The Mystery, Crime, and Thriller Group discussion

Hi!
Recently I was reading Seize the Night by Dean Koontz

I found it hard to proceed after few pages. I did not like the way it was written. When I went through the review of the book in Goodreads many has said they liked it.

This is my second book I gave up reading. First was Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

I just want to know whether any other readers gave up a book for any reason.

I. Can't. Do. It! I'm too nosy, I always go back eventually, lol. I will admit to "skimming" through a few places in KoontzBreathless it was just so damn bad! I was also disgusted by Convict's Candy the editing, the advertising all through out the books. I made it through but HATED every minute. It also took me several years to get through The Eyes of the Dragon I love King, but I kept putting it down it was not one of my favorites.

Sadly, I'll give up after a first chapter (or the first page) if there's no hook or the book just doesn't grab me.

I remember reading a very well-written, exciting action/detective novel a few years back (I can't remember the title now), and in about the middle of the book, it was revealed that the villain was a werewolf. The genre had completely flipped and I closed the cover and that was that.

I try to stick with books, but many years ago when I started The Manchurian Candidate, I had to put it down after the first few pages. I've since seen the movie and enjoyed, so I may someday try again..

For sure! THere are too many good books out there to waste time on something I don't like.

For a very long time I was of the "If I start it I will finish it school" but not any more. It is liberating to be able to put down a book and move on to something else. I can't remember specifically which book was the tipping point. It was more the realization that there are just too many good books and too little free time.

I stopped reading one just recently. I really liked the plot and the characters, but it was so badly written I decided I just couldn't punish myself anymore. I agree with Donna -- there are too many amazing reads out there for me to muddle my way through something I just don't like.

Never, always read through to the end. Most times I've been glad I have xxx

I usually give it at least 50 pages, or if I keep nodding off while I am reading (that's a good sign). I agree to many other good books waiting on my kindle or in my book stack to read.

I give a book 100 pages. I find it can grab me by then. However, The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown and A Man in Uniform by Kate Taylor were so boring. I gave up, why waste time when there are so many good books to read. Twilight I read because of the hype but what a bore!!! Not reading any more of this series. Same with The Hunger Games.

I just recently gave up on The Lost Years by Mary Higgins Clark. I really try to finish books I start, but this one was so full of bad technique, similar characters, and repetition that I decided my time would be better spent on another book.

Never. If I put it down, it's long before I reach the middle. Like the first ten pages. Actually more like, if I pick it up and start the first page—which I always do—and stop before I have to stop myself, I don't buy the book (or check it out) and move on right there at the shelf. But sometimes there are lemons. Usually figure that out before the middle.

This most often occurs when beautifully written and compelling themes and plotlines end up starring protagnoists that fail to reach me, that don't resonate.

There have also been those which, as the poster above said, were good thematically (by which I mean the author was damn sure about what he or she wanted to say with the book), plotted well, with engaging characters, but the prose was so clumsy I couldn't stand reading it. My inner editor at work. He's a critical sonofabitch.

I gave up reading Twilight too. I'll stick it out with a book if there's at least one thing I like. So I'll read a book with good characters and a slow plot. But if there's nothing going on after 25 pages or so, I move on. With mysteries, I'll generally skip to the last 10 pages when I'm about to give up. Sometimes knowing the solution is enough to get my interest.

I used to find this immensely difficult to do. We called it the graduate students' disease -- when doing a dissertation one is in mortal fear of having something you've missed pointed out, with the ensuing embarassment and possibly havoc. This is equivalent to the nightmare of sleeping through a final exam -- which I have actually done, bursting into the classroom when the time was half gone and writing the best exam of my student career. It took me about 15 years to shed this anxiety of not having read everything.I find Kindled books much easier to toss -- the investment is apparently low. Why, I wonder? Also library books. An embarrassing capitalist consumer vulnerability.

Dean wrote: "I have pattern, you get two chapters then if you haven't caught me by then I'll read the last chapter or the last couple. IF you can convince me by your writing that it is worth reading the book t..."

I teach a version of a creative writing workshop in which I begin by asking how is it you can make up your mind so quickly whether or not to read a book, often only a sentence or two. We spend a class on the first sentence and then, with some provocation (usually musical) I tell them to go away and write as many first sentences as they can, and bring back the ones they like the best. It's really amazing how much theory and practice one can find by scrutinizing first sentences this way.

So true. I teach creative writing as well, and I always set an exercise that I learned from an amazing teacher. It requires the student to write an action description (so no dialogue, exposition, or internal monologue) that would come at the very beginning of the piece and clearly preview the theme. Students always think they know what they want to say, but they are often surprised by how hard it is to SHOW the reader important information right from the first page.

