Beyond Reality discussion

When do you decide when a book is not for you...for me at is at the 100 page mark. The easy part is if the book is - how do you say it, not a classic then you turf it. I usually just hand it in for credit at a used bookstore. The trouble is that there are a few books that are out and out classics that I have tried to read and found the book not to my liking, A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter J. Miller) is, one as is Diamond Age (Neil Stephenson) and recently Davy (Edgar Pangborn). I can’t quite give up on these books, in fact I loved the premise of Diamond Age so much That I revisited the book a few years later and ended up enjoying the book. I know that I will revisit Canticle sometime again, as if to say that the novel will not beat you. So with this experience I try to have a bit more patience although for some books it is still the 100 page rule.

When do you give up on a book?

I loved the premise of Canticle, but the book bored me to tears. As my TBR pile stacks up and my work load increases - decreasing my reading time I've become a lot more discerning in my reading tastes. I used to give a book 100 pages, but these days if it doesn't grab me right off, I'll skim it and see if it's going to pick up, if it looks like it might, I might skip ahead a bit. But I'm terrible like that, I skip pages, scenes, chapters, anything to get to the bits I want to read. I'll read the last chapter before I'm halfway done with a book to check the characters I care about are still there.

I rarely, if ever, give up on a book. I'm just compulsive enough that I almost always finish what I've started.

I liked A Canticle for Leibowitz both times I read it. It was not boring to me at all.

There are books that had me scratching my head, wondering why they were so highly recommended, but I read them through to the end. But having said that, there are authors that I just plain avoid, having so NOT enjoyed more than one of their books. (If it's only one book that turns me off, I'll usually give the author another chance, especially if it's someone who seems well-regarded.)

I hardly ever give up on books. If I had any rule, it would be more like a 25% rule. That would be 100 pages for a 400 page book and 250 pages for a 1000 page book.

Bookbrow wrote: "When do you decide when a book is not for you...for me at is at the 100 page mark. The easy part is if the book is - how do you say it, not a classic then you turf it. I usually just hand it in for..."

Whenever it has annoyed me enough. :) There's no hard rule as to when I'll put one down.

I can only remember two times where I've forced myself to finish a book that I wasn't enjoying (not counting required reading for school).

I'm with Kathi. I almost never give up. In fact I still have a few pages to go in to Reign In Hell because I have not enjoyed it. I've been very busy as well but to take a whole month to finish a book only happens when I am not enjoying it. Although again I think like Kathi I have authors I won't read.

I've been thinking about trying to develop a better rule. a friend of mine says "you already wasted your money and now you are wasting your time" but sometimes something that doesn't grab me at first turns out to be very enjoyable. For instance, the first Fire and Ice book took me months to get through. I put it under the seat of the car and read it only when I got stuck waiting in the car but I am really glad I started that series....so I guess hope springs until the very end for me.

I find books that have 4 or 5 different sets of originally unrelated characters and you hop back and forth without knowing what the relationship is or will be if any are very trying for me at first but i often end up liking them.

My tolerances have shifted incredibly, as I've progressed. When I was very young, anything that was a story was wonderful. Somehow I managed to fix on the good bits, and all of the wonder was there...Years later, I tried to read the first Mowgli story aloud to my husband's niece, when she could not sleep. Wow. I gave it up! (and she was bored silly.) I wondered HOW I'd survived all the preaching of values - the first story was just bogged down with intrusive paternalism.

When I was in my early teens, I ate books like candy. Everything was new, and I finished them all, completely without discernment. I decided if I liked them or not when I finished. I read books "over my head" all the time, it didn't matter. I couldn't fathom Austin, though, and Hardy was a yech.

Later, I started to encounter books I did not understand. There wasn't this, or that - no action, or, the plots 'seemed' to drag. Usually this was because there was a more mature angle to the writing, and I didn't (yet) value the conflicts that confronted the characters. I thought I knew it all, and I was extremely loud about my impatient opinions.

