Discussion Question: At what point do you give up on a book? (TSS)

[fashion_piranha]

So I am reading a book right now and I'm really not digging it.  The characters are shallow, the plot is slow, and it's salacious beyond my usual tolerance level.  I will probably toss it aside, because it is just not worth the effort of completion.

Are you the sort of person who always finishes a book you start?
If not, do you have a certain cut

Comments

[tybalt_quin]

Are you the sort of person who always finishes a book you start?

Yes. I'm stubborn and I refuse to let a book beat me. I might put it down for a while and then come back to it later (which is why it took me over a year to finish Bleak House by Charles Dickens), but a book would have to be completely, hideously, irredeemably bad for me to give up on it completely. This is why I've kept James Ellroy's The Cold Six Thousand on my To Read Pile for a mammoth 5 years now. One day, I'll be strong enough to go back and finish it. One day ...

I'm the same way about movies. There's only ever been one film that I've ever walked out of before the end - The Next Best Thing starring Madonna (yeah, I know, the fact that it was starring Madonna should have been what tipped me off in the first place).

[ying_ko_4]

I love Dickens...

[agameofthree]

I used to read all the way to the end, too, no matter what. But then I realized that life is too short to read bad books, and if it hasn't captured my interest in the first few chapters, I move on.

[saru_kage]

Some books where I wanted to kill myself before page 50 actually ended up being some of my all-time favorites--like The Illuminatus! Trilogy and Gravity's Rainbow. And there are novels like Lolita where if you don't read past page 88 you entirely miss the whole point of the story, and others like Things Fall Apart where why any of it means anything isn't made clear until the very last paragraph. So I'll usually stick it out for about 100 pages because slow starters can really surprise you sometimes. Since most novels are usually in the neighborhood of 300 pages or so, I figure a full third of the story should be plenty to tell if it's going to be a waste of time, or if it's just taking a while for the story to hit its stride.

Of course, it also helps that I read a lot of really dry non-fiction, so muddling through a bad novel isn't really that much of a headache. I mean, you spend enough time reading essays by Freud and even Twilight starts looking pretty appealing.

[alphafem]

I am the sort of person who always finishes the book. Always. I have only ever not finished two books in my life and one was because I left it behind in class in high school and it got stolen (and then I couldn't remember the title of it when I went to the store to re-buy it!) and one was an attempt at reading a western that was as painful as a root canal and as interesting as watching paint dry. I even gamely slogged my way through a particularly squicky horror novel called 'Deadweight' which succeeded at pretty much pressing all my 'NO!' buttons. I did it mostly because I wanted some closure, to see the villain get his just desserts at the end. When he basically just died in his sleep, it was too much for me. I stood up, calmly left my apartment (to the amusement of my brother) and went to the trash chute to drop it in. I did not want that book in my apartment for one moment longer. Even then, I had to finish.

[ying_ko_4]

Some books are crap from the get-go. If that's the case, life is too short for crap. Sometimes, a book starts off well, has a decent set up, a solid premise, interesting characters...then WHAMMO! Insanity sets in, and it's apparent that author is off their meds. So is the editor.

In either case, when the CRAP detector goes off a few times in quick succession, the book is tossed. It's a case by case basis for me.