I have only ever quit one book and that is The Lost Worldby Michael Crichton. It was so terrible and nothing like I had expected. I have no desire to ever pick it up again.

That being said I have not since been able to stop reading a really bad book. I have this pride issue that keeps me going no matter how painful. If there is an audio version at the library I might switch to that just to get through the book.

Pearlisms
“Rule of Fifty”
from: http://nancypearlbooks.wordpress.com/...

People frequently ask me how many pages they should give a book before they give up on it. In response to that question, I came up with my “rule of fifty,” which is based on the shortness of time and the immensity of the world of books. If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit. Since that number gets smaller and smaller as we get older and older, our big reward is that when we turn 100, we can judge a book by its cover!

I gave The Headmaster's Wager 150 pages and said that was enough of this :(

Donna wrote: "For a very long time I was of the "If I start it I will finish it school" but not any more. It is liberating to be able to put down a book and move on to something else. I can't remember specifical..."

I used to be like this too, Donna. Until one day I was reading a really boring book and it occurred to me that if I were to die that day, that would be my last book ever. And then I thought...would I want this CRAP to be the last book I read? Hell no!

I was cured after that. Now I don't feel guilty when I don't finish a book - in fact, the name of my dnf shelf is 'life is too short.' :)

Donna wrote: "the name of my dnf shelf is 'life is too short.'"

Short self, I suppose. Dean, I'm not going to disagree about Harry Potter, but I actually did enjoy watching my last live-action root canal.

I'm firmly in the two chapters/fifty pages/whichever comes first club. Since I lovingly refer to my to-be-read pile as "Mt. TBR," it's largely a matter of self-preservation.

Brian

I have only ever given up on one book and that was Bible of the Dead by Tom Knox which had flashes of action and then long boring narratives that didn't enhance the story at all. Got half way through and then skipped to the end which was completely unbelievable and mildly disturbing.

I am one of those odd people who always reads the last page of a book first. If I don't like it or the hero of the book doesn't make it to the end I don't read it!

I've only given up on a few books when I just know it's not going to be worth my interest to finish. Life is too short to waste time on a bad book, and there are too mnay other books I can read instead.

Every year it seems there is one book I am forced to give up on. So far this year there have been two I should have dropped but carried through to the end: Soulless and The Informer: A Novel. The further along I got on both of those, the more determined I was to finish.

I haven't had this problem in quite a while, but I have read a couple of really long books (650 pages, 800 pages) where it was agony to read a good portion of the book but the last 200 pages were great.

I am in the older bracket where Nancy Pearl's rule would have me reading under 40 pages to decide. I am not sure that is enough. I definitely can't tell in the first few pages.

I think my rule would also include length of book. Try any book for 50 pages minimum (almost anything) and give the really longer ones maybe 100 pages.

I may have quit on one or two, but I usually finish no matter what. Sometimes it will catch you later in the book.

I didn't used to give up completely on any books-- I might decide after a few chapters that "now" wasn't the right time for that particular book, put it aside and then try it again in the future. But they stayed in my TBR pile. Some I ended up skimming through just so I could get rid of them though, but they (kinda) got read.

Now if I have a freebie or cheap read on my Kindle, I'm more than happy to just abandon it and delete it from my device, without any feelings of guilt at all.

I just dumped a Sookie Stackhouse book after two chapters. I felt no guilt at all about it. I borrowed it from a friend just to see what the series was like, and it struck me as a cartoon version of Laurell K Hamilton.

I have to like the feel of the writing, and I can usually figure that out in a page or two, so If I'm getting a paper book, I'll know pretty quick. There are some Kindle freebies I've downloaded without checking them out first, and I feel no guilt about dumping those, especially if it's because the author doesn't know how to construct a sentence.

It depends on what you call giving up on a book. I almost always download a sample of the book before I buy. I have given up on LOTS of samples, if I don't like the style, or if the story doesn't grip me. But if I get through the sample, I typically finish the book.

I used to force myself to finish books I absolutely hated. But after doing that a couple of times (and having to do that a lot in school/uni) I've realised there are so many books I want to read that I now employ the 50 pages rule. Or 20 if I'm really not feeling it. Sometimes the book I'm reading is just not the right one for my mood at the time. If I don't love the writing then it goes on my abandoned shelf, if I love it but don't want to read it right now it goes on my hold shelf. I don't feel bad about abandoning books, some books just aren't for me. For example right now I'm reading a book about a girl who gives up her baby for adoption because shes young and doesn't really have a choice. It's an ok story but I'm pregnant at the moment and it's just depressing me too much so it'll probably end up on my abandoned shelf.

Like others here, I used to make myself finish a book, no matter what - just tough it out, because maybe I just hadn't gotten to the part that made the rest of the read worthwhile. Something like that. But I always scanned the first and last pages before I read the book. Still do. So if the book was badly written, I stopped before I ever started.

