Do you stick with books you don’t enjoy?

I used to but realised it was okay not to finish a book. Once I realised that, reading became far more enjoyable. I even gave-up on the classic we were reading for Bookclub because I wasn’t really enjoying it.

I used to stick with it but now having less spare time to read than I would like if I don't feel it in the first couple of chapter I recycle and pass it on.

I started working life as a librarian and never let myself give up on a book I had started. I read loads in my youth, plenty spare time with no kids, no elderly parents and no overwhelming work pressure. (Plus no internet or smart phones!).

I'm now 30 years older, all the life stresses etc and do not have enough time to read stuff I'm not enjoying. Quite happy to give up on a book these days.

I always tried to stick with it, I’m glad I did with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo as that was slow going at first but I really enjoyed it in the end and have all the others. I really couldn’t get into The Blue Hour at all and gave up.

Ni. Ive read 12 books this month and given up on 2. Life is too short

Thank you. I was feeling tetchy about wasting money on The Ministry of Time but would I rather waste a tenner of my money or hours of my time. Think I will drop it at one of the little libraries.

Drop ones I actively dislike very quickly. If I’m just having an absence of enjoyment I give it another chapter /20 pages or so then stop. If I am really on the fence, I might give it a quick google for reviews and see if there’s a theme along the lines of “stick with it” or “I wasn’t enjoying this until…”

I used to abandon books really casually but am trying to get better at finishing them. However I am currently struggling with how badly written The Ministry of Time is. I kept muttering, 'And another shite, overwritten irrelevant simile! And another. And another!' in bed last night which must have tried DH's patience. But there's one every other sentence. As if she got them generated by AI and just cut and pasted them in to make the novel twice as long.

And the handling of such a great idea (It is a brilliant idea, I admit, which is why I bought it) is so facile. Like she is writing for people with a reading age of eight. It's making me angry that such sloppy writing is being touted as good. I wish I could find a modern author who understands the power of simple, economic prose, like Graham Greene did. Really attention-pulling overwriting is so popular these days. I love a good simile, but only when it's needed.

I've got some Kindle books that I return to when I've given up on something new. I'm so fussy about books that it takes me ages to choose something from the library.

Ditto.

As I've got older I've realised my time left is too precious to be spent slogging through a book that I'm not enjoying.
A few years back I thought I'd read Virginia Woolf's 'To The Lighthouse' because I'd heard of it and I'd never read anything by her...
I persevere with it until the end, waiting for something interesting to happen - it never did.

I'd rather "waste" money DNF'ing a book than hours of my life struggling through to the end, even if it is a classic if I'm not enjoying reading it.

I might have had more patience when I was younger but, at 60 now, I just don't care. I read only what I want to read. And I hesitate to even call it wasting money, rather a finding out sooner rather than later and knowing what I do actually want to read.

I used to and then a few years ago I thought life's too short just accept you aren't enjoying it dnd find another you can't wait to pick back up again

If it's a "classic" then I continue, mostly so I can try and see what others enjoyed so much about it. There's been a few cases where I found the first half of the book a slog but ultimately loved the book.

For anything else, eg. easy reading/pop fiction/detective drama etc I'm not going to give it more than 2 chapters to convince me it is worth reading.

@Namechanger67why do you feel guilty? Who is being affected by you not finishing a book? You’ve bought the book so not the author/publisher. The only person being adversely affected is you so why continue? Life is short and reading is a joy so just stop reading books if you don’t enjoy them and start a new one!

No. I used to but I don’t waste my time anymore.

Just this week I got 65% through a novel and a non binary character was introduced. I immediately stopped reading because it’s so tedious to try to pick though the jumble of pronouns to try to figure out who is doing what.

I actively avoid books with non binary characters for this reason but I didn’t know there was one in this one. It’s a hard stop for me.

No. Life's too short to read books you don't enjoy, especially since there are so many good ones!

I have a 3 chapter rule, so if I'm not into a book by the end of the third chapter I ditch it.

I've just done this with a library book - duller than dull and too many characters.

If it is awful I cheat, and just skim enough to know how the plot resolves. Then it is finished and I can move on without feeling guilty about not giving the book a chance.

I honestly can’t be bothered trundling through a book I’m not enjoying. If it’s considered to be a great work of literature, I do wonder if I’m a bit dim and missing something and might persevere for a while😅 But if it’s just a bog standard novel, then I stop without a moment’s thought. Occasionally I have a look at reviews to see if people are saying it picks up later on, but mostly I don’t care. We can’t like everything. And some books are simply the Emperor’s New Clothes to me. Just like works of art I don’t get. Or some worthy, cryptic TV shows.

I used to force myself to read books I disliked until the bitter end, but I’ve stopped doing that now. Life’s too short to force myself to finish reading a book just for the sake of finishing it.

I’m reading for enjoyment, so if I’m not getting anything out of a book, I feel no guilt at all about abandoning it partway through and moving onto something more interesting.

As for keeping books, as a general rule, I’m only going to keep them if I think I’m likely to read or reread them in the future.
There’s simply not enough space in my home for me to keep every book I read, and I’m not going to waste the available space on a book that I didn’t like and won’t pick up again.

When I was at school we had to write a short review about every book we read. If we abandoned it, we had to write a whole page. That instilled in me the habit of ploughing on and it was a long time before I felt comfortable giving up on a book.

There are certainly books I'm really pleased that I persevered with, and that I enjoyed even after a slow start. These days I'm much more relaxed about giving up. Good Reads helps, if I'm hating something I have a look at the one and two star reviews, and if they back up my feelings about a book that confirms my decision not to waste any more time.

This is me now too. My father utilises 'The 40 page test'. If he's not into it by 40 pages, it's out.

Maybe it’s not the best reason for persevering, but the books cost pays some part in the decision. Something I’ve bought for a pound on kindle that’s just not doing it, I’m not bothered, but when I’ve forked out £20 for a new hardback, I’m more likely to keep going, even if it’s not doing it. Having that with Dan Browns latest, it’s not dreadful, but it’s not exactly riveting, bu5 as I asked for it specifically as a Christmas present, I’ll keep going

If I decide not to finish a book, I drop it at the local book exchange next time I’m passing & that robs me of any feelings of guilt.

I do but sometimes I go back to them. Wolf Hall I actually stopped reading two or three times then came back and for some reason clicked with it, sped through all three one after the other, and absolutely loved them.
I will never go back to A Little Life though, that was awful.
Some books, mostly genre, if I'm not engaged I just skip through to the end rather than abandon. Just did that with How to Lose a Lord in Ten Days.