Ever feel guilty if you can't finish a book

I've been struggling with "The Murder of Harriet Monkton" and have put it on hold for the second time. It feels like it should be exactly the sort of thing I love, but I'm struggling to make sense of the different narrators and it feels like a lot of work to weave their stories together. I'm not getting much of a picture of Harriet. I'll probably come back to it again but wondering if it gets going later on and is just a slow starter?

If I give up on a book its because it's a really bad book, so I don't feel guilty.
I gave up on Generation X. I thought it was supposed to be a classic .

Loved Piranesi though.

I wouldn't feel guilty. It would be a chore to continue to finish a book that I wasn't enjoying.

I give it 3 chapters - if I'm not enjoying it by then, back it goes.

Life is way too short to push through to the end of an unenjoyable book. I've never managed to finish All the Lights We Cannot See, The Little Friend or The Historian, books that others rave about.

I used to feel guilty until the size of my 'to read' pile grew so large that I finally realised the blindingly obvious - I will never live long enough and have enough time to read every book that I would enjoy reading.

Now I refuse to waste those precious hours on books that are really badly written or that I'm just not enjoying.

Btw, I loved Song of Achilles. Sorry it's not doing it for you OP. You could try Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. Same story, mostly from a woman's point of view (Briseis, the captured princess).

Oh I enjoyed Song of Achilles. I’ve given up on other books though - one year I did the 52 book challenge which really helped, I just didn’t have time to devote to ploughing through boring books and didn’t feel bad about. I gave up on The House in the Cerulean Sea. I almost gave up on A Little Life but I wanted to be able to say it was absolute rubbish with the full picture.

Sometimes if it's tedious I'll read bits further on to see if it picks up usually it doesn't.

I gave up on Grapes of wrath years ago. Never went back, just couldn't get into it.

Totally agree that life is far too short to read a book you're not enjoying. Just wasting time that could be spent reading something you'll love

Nope. Life is too short. I come from a very academically snobbish family where failure to finish any reading is regarded as evidence of intellectual weakness. It’s taken me until my 40s to detox my thinking and now if I don’t like a book, I joyfully trip along to a charity shop with it or take it back to the library and am much happier for it. Why would you fill you precious time and headspace with something you don’t care about or enjoy?

Used to, nut no anymore. I think I felt obliged to the author to complete the book, but no life’s too short.

I used to try and plough through to the end of books, but I’ve given up on that now.

I read books for enjoyment. Life’s too short for reading books if I’m not getting anything out of them. It certainly shouldn’t feel like homework!

If you’re halfway through and still not enjoying it, then it’s not likely to get any better for you.

I have eddiemairswife. I didn’t like it at all, found the daughter’s cruelty and total lack of forgiveness of her mother quite disturbing and wished I’d given up rather than ploughing through it.

Not in the slightest. I give a book a couple of chapters and if it's not keeping my attention I give up. Reading is for enjoyment, it shouldn't feel like hard work.

I happened to enjoy that book but i do not continue with books i don't enjoy. Life is short and the list of books i want to read is long! I feel bad about the wasted money, but i see it like buying a pastry that turned out to be too sweet, it's not the shops fault i chose something i didn't then like. So i shrug it out, put it in the charity bag and move on. I tried a book club once and stopped for this very reason.

Always. Usually I will skim so I can feel not as guilty.

I have this with the book this month. I'm probably not going to finish it but it's a collection of short stories so I'll just not engage in the ones I haven't read. Usually id say finish it. Because it might get better. And I do a book club to expand my choices. Plus I'd be annoyed if someone didn't finish my choice especially if I enjoyed it / had a lot to say.

We have a rule in book club that you don’t have to finish a book you’re not enjoying it. Generally I’ve found that many others didn’t read it all either. We just speak about other stuff we’ve read.

I used to, then I realised that these days I read for enjoyment. Now I don't.

I felt the same about the characters in The Secret of Lost Things. Add to that a writing style that I just couldn't engage with and I made it about half way through before saying "nah".

A word of caution though. I struggled with Wolf Hall initially. Gave up after a few chapters. Went back to it a while later and it all just 'clicked' and it was glorious, with Bring up the Bodies a total triumph (I've not yet read The Mirror and the Light so it all may fall apart yet!).

Sometime it might just be right book, wrong time. Only you can judge that for yourself.

No. Once upon a time I might have, but now I'm experienced enough to know that I'm very competent at finishing books, therefore if I'm struggling to finish a book after making a really good attempt to get into it I'm not to blame, either the book and I are incompatible or the book is unfinishable.

My last failure was "Gone Girl". I got about two thirds of the way through and thought, "I don't like any of these people and I don't care what happens to them," and stopped reading.

I usually skim to the end.

I learnt a while ago to just not finish books I'm not enjoying. So liberating! I've given up on two this week and not one once of guilt felt).

I never used to give up on books, but I do now occasionally. This week I abandoned My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley. Has anyone here read it?

Me! I'm currently labouring through the mercifully short 'O Caledonia' which is allegedly the greatest undiscovered novel of all time. I'm beginning to realise why it's undiscovered.