What makes you give up on a book?

[Anders Ämting]

I stop reading a book if it starts to bore me. I see no point in reading stories that fail to entertain. The book has to interest me from beginning to end.

I also tend to stop reading when I get the feeling I'm smarter than the author, or when I feel I disagree with the author's opinions, or if I think I could do something better than the author.

...In fact, if the book is making me draw any kind of conclusions about its author, that's probably a bad sign right there. When I'm reading a book, I really shouldn't be thinking about the author.

Finally, I must admit: I can't handle embarassment, literally can't stand it, so if something embarassing happens to one of the characters, I tend to put the book down. It won't necessarily make me drop it entirely, but it takes some willpower for me to power through that embarassing part.

 

[CupofJoe]

Apart from the nebulous [such as I don't like the authors style] what I don't like and will make me stop reading are superhuman characters [supra-human is okay]. If someone is the ultimate warrior and an amazing lover - make them a lousy cook, unbearably arrogant or give them BO, anything to let have them a flaw.

 

[Benjamin Clayborne]

In retrospect, I think the main thing that puts me off books is when nothing bad ever really happens, and all challenges are overcome with minimal effort. I know I've enjoyed a book when I feel like the protagonist is actually in danger. When I notice that I'm not concerned, or that I don't care what happens to the protagonist, it's not doing its job.

 

[grimreaper]

I tend to put a book down either when nothing interesting or worthwhile seems to happen for sometime , when the protagonists seem to be winning too easily or , conversely, when the protagonists start suffering too much without any kind of redemption and the villains keep winning(that's what made me put down martin's asoiaf series after book 3).
Oh, and I also find paper thin, 1 or 2-D characters to be very irritating , though I might not always put a book down because of that.

 

[pmmg]

When I was younger, I hated reading. I never read anything I was assigned in school, and did my book reports based on only half a chapter I would read. As I got older, I also did not like reading. When I did read, it was usually something thick and dense, like a book to certify in MCSE, or SQL databases. Occasionally I would read something, but it was not ever anything I sought out to enjoy.

As I got older, I decided to read all those books I skipped when I was younger, and enjoyed all of them but one. Now I read about 50% fantasy (and usually people here, or I find on the internet), and 50% classics. I dont really like the fantasy as much, but its kind of like homework for me.

I am an avid movie goer, and see just about everything, but movies have become so thick with 'the message' I think I may stop. Its rare I see a movie now I dont find myself bored in (my word for it is CGI boring), or feeling like I should just leave, and I have started to leave if its just not delivering for me. It dont take much anymore to get me to leave a movie, and it never took much to get me to quit a book. I dont really read to enjoy, but more to learn. I have enjoyed, and like it when I do, but its still not my thing. I am not really a reader. I would rather create.

Anyway, I will drop a book for many reasons. If I dont become engaged, if its too much thick dense blocky paragraphs, if it making me go Bullsh*t, if it seems to forget its purpose and wanders off, if I am not entertained or feel like I am learning anything...A hundred reasons. The only thing I try hard to stick with is one I am reviewing. Cause I know its a service to those who are craving the feedback.

 

[hammert]

bad happy end

 

[pmmg]

Youd give up on a book if the end is bad?

 

[Gospodin]

Pace - This was my issue with Lord Foul's Bane, not the infamous incident close to the beginning of the book. I've read the trilogy - I know where it goes - I understand what that early event is setting up. But, dude - you give me that and then basically nothing else happens for the rest of the first book. It's barely more than a travelogue after that. That was the unforgivable part for me, not the thing that happens early on.

Abandoning the chosen structure - If your book is in rotating 3rd limited and in the very first scene where you present her, you tell me that Arya Stark detests everything about the highborn lady line she’s expected to toe, don’t give me page-long clothing descriptions from her narrative POV because you already told me she’d sooner pull out her fingernails than care about any of that, so why is she reporting it? It’s fan service, it breaks the character’s POV, and it bugs.

 

[Finchbearer]

I have a big DNF pile - turn offs are unbelievable characters, annoying characters that are meant to be main characters, books that are trying too hard to be intellectual or clever, trend oriented books, YA vampire romance books, there’s only one version of a vampire, and he’s scary af, overly depressing books - oh the list goes on.

Notable books on my hate list are Normal People, The Discomfort of Evening, The Bell Jar, Coraline…