Then, stuck on a trip with a huge book, I came to learn the subtlety: the very best writers don't tip their hands too soon. They set each piece in place with gorgeous precision, and hit you with such a whammy in the second half, or last chapters - its totally worth the ride, and these are the best books with the most insightful impact. The trouble comes: how do you know if its a masterwork or a trip around the park, or something that devolves into bland predictability, or far worse, gives you "futility" as an ending.

You don't.

Now, I've put aside books that I recognize I'd have loved, while much younger. Now they are way too thin or worse, they tell the same old story, but without the wonder I remembered. The rare one rises above. Generally I avoid YA. Most of it is just too - predictable.

Now, more often than not, I will dump a book that doesn't have sufficient depth of character, and, where the plot is just a thin "what happens next," without the more meaningful "why does this happen next." I have to be surprised, and the conflict has to be more than, "so and so wronged me, let's find revenge, the bloodier the better."

I find books with too much heavy violence hard going. That will put me off, but if the story has a point, I will wait until my mood tougher, and push through. Many books I save until I'm ready for the shove to get into them.

Books that are coldly posed intellectual ideas - I find those hard to relate to. Rather discuss the bare-bones idea for real, than have a bunch of cardboard puppets act on about it. Hard SF only works for me if there are red blooded, passionate, emotional human beings on the page.

The thin books - I finish, very fast, and forget.

The deeper books - I keep at, hoping the author knows what they are doing. It's a gamble. But the richest payoffs sometimes lie, here.

When I read, I want to explore someplace else - the witty, shallow, into the pop culture stuff doesn't hold me very well. I might read a book by an author who does this, but seldom return for more.

Sometimes seeing what the author is doing takes time, particularly when the book in question doesn't tread the beaten path. I will dump an unoriginal quick-read sort of book much faster than one I have to swim into, a bit.

Sometimes, I have to give up on a book that I think is good because I'm not in the right mental place for it. Many years ago, one of this group's books of the month was Declare by Tim Powers. At that time, I had a lot of stuff going on and didn't have big chunks of time to read. Declare is one of those novels that requires your full attention and long reading sessions. It's very dense and there's a lot going on. I was intrigued, but I just couldn't get through it. I picked it up again a few years later and it's now one of my favorite SF&F novels.

Then again, I've started The Da Vinci Code twice and haven't made it through the first chapter.

Great post Janny.
Funnily enough, I'm reading more and more YA as I'm finding it less predictable than everything else!

I can only think of one title, a YA self pubbed that was picked up by Disney so had to be checked out, that I never finished. I only made it about 50 pages in!
Generally I try to finish good, bad and indifferent.
I never go back to an author if I struggle with a book though.

I know I have said this many times, both in this group and other book groups to which I've belonged--I am not a very critical reader. I want to be entertained and I don't think I set the bar very high. Certainly I can recognize that some books are better written or better plotted than others, but if it takes me for a ride or transports me into someone else's life for awhile, that's about all I ask.

I tend to finish most books I start reading, unless I'm really bored by them (at the moment I can only think of about 5 books I've stopped reading in the last decade). I draw the line at finishing series I'm not enjoying, I might make it through the first book in a series even if I'm not that keen on it, but I wouldn't go as far as picking up the second book.

I have forced myself to continue books even that I was really bored with and generally hated. I guess there's a part of me that's always hoping it'll pay off - that the ending will be worth it, or something.

I used to be compuslive about finishing series, but I've since gotten better about that. If the first book was mediocre, I might pick up the second on recommendations of 'it gets better', but if I don't like the second I won't continue. And if I just hated the first, then I won't bother even giving the second a chance.

Though I usually do know in the first 1/3 of a book whether or not I'll end up liking it, and rarely have I been wrong.

When picking out new books it's gotten to the point where if the first couple of lines of the blurb don't grab me I don't even bother, unless something has come highly recommended.