Agree with commenters above, by the way. Instant turnoffs include poorly constructed sentences, bland and dull prose, overwrought, hyberbolic or tired-trope stuff. Life's too short to endure these kinds of things.

Robin, Kandie: Do you make use of the digital samples to try books out first? I downloaded five samples this past week, and am only moving forward with one book. It has been a lifesaver, not to mention a money saver for me.

I have no problem abandoning a book after an honest effort if it doesn't entertain on some minimal level.

Life is indeed too short and there are too many other books to read that might prove better.

I don't eat lamb, soggy bread, or coconut......it tastes bad from the start to me so why hope it will taste better if I continue. It is the same with books. If I don't like it about two chapters in, I am finished. I am a voracious reader and there are so many books on my TBR list that I don't want to waste time on one that does not grab my interest. With that being said, it hasn't happened very often....but I don't feel guilty when it does. "So many books, so little time" has become my motto!!!

Giacomo, I haven't made use of the digital samples - it's a good idea! I should do that.

I'll tell you, Robin, I used to waste a lot of money buying books that "seemed" good after a page or two, but then they fell apart. The samples give you enough to really know if you'll like it or not. And I think all of the digital stores offer them: Amazon, B&N, Apple...

Giacomo, I am going to try making this process a habit, on books that are absolutely unknown to me.

I like many made myself finish in general. Someone told me a 100 page rule. You had to give a book 100, but many books that's 1/3. I've totally abandoned one recently before that. The premise was interesting but it took a weird direction in the second chapter and I realized I didn't want to spend X hours with this theme in my head. I have given myself "permission" the last few years to skim to the end if a book is killing me. I tend to be bothered by not knowing what the outcome of things would be, so I skim enough to get the idea and the ending. I was recently trapped on a trip with a digital download that I chose for the location (I like reading something regional when I travel) but I had NO INTERNET and no more books on hand. Ugh. I struggled through skimming more and more often and was so relieved to be done. Moral of the story always have extra downloads on hand!

I'm taking up the 50 rule and the life is short rule!

Denise, I used to be like that, forcing myself to finish books I started, and movies, too. Now I don't. I give a book through the sample. If I'm not into it by then, it doesn't get purchased. I know in my own book, the sample goes for about thirty or more pages. As far as I'm concerned that's more than enough. If I haven't hooked a reader by then, I would encourage them to put it down.

The other thing I do, is (assuming I like the sample) I then go to reviews on Amazon or Goodreads, and read them to see if I see any red flags, like "started out good, but fell apart," things like that. If I don't find any, I buy.

I also used to be like that. Ones that don't catch my interest within the first 1/3 are usually not a good sign for me. I will usually give it a chance up to halfway if there is some vague potential for improvement. If it doesn't then I'm out.

Way too many books to read for me to slog through books that I can't get a feel for.

I've had some books where the sample was okay and I bought the book. But it fell apart shortly after where the sample ended.

I've quit a couple of them.

Jan, yeah, they're the worst. That's why I go to the reviews to check if anyone mentions that. People don't always go into that detail, but some will. And if you see it on more than a few reviews, there is probably something there.

I know there are a lot of Jack Reacher fans on goodreads, but I just could not get hooked on his character. Tried two different books, and quit reading well before the middle.

Oh what a pertinent question. I'm 2/3 of the way through Dead Beat by Val McDermid and really want to give up. But I'm so close to the end ... thing is, I really don't care who dunnit. But the guilt of giving up!

I gave up on Twilight. My daughter was hooked and I tried 3 times to read it and just found it insipid and boring.....

I also gave up on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I know, I know, EVERYONE loved it. Not me.....just couldn't get into it.

I am currently struggling with Shadow of the Night. I liked the first one, but this one is just not grabbing with me.

Should we give up together Julie? We can start a mutual support group :)

I gave up on Twilight. Was 150 pp from the end and realized that I hated the book, and it was a total waste of my time so why was I doing that to myself.

I have a 50 pp test and if any book doesn't interest me by then, if is a DNF. Too many good books waiting to be read. Life is too short to read bad books

Sometimes I recognize when reading the book just wont work, especially with longer books, and I get the audio version. Dragon Tatoo was like that. I throughly enjoyed listening to it, and the next two as well, and staggered watching the original Swedish movie versions, and the new movie, in between. So I had a great time with it. But I tried first to pick up the paperback and simply could not get into it.
the only Twilight I watched was the second one i think, because I was on a flight from Seattle to Paris France, and had watched 4 movies so far, and put that movie on because there was nothing else to watch. I was a trapped audience, and I was, like, omg 10 minutes of watching her sit on her bed and spin through the seasons this is terrible! HA!