Abandoning books - life's too short

[Kayemm]

Last year I started an 'Abandoned ' shelf on my Goodreads account and it's about to get it's first 2026 addition.
It's The Fraud by Zadie Smith, it's my book club book. It's the first I've Abandoned in this incarnation of the group. I'm feeling slightly guilty as I know a couple of others have Abandoned it too.

Do you abandon or plough on?

Yes, it certainly seems that way.

I loved CCM too, the beginning is a slog but then it takes off and it's wonderful!

Oh yes, the way child abuse gets pasted in as a really lazy plot device. It's the casualness with which it's often treated. I've dumped books in fury because it enrages me. Authors who can't write a child character without shoehorning abuse into the narrative. And then just moving blithely along with the story as if it's not actually particularly important. Glad to know someone else has noticed!

Very few authors can write children (in adult fiction)

I hate the precocious kid - super intelligent, articulate, sensible and empathetic and only 5 years old!

Matilda??

Ha! They can get away with it in kids books!

I was thinking of a few Japanese books I’ve read recently.

I dislike giving up on books but I recently decided that I'm never going to get to the end of One Hundred Years of Solitude. I also just decided a book (When the Moon Hatched) was so poorly written it should have had purple font. I was going to struggle to the end but I discovered it was an e-book I'd borrowed so I was wasting time by continuing with it rather than money by stopping. Deleting it was the only pleasure the book gave me.

I love this book! I saw the film and thought it was awful, then read the book and couldn’t understand how they made such a dull film from such a wonderful book.

I have abandoned many books though. I got through the god of small things through gritted teeth but now think life is too short. I had to abandon The Power. Such a good premise but just didn’t get on with it. Also recently abandoned Butter. I got about half way through but it was so tedious.

This was an early abandon by me. Absolute drivel.

I usually plough on until the end. I mean, that's how I got through a short Ian McEwan book that I'll never be revisiting...

I put Jane Eyre down for a rest at some point in my teens and haven't picked it up since. My favourite review of that book was written by someone on here, actually: "Similarly, Jane Eyre would have been vastly improved if she had caught consumption from her friend in the first chapter and died. Would have saved a lot of tedious mimsy nonsense". I quite agree!

I give it a good few chapters in case but yes, then it’s gone!!

Agreed

I normally try to finish them there are some I do just abandon, generally though I’d just not buy anything by the author again, having this with Dan Browns latest, I’ve never actually read his books before but struggling with it and very doubtful I’d buy any of his others

I abandon ruthlessly whether free or paid, sunk cost fallacy.
It used to be a thing that it was almost sinful to start a book and not finish it. In my case that just meant I put the book down and didn't read at all.
In my 50s I changed my attitude and it's liberating.
I probably abandon about 50% of the books I start and as someone said that probably means I'm not choosing the right books. I have been known to abandon with only a chapter to go if I'm annoyed with a book.
I signed up to do the Tale of Two Cities thread but after one chapter I remembered I am no longer at school and don't have to read unless I am enjoying it.
I gave up Outlander after 400 pages because it was just sex with a bit of plot.
I give up if there's an unexpected supernatural element thrown in.
I gave up The Mandeville Secret at 75% because nothing happened.
Sometimes if I've enjoyed it so far I will speed read to the end.

I abandon with no guilt whatsoever, too many good books available why waste time with a bad one.
Two i remember abandoning were Life of pi and Time travellers wife after attempting them more than once , never again .
I don't abandon very often now but don't think twice be it 1st chapter or half way or more through.

Abandon. I abandoned 'There are Rivers in the Sky' recently and the relief was enormous. I did lumber through 'My Brilliant Friend' at the fifth try and am still wondering what the fuss is about. Should have left it. Also exited 'Lincoln in the Bardo' but I suspect I'm in a majority there.

I probably abandon about 50% of the books I start and as someone said that probably means I'm not choosing the right books.
The next-but-one post about Lincoln in the Bardo reminds me of one of my top tips for avoiding the wrong book: swerve the prize winners! The judges seem to give points for novelty, trendy "issues", general weirdness, and lack of SPaG but not for good writing.

I almost always plough on - William Burrough's 'The Naked Lunch' is the only book that ever defeated me, as it made me feel slightly queasy.

I have trudged through Elias Canetti's 'Auto da Fe', Zola's 'Germinal' and Rohan Mistry's 'A Fine Balance' - those are have in common that they are unrelentingly bleak and miserable. They're well written but it's just never-ending cruelty and situations that just get worse and worse so I've made a decision to not read again anything that looks like it'll be that way. Last year I looked up summaries of Zola's other books in case there was something readable but they all sound full of horrible, bitter characters motivated by hatred so definitely no more Zola for me!

I felt exactly the same about My Brilliant Friend. I hated the friend.

I abandoned Kerouac's On The Road with literally 2 pages left. I'd battled through and physically couldn't do it. Should have given up sooner. There's no point if you have to force yourself to read it.

I am finding myself abandoning more and more books. There's so much over-hyped stuff out there which sounds interesting and then turns out to be deadly boring or unreadable or both.
I used to battle on but then I'd get stuck on a book or a month or longer when I could have been reading something else of interest.

I am also abandoning TV series and films much more frequently. (So much shite on Netflix these days) If it pisses me off or fails to grab my interest in the first 10 minutes it gets dumped.

There are too many good books and not enough time to read them, not to abandon ones I am not enjoying. That said, I have a friend with almost exactly the same taste as me who is a voracious reader and never abandons books and once a year he gives me a list of books he thinks I will love and I always do, so I no longer need to abandon books. It’s very handy having what is essentially a reading curator just for me.

I once left a terrible play at the interval too and would definitely do it again if I saw another play that poor. As with bad books, life is too short for bad plays.

Abandon. I see no point at all in continuing something I'm not enjoying, same goes for film and TV. I usually know within the first few pages if the book is going to engage me, but sometimes I have got quite a way into it and then it's started to 'drift away' into being boring, but I'll still abandon it, no point throwing good time after bad.

I get most of my books from charity shops and give them back when I'm done with them (I'm quite selective about what I keep even if I've read the whole thing) so I don't feel guilty about not reading them because a charity has benefited.

I once left a terrible play at the interval too and would definitely do it again if I saw another play that poor. As with bad books, life is too short for bad plays.
We almost did that once. It was so dreadful that we nearly left at the interval. Then it turned out to be 'a play within a play': the second half was actors portraying people (as normal); the first half had been actors portraying those same people as they acted in a play, badly.
I can't remember anything else about the play, apart from that twist!

When younger DH and I would try and see a lot of plays but quite a few times we had a discussion at the interval about leaving. We never did but every time we regretted the decision!!