Ever feel guilty if you can't finish a book

[Chocolatefrenzy]

I'm reading 'The song of Achilles' by Madeline Miller. It's a book club choice, I'm half way through and really not enjoying it.Feels like homework. I hate giving up on books but wish I was reading something I couldn't put down etc.
So my question is, Do you always try and plough through to the end or do you tend to give up on books if they don't float your boat.

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).

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 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.

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'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?