I have no specific rule about when I abandon a book; if I find myself putting the book down and having trouble locating it, that usually means I don't really care about the book or its characters. I have so many books to read, why waste my time with one which doesn't catch my attenti and entertain me?

Christine (newbie)

When I'm reading just for fun (not for a review), I tend to read at least 20% of a book before giving up on it. I avoid going by a page amount because books vary in length so much. 20% sounds like a fair amount.

I have a lot in common with Kathi. I tend to read a book to the end, even if its not good. I am a type a reader that tends not to look down on a book. I do recognize the quality of the writing. Usually the only reason I do drop a book is if the writers politics or personal beliefs shine through. A major tosser was an older Dirk Pitt novel.
There are books that I will take a break from and revisit at a later date.
Usually I have a rule where I read 20 to 30 pages and if I am enjoying myself I continue. This has nothing to do with tossing it. I trust my book choices enough that I know what I like so its usually a matter of feeling. I just dont feel like reading a certain book at this time.

I don't really have a rule. If a book keeps my interest, I keep reading. If it doesn't, I'll let it lapse, though it takes a lot to get me to give up on a book. I will give more leeway to authors whose other works I've enjoyed, or books that have been recommended by friends whose taste I trust.

I can only think of a few instances where I finished a book and ended up really disliking it. One was The Secret History by Donna Tartt...I know it got a lot of rave reviews but I just couldn't stand it. I don't know what kept me reading because it was a totally implausible plot (IMHO) and I didn't like any of the characters. It was like watching a train wreck, I couldn't look away!

The other instance was in Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy. I loved loved loved her Farseer trilogy and did like the first book, Ship of Magic, but had a hard time with the next two. I pushed through it because I'd had such a good experience with her other books, but in the end I didn't like the trilogy at all. I guess I'm glad I read it, though, because it set up her Tawny Man books which were just as fabulous as Farseer.

The other instance was in Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy. I loved loved loved her Farseer trilogy and did like the first book, Ship of Magic, but had a hard time with the next two. I pushed through it because I'd had such a good experience with her other books, but in the end I didn't like the trilogy at all. I guess I'm glad I read it, though, because it set up her Tawny Man books which were just as fabulous as Farseer.

It's really interesting you say that Shel, as I got stuck halfway through Ship of Destiny and I'm still trying to get it read so I can go on the the Tawny Man books.

Yeah, a bunch of my friends have had the same experience with the Hobb books. It seems to be a trend that those who loved Farseer didn't like Liveship Traders, and those who loved Liveship Traders didn't like Farseer. I suppose it makes sense as they really are very different. Anyway, keep plugging along though - Tawny Man is worth it :)

For what it's worth, I loved both the Farseer and Liveship trilogies :) I thought the weakest of the series, if anything, was the Tawny Man trilogy - still excellent, but nowhere near as good as the previous two.

I'm waiting to get Dragon Keeper until the next one is released. I've learned my lesson!

Kerry wrote: "The other instance was in Robin Hobb's Liveship Traders trilogy. I loved loved loved her Farseer trilogy and did like the first book, Ship of Magic, but had a hard time with the next two. I pushed ..."

For what it's worth - I read the Farseer trilogy a long time ago, skipped straight over the Liveship one, and went straight to Tawny Man last fall, after a long hiatus - didn't feel like I missed a thing (if I did, it didn't matter, I spend my reading time very carefully, and had my reasons for skipping the linking trilogy). Just noting if you don't get along with the middle bit, it read fine without them.

No rule. I'm not a fast reader, so a book is a pretty significant investment of time for me. I just don't have time to "stick it out" with a book I'm not enjoying, there are too many other books I want to read that I would likely enjoy more.

So I could quit 30 pages in, or in the case of King's Under the Dome, 400+ pages in. If I reach a point where I'm just not interested in continuing, I'm done.

