Preparing to post my 2012 books read, I was struck by how long it’s been since I did not finish a book. Since I started reading a long time ago, there were only a handful of books I couldn’t get through. Out of deference to the authors, I will not mention them. I did some quick internet research on why readers don’t finish books. Here are some of the reasons:
- Bad writing
- Unrealistic characters
- Uninspiring or boring characters
- Faulty premise
- Contrived plot
- Confusing story
I found a “Did Not Finish Books” list on Goodreads and it included some famous best-sellers: Fifty Shades of Grey, Eat, Love, Pray, The Casual Vacancy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Time Traveler’s Wife, and The Shack. I don’t know the criteria for this list. It could have been books marked ‘To Read’ by Goodreads readers that the reader just hasn’t gotten around to reading.
At any rate, what turns me off are books in which the story isn’t clear or I simply don’t care enough about the characters to keep reading. In one instance, I got 70 pages into a book by a renowned author and I had no idea what the story was and where it was going. I gave up.
Some books are so well-regarded that I forced myself to finish them. One was Moby Dick. Though it was clear to me why it is a classic, I found Moby Dick a tough read. Herman Melville devoted whole chapters to discussions of such arcane topics as the different types of whales. I started reading it on my Kindle, but ended up taking out of the library an illustrated edition that really helped me to understand the things Melville was attempting to describe.
One book I almost didn’t finish was Anne Tyler’s classic, Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant. Tyler is one of my favorite authors and this is one of her best books. When I first tried to read it, I wasn’t focused. I was going through some personal issues and I found the mother and the main character’s brother to be extremely unappealing characters (intentionally drawn that way by Tyler). I put it down, but six months later, I picked it up and read it through in just three days. I was blown away by the writing and I couldn’t believe I almost let this one pass me by.
I will give a book 75 to 100 pages before I put it down. Some readers are less patient than that. The reasoning is there are too many good books waiting to be read for the reader to waste his time on one that is of no interest. What about you?
How long do you stay with an unappealing book before you put it down?
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