously less for a short one. If it's part of a series, I might finish the first book even if I don't care for it and see if I like a sequel better. It happened to me a few times that the sequel was better, so I would usually take that chance.@Sarah- I will read the story just for the characters, if you make me want to spend time with them. Of course then I'll get mad if you kill them:)
Masha wrote: "@Sarah- I will read the story just for the characters, if you make me want to spend time with them. Of course then I'll get mad if you kill them:)"Well, then you cannot read my stuff because I have to say again, someone's GOT to die! Eventually. And Main Characters are definitely NOT immune to the risk of death by the AuthorGod. There is Death by Sex, though so that can be fun and I use that method often ;-)
Mod
I try to finish every book I read, but I'll have to be honest and say that there have been times I just couldn't make myself finish. I don't have a set number of pages, but if I find myself dreading to pick up the book, I know it's time to move on to one more enjoyable.
I tend to finish books. It might take me a while, but I usually finish them. I figure even if I don't care for the book, there's often something to be learned from it...Like figuring out what aspects I didn't like, why, and then staying far, far away from those techniques myself. :)
The only book I ever quit on was Last of the Mohicans in high school. I somehow couldn't read myself out of the dense forest descriptions.
Fabulous question. If I'm in a brick and mortar bookstore, I'll give a book 2 pages (if it was a gift, I might give it a few more). In that pair of pages the writing has to capture me, or the story had already have begun and be compelling. Great prose only goes so far if the story isn't going anywhere. And the flip side is I will suffer marginal writing for a compelling story. Story is boss. But if you can find both in the same book, that's magic.
With that being said, to answer the question, I will continue to read a book until, like Kevin and Michael, I become indifferent about the characters. If I am moved by one of them -love, hate, anything- I will press on. Sometimes, if a book has stellar reviews, even if it's crap I will continue to read hoping it will get better.Agree with the "indifference to the characters," disagree with the "stellar reviews."
Crap is crap, no matter who was paid to review it, and call it ice cream.
John wrote: "With that being said, to answer the question, I will continue to read a book until, like Kevin and Michael, I become indifferent about the characters. If I am moved by one of them -love, hate, anyt..."Well if the stellar reviews come from people I know have similar tastes to mine, I will keep reading. Happened to me with a couple of Dean Koontz books, and I'm forever grateful for not missing out on them.
Interesting discussion.
I'm one of those criminals who will flip around and then read the ending. Random sampling, I suppose. If it seems good, I'll read the story.
If I get annoyed, I'll flip ahead. I might also read reviews. But once I get disgusted with a book, I'll put it down at once.
I remember once, though, I tried to read a book called, I think, Finding Mr. Right. Let me see if it's here...
Finding Mr. Right
It was completely stupid. I couldn't believe I'd wasted my money on the paperback, and was annoyed with the friend who recommended it highly. She wasn't usually so far off.
A couple weeks passed and I started remembering things. I ended up picking the book up and reading it, laughing like a fool.
I recommend it, by the way. In fact, I should add it to my books and write a quick review...
I'm one of those criminals who will flip around and then read the ending. Random sampling, I suppose. If it seems good, I'll read the story.
If I get annoyed, I'll flip ahead. I might also read reviews. But once I get disgusted with a book, I'll put it down at once.
I remember once, though, I tried to read a book called, I think, Finding Mr. Right. Let me see if it's here...
Finding Mr. Right
It was completely stupid. I couldn't believe I'd wasted my money on the paperback, and was annoyed with the friend who recommended it highly. She wasn't usually so far off.
A couple weeks passed and I started remembering things. I ended up picking the book up and reading it, laughing like a fool.
I recommend it, by the way. In fact, I should add it to my books and write a quick review...
Being in love with my Kindle I'll download a sample of whatever book I'm looking at on Amazon and read that. Usually within that sample (about the first 10% of the book) I have an idea of what the book is about, it's style, voice, and if I'm still interested I buy it. Once I actually buy a book I'll read the whole thing even if I lose some interest half way through.
I tend to finish almost every book I start, but if I find the plot doesn't captivate me, it could take weeks, if not months, for me to finish it!I'm big on plot and world-building. Characters, as long as they don't make me want to slap them upside the head, I can tolerate almost anything.
The few books I bail from are the ones where NOTHING HAPPENS for pages and pages on end. I just get bored.
I read purely until I lose interest and then I stop. It can be 100 pages, 50 pages or one chapter if it is REALLY bad. I make an exception when I'm sent a free copy to review. I do finish the book unless it is a real shocker-thankfully that hasn't happened yet!
I don't set a page limit, I just stop reading if I lose interest. I used to feel really guilty about not finishing a book but life is too short to worry about that.
I don't have a set page limit, I just stop reading if I can tell it isn't going to go anywhere for me for whatever reason. But I typically try to give books a good chance before I give up on them, because I hate leaving a book unread. I also hate wasting time on a book that is truly boring or just not a good fit for me, though, so on the rare occasion that a book is like that, I usually don't even get halfway before I quit.
Unless I absolutely just can't get through the first few chapters, 50 pages.
I can say I'd never get 50 pages into a book I didn't like. Life is too short and great stories are being written every day. For every bad or lackluster book I stick with means there's another good book I'll never get to. You only have so many books you can squeeze into a lifetime. I want to spend as little time with disappointing reads as possible to make more room for the good stuff.
I feel obligated to finish books, otherwise I don't feel right about saying I've read them. I'm pretty picky about the books I read, so the odds I'm going to dig into something that downright insults me are slim. Even if the going gets tough, I'll stick with it just to see whether things get better.
if the first page is boring, I am a little skeptical about continuing. Still, I at least finish a chapter. If I want to know what happens next, then I continue. If not, I just stop. But if I put a book down, I usually intend to finish at some point.Me putting a book down doesn't necessarily mean I don't like it. I just don't want to read it at the moment because I think I found something better. I've read books that I complained about the whole time but never once put it down. The belief that a bad book will get better keeps me reading
It just depends on what's wrong with the book and why I am putting it down. For example if it's grammar or typos I will start to get annoyed and then think to myself "the next time I have to reread a paragraph because it doesn't make sense, I am stopping". If it's the character or story a lot of the time there will come a point where I don't want to pick the book up again because I don't really care what happens next. At that point I would rather start a new book then not read.
There have been the occasional time when I found something I thought was really objectionable in a book and I just stopped reading. That could happen at any point. I have been three quarters of the way through books and found something I really didn't like and stopped reading.
There are occasionally books I force myself to finish. Usually they are books that I am reading specifically because of the hype or some controversy around them and I want to comment intelligently on it, even if I didn't like it. If I am just reading for enjoyment I never force myself to finish a book.
If I'm not curious about what happens next, the book goes in the 'unfinished' file. Could be one page in or twenty, but if I don't care what happens, I see no reason to continue reading.
I'll usually always give the book one chapter unless it's so painful to read that I'll feel like stabbing my eyes out. After the one chapter hurdle is completed, I'll ask myself whether I consider what I'm reading a chore or not, at which point I'll either proceed with stabbing my eyes out or continuing on.This post was brought to you by Martin with an "i".