Edit: as others have said, though, sometimes I'm just not in the right place for a particular book, or even genre. Most of what I read is science fiction or fantasy, and it's usually one or the other; if I'm in a fantasy mood, I don't want to read science fiction, and vice versa. And sometimes that "switch" occurs in the middle of a book. I'll be halfway through a science fiction book that I'm sort of enjoying, and will very suddenly decide that I'd rather read fantasy for a while. This happened very recently while I was reading Peter F. Hamilton's The Reality Dysfunction. When I started it, I still felt like I was in the mood for sci-fi, but a couple hundred pages in, I was just overcome with a compulsion to switch to fantasy. So I did.

I'll finish The Reality Dysfunction eventually, when my mood shifts back to sci-fi. I have no idea when that'll be, though.

When I was younger, I would stick with a book until the bitter end, no matter what. No longer. Now, I usually give a book at least 30 pages before deciding to toss it ... unless I find the first 30 pages to be really offensive, then I toss it right away. (Happened when I agreed to read The Flood with my son. Waay too violent.) Occasionally I'll get halfway through a book and find that I have zero interest in how it all turns out (one recent example: The Myth Hunters by Christopher Golden -- surprisingly so because I enjoyed Golden's novels The Boys Are Back in Town and The Map of Moments: A Novel of the Hidden Cities)
Also, I agree with Sandi: "Sometimes, I have to give up on a book that I think is good because I'm not in the right mental place for it." Perdido Street Station was one I started and tossed twice, and then the third time that I started it and read about half in one sitting, the rest over the next few days.

I agree with Deedee's agreement--more than once I have put aside a book (or hurled it across the room) only to pick it up later, maybe days, maybe months later, and find that I am totally absorbed by it. "Lord Foul's Bane" was like that--I hated Covenant, hated how he behaved, trashed the book, was given it again, picked up where I had left off and was entranced. Maybe I was expecting Covenant to be Frodo or something, I don't know.

If a book is competently done but just fails to grab me I'll carry on until something shiny distracts me and then just not pick up the book again, but if I think a book is badly written (which probably also means badly edited) I junk it pretty quickly--I'm not willing to read a hundred pages of ungrammatical drivel.

It's really rare for me to start a book and not finish it. I'm pretty sure I can list on one hand the books I haven't finished (A Son of the Circus, by John Irving; A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter Miller; Darkspell, by Katherine Kerr are actually the only ones I can think of) and generally I didn't finish them because they were forced on me when I was likely too young for them and so was bored to tears. (This isn't the case for Darkspell -- that one the characters just annoyed me to death and I hated the way Kerr structured the novel, and the first book in the series had only been a borderline "like" book anyway, so I swore off of her at the first moment when I said "Arrgh!")

I think this happens so rarely for me because (1) I am very picky about what books I start -- I collect authors, so I usually have plenty of back catalog stuff to read, and any author new to me I read reviews of and at least their first chapter before buying; (2) I read very quickly, so even if the book isn't thrilling me I know I'll be done with it in a day and power through the boring bits; and (3) I don't feel I can write a scathing review of a book if I haven't actually finished it, so if I'm really hating a book I'll read the rest as quickly as possible so I can shout "I HATE THIS BOOK" to the skies the instant I finish. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Orcs: The Omnibus Edition, by Stan Nicholls.) Plus, I feel guilty if someone recommends a book to me or buys a book for me and I don't read it all the way through, so I finish those too.

All of this obviously doesn't apply to omnibus editions and series -- one novel I hate is enough for me to throw the rest of the omnibus/series away unread (again, "throw away" more likely meaning post on paperbackswap), unless I have a very convincing reason to go on (for instance, several people clamoring that things get better, and providing actual cogent reasons why they get better -- here I'm looking at The Black Jewels Trilogy: Daughter of the Blood, Heir to the Shadows, Queen of the Darkness, by Anne Bishop).

I can't resist saying that my unfinished books are The Nickel Plated Beauty, David Copperfield and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Others exist I'm sure but not many and these all cause me guilt!

