What makes you give up on a book?

[jhmcmullen]

I don’t like wordy, moody writing, exemplified by a page-long description of a hallway with a paragraph for wallpaper. If i can’t bring myself to care about any of the characters, I won’t finish the book.

If there’s a logical inconsistency with the world and no hint that either the author will explain it eventually or it’s not the kind of story where you care, I will probably not finish. For example, if the story makes a big deal of being scientifically accurate but ignores conservation of mass, I worry. If the story is in the style of a fairy tale, then I don’t care about conservation of mass—but I’ll care if you claim to have scientifically accurate shape-changers. (This is why a lot of SF dressed as fantasy fails for me: if it looks and feels like fantasy and you pull out the hypersleep at the 90% point, I might suspect you don’t know what you’re doing.)

 

[minta]

I give a book about 100 pages. If it doesn’t grab me, I move on. Reading should be fun, not homework.

 

[Josh2Write]

I used to be a very forgiving reader. Even if a book wasn't good, I'd keep reading for my own sense of closure.

Not so anymore.

Perhaps I've lost patience as I got older or there are too many alternatives to waste my time, but I will drop a book if isn't entertaining me. Books with annoying, stupid, or boring characters get returned to the library or given to Goodwill. Forget closure. I'm not as forgiving anymore.

This makes me wonder why other people give up. Why do you quit reading a book?

One reason for me is when the writer just writes whatever without thinking how it actually sounds to another person. Too many writers use fancy words to sound smart, educated, but don't really think about how those words sound in an actual human sentence, read aloud. And if I have to keep stopping to read the sentence aloud in order to try to figure out what's happening, it ruins the pace of the story. And a lot of newer books are like this. Too many writers write, but don't think, too focused on money and imagined fame to care what the book actually sounds like, then blames the readers and fans for poor sales.

I'm constantly rewording whole scenes just to make them sound more believable, and some scenes are so boring I faze out entirely and take the story down a different path before it gets to the next part just so it makes sense. Some are so bad I just close the book, not wanting to waste any more time with what I know will be a difficult, probably unnecessary, read.

I would like to be an editor. I know I would do very well as an editor.

 

[xena]

I usually give up on a book when I’m just not invested in the characters’ goals or not intrigued to find out what happens next.

 

[The Dark One]

I usually give up on a book when I’m just not invested in the characters’ goals or not intrigued to find out what happens next.

I really needed to get to the dry cleaners, but couldn't decide whether to walk or get the bus.

 

[jhmcmullen]

An example of a detail where I did have confidence in the author — I just read “If Wishes Were Retail” by Auston Habershaw. It’s a fun cozy fantasy set it what is pretty much the real world but like, with genies and gnomes. And even though the mention of gnomes seemed to come out of thin air, something is the way Habershaw wrote made me think, no, he knows what he’s doing. This will pay off. (Now, vampires also get mentioned as part of the justification for why there are genies) but that’s okay: he put a couple of sentences in to say, “Hey, there’s genes and all kinds of magical stuff, so live with it” — but it doesn’t feel like it has the same weight.) Light, yes, because after the last few years I don’t actually want to read deep and depressing, but finish-able.

Anyway, in other hands, that might have been a throwaway detail where I went, “This author doesn’t know what they are doing.” Here, it worked.

On the other hand, I’m reading Jirel of Joiry (C. L. Moore) for the first time too, and it’s a slog. Moody, evocative writing that doesn’t evoke a whole lot from me. I have to face it: I’m a plot whore. Give me events over atmosphere. Both need to be there, but one entertains me more than the other.. For Moore, I don’t ever feel like she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but I do feel like she has different goals in the writing than I do in the reading.