This week’s Book Blogger Hop question: Why would you stop reading a book? Too long, wrong genre, bad language, not what you expected, or something totally different?
I had to think about this, because I rarely stop reading a book once I start it. Partially that’s because I’m pretty judicious about what books I pick up to begin with, and (maybe more so) partially that’s because I have a lot of trouble stopping midway through a story. I’m a completist–I like to read entire series, or every book a favorite author wrote, and I have a hard time stopping partway through even a story I don’t like.
Sometimes, if a book is really bothering me, I’ll very deliberately finish it anyway–because I can close the book and be done with it, while a half-finished story tends to linger in my mind in a very bothersome way.
So when I do quit a book, it tends to be because the style or narrative is not at all what I was expecting, to an extent that I’m actively not enjoying the reading. I’ve noted several unfinished books on my list of books read, and a couple were surreal to the point that I couldn’t get into the story at all (though one was philosophical and the other was just TOO silly), one turned out to be experimental poetry I couldn’t make any sense out of, one was far more violent than I had expected, and two were just flat boring. And then there was one that made me so ANGRY with the clearly abusive relationship presented as romantic that I quit on page 65 in genuine fear I would throw the book across the room if I kept reading.
The most recent book I quit (which will remain nameless) I might yet go back to…it was by an author I like a lot, there was a promise of a masked Robin Hood figure and I really expected to like it–but it was in a quasi-medieval setting, and something about the grinding poverty and the utter lack of life options for the heroine just really depressed me. And it’s not like I haven’t read other books with those elements, or people in far more immediate crises, and I was guessing life would eventually turn around…but I wasn’t willing to wait for it and be depressed in the meantime. I might have picked it up on an off-day, though, so I may yet try it again…
So much for me! What causes you to drop a book halfway through?
A Question of Magic by E. D. Baker
Regular readers know that I have read a lot by L. M. Montgomery—in fact, every novel, short story, journal and letter available! One of her last books, Jane of Lantern Hill, was also the very last novel of hers I read. I only read it once, and that was several years ago, so it seemed like time for a revisit.
Tales of the Marvelous 