Do you stick with books you don’t enjoy?

[Namechanger67]

I always feel very guilty to abandon a book I am not enjoying so what normally happens is that I keep it in standby and feel unable to start a new one. Then I fall out of the habit and takes me months to start reading again. Obv not a good approach but I wonder how many people persevere or abandon books they don’t like. Do you then give them away or keep them in your collection?

I download samples from Kindle and if I’ve not got into the book by the time the sample runs out then I don’t continue.
But for Book Group I do continue, even when I hate it, even when it has brilliant reviews. Only to show commitment to the group. ‘The Dispossessed’ by Ursula Le Guin being case in point 😬

Nope life is too short and I’ve too many books to read!

I used to but i feel ife is too short for that. There are so many other books out there waiting to be read

Sometimes I do..I feel one of my biggest - failures in the subject of reading - is giving up on a Bill Bryson book.. Because I often read snippets of his writing and I know it's amazing so I don't understand why I couldn't persevere with whichever book of his I tried. Small Island maybe.

But generally, I give it a good shot and then give up with no regrets.. Life's too short to keep struggling on

But for Book Group I do continue, even when I hate it

So do I, except for The Midnight Library, which I just couldn't get into. I even persevered with a Terry Pratchett that most of the members gave up on. I discovered that I just don't "get" Terry Pratchett.

No, I don't. It's why I have never joined a book group _ I would hate to feel obliged to plough on with something that didn't interest me.

Me neither! I really wanted to like Terry Pratchett's books, lots of people I like love him, but his writing just never clicked with me.

No life’s too short. It’s the same with tv or films. If they are rubbish or start to get rubbish (such as series that started good but several series in are becoming silly) then I abandon ship.

You don’t win any prizes for getting to the end of something

It depends whether it’s a classic or not. I wouldn’t bother sticking with a Bill Bryson book, for example, if I wasn’t enjoying it (I like Bryson btw). But when it’s a classic, I feel kind of duty bound to keep going. Last year, for example, I abandoned Middlemarch. I enjoyed it to begin with, but got bogged down. If that was an Agatha Christie novel, I’d ditch it for good, but most critics consider Middlemarch one of the greatest novels in the English language, so I will return at some point.

There have been many classics I have wanted to abandon. I find Joseph Conrad hard-going at times, and also D H Lawrence. Actually, even writers I adore, like Virginia Woolf, Jane Austen, Iris Murdoch and Evelyn Waugh, occasionally bore or frustrate me.

I get my books from charity shops or borrow from the library, if I'm not enjoying any of them after half a dozen pages back they go, life us really too short. I don't keep fiction anyway, don't like too many books in my home, they attract dust and i rarely reread a novel. And i do bin really terrible books, not ashamed to say that. It's only paper after all.

I always finish Bookclub books, if I’m struggling with it I swap to audio.

Ha ha. Are you me?
I do a fair amount of motorway driving and listening to an audio book really does help with the boredom of a long distance drive. It also helps with getting through books I am struggling with.

I used to but definitely not! Even with the library authors get paid per loan, the book is seen as more popular it was taken out and someone else could love it!!!