Everything is coming to a ...

[threemonkeys]

So at what point should you stop reading a book you aren't enjoying? Over the years, like many people, I got pretty stubborn reading books and tried to read all my way through once I have started. But in recent times I have been telling myself to stop if I'm not enjoying a book. Its that whole "life is too short" argument. On the other hand, you have got to give a book a fair go. Even if you don't like the first few pages, that does not mean the book won't develop and become something really good. So to rephrase the question - how much leeway do you give a bad book to come right? Is there a minimum page count? Perhaps there is a minimum percentage you should read.

There are complicating factors to this question. Is the book highly recommended by your friends or reviewers etc? Is it supposed to be a classic? Do you have some sort of review obligation? Then there is the reason that it isn't good for you. If it is highly offensive then you are likely to stop much more quickly than if it is just dull. Or perhaps not - offensive but well written can still be compelling.

These thoughts were triggered by The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko. I had it quite strongly recommended to me by several people. Yet, 40 pages in I was ready to give it away. It wasn't that it was bad, it was just too blandly generic. It seemed to be just another vampire/magician hunting thing with nothing about the writing that added depth to the setting - no humour, no sense of setting, no depth of character. Not badly written, just nothing to engage with.

I thought I'd give it a few more pages. At the 70 page mark I put it down again thinking again that I had had enough. Then in a moment of extreme laziness I figured that I couldn't be bothered walking through to another room to get another book so why don't I give this another go - after all 100 pages seemed to be a good round number to say that I had given the book a fair go. Next time I noticed I was on page 140 and engaged. So I finished the book.

It didn't turn into a great work. The setting and characters developed just enough to hold my interest. As a work it has too much of the dance to a mysterious hidden plan style to really satisfy me. The point is that it did prove readable. So re-asking the original question - at what point should you stop reading a book you aren't enjoying?

Comments

[kaaronwarren.livejournal.com]

I'm fairly unforgiving these days. If I'm irritated by the tenth page, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to like the rest of the book. Often I'll start skimming paragraphs, then skipping pages looking for good bits, then throw the book away in disgust.
Most recent book I did this with is Ruth Rendell's "The Keys to the Street". I continue to find evidence that writer is wildly over-rated!

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Yes, I do the skimming thing too, although I doubt that I would start that early.

I'm not a Rendell fan either - As a PD James reader, I did think Rendell might be a good fit for my tastes but it proved not to be the case.

[kaaronwarren.livejournal.com]

PD James is something else all together, isn't she? Depth of character and an understanding of human nature. Rendell to me seems to spend the whole book introducing the book.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Yes, James' characters all have such wonderfully real flaws.

[kaaronwarren.livejournal.com]

They do. Her characters are never good/evil, but combinations. It's a tough thing to pull off, making a likable character behave badly sometimes and vice versa.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

That is probably why I can never figure out who did it - I'm always too interested in the characters and they all have it in them to do the crime so there are no real clues there.

[kaaronwarren.livejournal.com]

Ha! That's true. I love Agatha Christie, too. She had that knack for making everyone seemed capable of murder. I only guessed the murderer twice in her books. Mind you, I was reading them from the age of about 12, so maybe it's more obvious as an adult.

I've been wishing I brought my Christies with me to Fiji. Sometimes it's all I feel like reading.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

On the Christie front, I just bought the complete set of the Joan Hickson Miss Marple TV series (to go with all Poirots).

[kaaronwarren.livejournal.com]

Nice! Though I do prefer to read rather than watch both Marple and Poirot. Bond is the same; I like what I have in my head better than what I see on the screen.

Our single local TV station is playing the Poirots at the moment. Along with "Everyone Loves Raymond". I think they got them in a job lot or something!

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

It has to be the right production but done well, I really have no preference either way - the TV images have become my internal images (Hickson & Suchet that is). Going back to PD James, I actually saw some of the TV shows before reading the books so I got imprinted that way.

[kaaronwarren.livejournal.com]

It really matters what comes first, doesn't it? I'm reading my kids "Charlotte's Web" before they see the movie for that reason.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Oh yes - works like that with songs too.

[bluetyson.livejournal.com]

I wasn't a big fan of that one either, but slogged through it for the setting is about it.

The answer to that is whenever you want. Sooner the older you get.

I'd say if you suspect you will like it, probably give it a bit longer, as opposed to 'have to read this prefer the thermal properties of paint' sort of thing.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I used to work in a place which included a team that did paint research - they probably enjoyed reading about the thermal properties of paint :-)

There is no doubt that the older you get the less patience you have for work that does not engage you quickly.

[cat-i-th-adage.livejournal.com]

Eh, unless a book really grabs me (staying up all night reading it, sort of thing) I tend to have several on the go - read a chapter or so, forget where I put the book, pick up an old one from the chapter where I left off, rinse and repeat.

If a new book isn't interesting enough to make me pick it up again, meh, not much loss. I can't honestly say I keep track, though.

If I hear great reviews from friends or other people whose opinion I respect, of a work I don't think much of, I will often give it another try later on - perhaps I was just in the wrong kind of mood. Doesn't mean I'll like it the second time, though...

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I agree that being in the wrong mood can influence how you think about a book. I do think I was in the wrong head space for The Night Watch initially. The tricky thing is to realise it as moods tend to sneak up on you.

[russellk.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker. If I start, I'm usually drawn in enough to finish. I've only given up on four books in my life. Oddly, the fourth was last week - Hal Duncan's 'Vellum', which I found risibly inaccurately constructed from the kabbalic sources and spliced together with no thought for story, concerned only with artifice. Must be why it's been nominated for a Nebula award.

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

I didn't get more than a chapter into Vellum. That makes it a book I consider postponed rather than given up on because a chapter isn't really enough to tell how a book may end up. But it has been in that state for a while now and I have no desire to pick it up again.