Reading the wrong book on a holiday

[PeacockSpringy]

Has anyone else accidentally spoilt a holiday by reading the ‘wrong book’ whist away. I mean like spoiling the mood of a holiday by reading something too sad or intense or dark. I’ve done it a few times now. Worst was last summer on a lovely cruise around Scandinavia and I was reading Miranda July’s All Fours! Completely the wrong vibe for a holiday like that! 🤣 going to be more careful from now on!! Just wondered if this has happened to anyone else. I enjoyed that book but wish I’d read it at another time because it just took over my mood whilst I was away!

I read I’m Glad My Mon Died by Jeanette McCurdy on holiday a couple of years ago. It’s an amazing book but definitely the wrong tone for a relaxing holiday. I also ready Matthew Perry’s autobiography on the same holiday. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I read Susan Hill’s The Vows of Silence on holiday with a large group. Had to go off and have a secret cry.

I just read a really boring book on my most recent holiday and couldn’t get into. I kept trying and lost interest in reading. I should have given up and moved on lot another book. I probably didn’t relax as much as I could have done. Lesson learned. Give it up earlier. It’s not worth it.

I never learn. Past holiday reading has included War and Peace, The Grapes of Wrath and Schindler's Ark...

I think it's that I'm trapped on holiday, so see it as a way to make myself read difficult books!

About 10 years ago I started the 50 page rule. If I'm not loving it by page 50, it's ok to give up. Sometimes I'll keep going a little longer, e.g. with a book club book but it's rare that it picks up past this point.

Life is too short to read bad books.

I recall reading The Grapes of Wrath while solo backpacking and sobbing on my bunk at the end in Australia. Some nice boy in the same dorm noticed and bought me a pint to cheer me up. 😂

Marley and Me.

Racing in the rain.

Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Most things by Jodie Picoult.

I always read the difficult books on holiday I don't have the headspace for them when I am working. I do think when I read The Handmaid's Tale on holiday that was maybe going a bit far.

I picked up a book the previous guests had left once - it was by Alan Titchmarsh and MOSTLY fine, but the entire set-up for the romance story was that in the first chapter the mother of the family dies while they're on holiday 😶

The joy of a kindle or audible! You can admit something is shite and choose something else.

I took a book to read in hospital when having dd I thought it was a thriller turned out it was a very well written drama about a woman with postpartum psychosis!! I quickly put it away to read at a later date.

I’m glad I’m not the only one :) i don’t mind not finishing a book if it’s not good. Most of the time when this happens, it’s not that the book’s not good, it’s just not right for the holiday I’m on :)

The last 4 chapters of A Little Life on a ski trip. Bad idea

Oh frequently!

I'm in my 60s, so holidays used to mean reading through my selection of books that I'd packed for the plane, and then having to buy whatever shit the local Greek corner shop had that was written in English in their 'stocked for the tourists' section when I'd run out of things to read.

I've read a lot of badly written bonkbusters and cheap horror that I would otherwise not have bought.