What were your last few DNFs? And why?

'We are all completely beside ourselves' - hated it. Offered it to friend- daughter had also failed to finish it and told her awful it was !!
'Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow' - rambling
'A God in ruins' - couldn't get into to it but loved 'Life after Life'
Both straight in the charity bag

Love The Bone Clocks - one of my absolute favourite books ever

I couldn't finish Butter. I think I'd built it up in my head so much and heard so many good reviews for it that by the time I finally got it from the library there was no way it could live up to my expectations. Also, it wasn't the story I thought it was going to be.

Kevin Pieterson’s autobiography. Just decided that if I met him at a party I’d be desperate to end the conversation (obviously not as desperate as him) so why spend more time on it.

It wouldn’t occur to me to tell an author I couldn’t finish something of theirs. Writing is unbelievably hard work and very personal, and I’m not an expert. The only online reviews I do are on here.

I've been very confused about the references to Still Life, which I enjoyed a lot - realise now mine was one written by Val McDermid though

I just about crawled through to the end of The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern so I could add it to my list of books I've read this year (not a great reason to finish). Poor plot, characters that were like cardboard cutouts and SO many boring descriptions of the oh-so-quirky black and white circus and its many tedious attractions.

Bear town by fredrik backman. Tedious is an understatement.

Wavewalker by Suzanne Haywood is doing my head in and I can’t explain why. Halfway through and have skipped to the last few pages.

But what do you mean by 'poorly edited'?

Also, some of this is your personal taste, surely -- that your idea of a 'decent read' is not 'highbrow' novel? Can you give some examples of novels or authors you like, which cater to your idea of what a decent read is?

I used to follow more authors on social media and blog platforms. Some were very interested in what their readers thought of characters, plot etc. Others not at all. Often I find I don't finish a book as it is poorly edited. You can see the bones are decent but not the final product. I used to think DNF's were personal taste - I am not so sure about that now. I rarely buy new, but if I am paying £10-12 for a paperback I want the read to be decent (not high-brow).

I couldn’t finish ‘The Safekeep’ by Yael van der Wouden, found it so slow and dull. Saw it’s won yet another prize. Did anyone else read and enjoy it?

Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard, the 3rd book in the Cazalet chronicles.

I started them because of MN recommendations & got through the first two, but reached the stage where it was practically all revoltingly nauseating descriptions of messy eaters and people making bad decisions & being depressed.

To be fair they had plenty to be depressed about but still.

I did manage to finish Suspicious Things, but wasn't especially grabbed by it and did flick ahead a few times. It felt more like an exercise in nostalgia for the author rather than telling a proper story.

I don't mind not finishing a book if I'm only a short way through it, but I get especially annoyed when I am almost almost at the end, just a few chapters to go and just lose interest. I'm struggling to finish Butter by Asoko Uzuki at the moment, and found Our Missing Hearts by Celeste Ng similar right near the end, though I thought it was a really good book and I like her as a writer. I just felt I'd read the whole book and couldn't really see the end would go anywhere. I maybe need a few page-turners to perk me up now!

Oh bloody hell, I started this one last night. I fell asleep before I got through the first paragraph 😅. I'll see what tonight brings. Actually, I might read something else and go back to this once I've forgotten what you've said. I used to work for a man who took three pages to say what could have been said in one sentence, it's not funny it's his fault I've got RSI.

@kublacant I finished The List of Suspicious Things yesterday, I quite enjoyed it. That took me a while to get into too because I kept falling asleep. I either need to go to bed earlier or make time during the day to read books instead of MN. There's an idea that'll never happen.

I gave up on Lee Mack's Mack the Life. It was funny in places but not worth persevering with.

There are a lot of books where I fast forward to the end to see what happened, Ed Gamble's was one such book. I feel aggrieved at the £1.99 I spent on it.

I've just realised I never finished it either -- I actually quite enjoy her work in general, but by the time the protagonist was sending videos of herself dancing to the doofus guy and interviewing her friends about their marriages, it got to feel a bit too slick and pleased with itself..?

Well, most writing advice will tell you to use the simplest speech markers, or none, where it's clear who's speaking, and definitely to avoid alternatives -- what is being said shouldn't need to be reinforced by telling the reader how it's said.

'RUN!!!' she shouted loudly. 

'Psst!' she whispered in a low voice. 

'Come over here and kiss me', she purred sexily. 

Etc.

(Having said that, I have never read Still Life...)

I also didn't finish this book. Started it twice and I very rarely DNF a book.

Why on earth would you do that?

Barbara Comyns - The Doll House . I just started to find all the characters annoying and unbelievable. It's a short book, but it should have been shorter.

Actress by Anne Enright. I kept plodding on hoping that I would start to feel something for the characters! Then realised I didn’t really know anything about them and couldn’t care less about them either.

The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey - so basic! Like writing by numbers and I didn’t enjoy it at all.

Poor Girls by Clare Whitfield - bored Brighton waitress runs away and joins gang of female shoplifters in 20s London (based on the real life Forty Elephants gang). It started well, and the descriptions of the gang's methods was really interesting, but it wasn't well written enough to engage me. The characters all seemed too modern and I lost track of who was who.

The Ghost Theatre by Mat Osman - girl gets mixed up with troupe of boy actors in Elizabethan London, it ends badly. Again interesting topic and also based on real-life events, but I couldn't get to grips with or empathise with any of the characters. There's also a lot about a random bird-worshipping cult living out in the London marshes which I couldn't make a lot of sense of. Really wanted to like it but just couldn't stick to it.

Both library books so no great loss!

Still Life by Sarah Winman. I only read about 10 pages, there was just no punctuation and it bugs me.

The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell. I read much more of this. If I remember, it's written in parts so I read the first. The second just got too weird.

The Year of the Locust, Terry Hayes. Really enjoyed his previous book I am Pilgrim but holy heck, this one dragged, and dragged, and dragged and then dragged some more. I just couldn't carry on. Read well over half of it as well.

I’m trying to read all the Booker books but I just couldn’t get through The Famished Road by Ben Okri. I’m not great with some forms of magical realism (although loved Midnight’s Children) and I just couldn’t find any way in to care about any of it.