I realize that this is a bit of an old thread, but, I am seeking wisdom! :D

I just discovered that some people on GR have an X# pages rule. I tend to be a discerning reader, and I really don't have the time to read that I would like, plus I have a long list to get through.

However, I used to be very diligent about finishing books. But, I discovered last year to my surprise that I was actually capable of literally throwing a book on the floor in abject disgust. I think that was an eye opener for me that I really did not need to finish some books, and that I might, in fact, be better off not finishing certain books.

I think I can tell, when I am reading a book for entertainment purposes, whether or not I will like it fairly early on. Like several people have said in this thread, unless the book is a classic, or came highly recommended, they will toss it after X# of pages or %# of pages. So, that is not as much of an issue for me.

The real difficulty for me is when I am trying to stretch myself when reading non-fiction (but since this is a General SF&F thread, I'll stop there).

Boradicus wrote: "The real difficulty for me is when I am trying to stretch myself when reading non-fiction "



I'd say that any "rule" has to be more of an guideline, malleable by circumstance. As you say, if we're reading something more academic, or stretching, or that has the cultural cachet of a "classic", it's probably a good idea to give it more of a chance.


I've found sometimes putting things aside for a while helps; a couple of years ago I started As I Lay Dying, having never read Faulkner, and was finding it a real slog. I left it on my bedside table after less than 50 pages and moved on to other things but, when I went back to it a couple of months later I suddenly got it, and loved it. I don't think I'd have done that for something I wasn't aware was A Great Novel. sometimes what I do now is, if I'm finding a work heavy going, I'll balance it with something lighter in an entirely different genre.

Boradicus wrote: "The real difficulty for me is when I am trying to stretch myself when reading non-fiction (but since this is a General SF&F thread, I'll stop there)."

I solve that problem by not reading non-fiction (with very, very few exceptions). 😄

Kathi wrote: "I solve that problem by not reading non-fiction (with very, very few exceptions). 😄"

I have a life long friend who does the same with fiction; never reads any.

Paul wrote: "Boradicus wrote: "The real difficulty for me is when I am trying to stretch myself when reading non-fiction "

I'd say that any "rule" has to be more of an guideline, malleable by circumstance. A..."

That seems like a good strategy. I may have to incorporate that into a more complex heuristic for a stopping rule for something other than SF&F.

Kathi wrote: "Boradicus wrote: "The real difficulty for me is when I am trying to stretch myself when reading non-fiction (but since this is a General SF&F thread, I'll stop there)."

I solve that problem by not..."

That reminds me of an English professor that I had in college who told us one day in class about there being an invisible line (like a number line) with fiction on one end, and fact on the other. She said that nothing was ever purely fact or fiction, but that there were different mixtures of both, that even the most factual presentation still involved subjective reporting, as a kind of story-telling, and that even the most fictional stories have elements woven into them from real life. I have never thought about books in the same way since!

As with others I am loath to give up on a book
Usually I can tell within 30 to 50 pages.
I have noticed that in the last few years I dont have the patience I once had to sit through a book I am not really liking.

I don't have a specific page number rule; I always hve several library books on the shelf waiting to be read. If I find myself putting down the book I'm reading in favor of doing other things more than usual, i generally decide whether I care about the book or its characters. Plenty of books waiting which are probably more interesting

Same here
I usually can tell right away if I am liking it. What happens is I am loath to drop a book and try to push through. Lately I tend to not push that hard

For me I usually give it until the halfway point. Unless it’s a series then sometimes I give it atleast the whole first book. Which is what I did for wheel of time, something I just haven’t been able to get into but might try again.

Like Ken, I don't have as much patience as I used to. I've been reading for quite a while now, so I can often tell when a book isn't going to work for me. I don't run into too many (about 0.05%) since GR friends & community reviews help a lot, but there are a LOT of books that I want to read & so little time. Even with audio books that I listen to while I do other chores I can only get through a tiny percentage. Anyway, I'm not going to waste too much time on a book that isn't working for me.