When Should I give up on a book?

[Moonbat]

well I did push on, and now I have finished it.
It did get better towards the end, but overall is not a book I'd recommend and I can't see how it got onto the 1001 books to read before you die (of boredom) list.

Anyway, thanks for the replies, I think I might stop earlier on the next one that really bores me. I think I pushed on so that I could say, 'I've read it' as it is fairly famous and raises my literary kudos ever so slightly.

[chongjasmine]

I will stop reading a book if it does not grip me by the third chapter.
I have better use of my time than reading book that does not keep my interest.

[creynier]

There haven't been many books in my time that I simply just can't get through no matter how good the reviews are but Middlesex was one of those for me. I know what you mean. It's tough. I think you should just push on through. You might be pleasantly surprised.

[Robert Donnell]

I would say 30 pages in if the book is not interesting, toss it.

[zaltys13]

Sorry to come to the discussion so late, but my advice is, give up on a book when it's boring.

Never before, and certainly not after. Just when it is.

Paul.

[Ben M]

Interesting topic this one. I try to give a book 100 pages before giving up on it. I find with new fantasy series I can tell by this point if I'm going to 'buy in' to the world.

With some literature I've really been glad I persevered though. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro baffled me for a long time before turning into one of my favourite novels.

[Mangara]

Don't think I've given up on a book yet, I have a need to know how it ends, luckily I've not found anything a chore yet.

[Parson]

You must be very young, very patient, or easily satisfied. I would guess that I have 1 or 2 books a year I ditch.

[RJM Corbet]

I read a newspaper interview with Wilbur Smith, and the question obviously came up: What are you reading at the moment?

His answer was to name about six obscure (to me) writers.

But I can't imagine myself getting more than halfway through a book and still being unsure about whether or not I want to read it. Takes me a few pages usually. Life's too short.

But then there are books you can't really read all at once. I'm 'reading' War and Peace ... from time to time. It's really very good, but W Smith has convinced me not to feel guilty about putting a book down for a while and picking up another one

EDIT: cmharrogate -- then I will be pleased to send you my manuscript, and you may be the first to find out how it ends

[Mangara]

Originally Posted by RJM Corbet

I read a newspaper interview with Wilbur Smith, and the question obviously came up: What are you reading at the moment?

His answer was to name about six obscure (to me) writers.

But I can't imagine myself getting more than halfway through a book and still being unsure about whether or not I want to read it. Takes me a few pages usually. Life's too short.

But then there are books you can't really read all at once. I'm 'reading' War and Peace ... from time to time. It's really very good, but W Smith has convinced me not to feel guilty about putting a book down for a while and picking up another one

EDIT: cmharrogate -- then I will be pleased to send you my manuscript, and you may be the first to find out how it ends

Count me in!

[bob393]

For me it's like a bad movie. I have friends that have walked out on movies but I never have. If I invested that much time in a book I would finish it. I'm actually reading one now, Kevin Mitnick, The Art of Deception. His book Ghost in the Wires was great, his writing matured a lot but his early stuff, just have to grind through it. I think I have read at least a half a dozen books since I started it.

[J-Sun]

Interesting topic to me because I had this problem with two consecutive items (excluding a collection I was alternating with at the same time).

I decided to read the whole Riverworld quintet of Phil Farmer, starting with a re-read of the first one which I liked long ago. It's still not the greatest book to me, but pretty good. But then I had to force myself through the second. At that point, I'd read about 400 pages but that's when he started writing 400 page installments. I started the third and it was better overall than the second (though worse in at least one way) but not "better enough". I forced myself to finish it, but then was facing 800 more pages and bailed. I did read some reviews and discussions of it and have decided that I almost certainly made the right decision.

On the other hand, I read Alastair Reynolds' Pushing Ice and wasn't overly thrilled with the first part, but was intrigued. He wrecked it at the end of the first part and the middle part was almost unreadable. But I was still interested in the book that should have been. I set it aside and read some of the stories from a collection and returned to Part Three like it was a fresh book and it did get better and, overall, I'm glad I read it all the way through.

So, basically, my unhelpful input is "you never know". But the Reynolds is an example of why I have such a hard time stopping before the end. Sometimes it pays off even if, in this case, it was a mild payoff. And it's partly extrinsic stuff: I knew Farmer had written a quartet of stories and then seemed to write another one after a lull just so he could take four of them (one of the first three being unconnected) and turn them into a pair of books. Then more years passed and he wrote a sequel. Then there was supposed to be a big climax to the trilogy but Farmer claimed it turned out to be so big that it had to be split in two. Yet it took several years for the "other half" to come out. And then he wrote yet another book. That sort of genesis doesn't instill much faith. And, while the core idea was fascinating, little else about it was and the "mystery" seemed like it had a pretty obvious and uninteresting "solution". Whereas the Reynolds was just a book I could plow through and, aside from specific near-fatal problems, was otherwise okay. So you basically just have to judge the likelihood of it being worthwhile vs. the cost to find out, I guess.

[Shane Enochs]

A book's gotta grab my attention pretty quickly. I usually give it one chapter. If at the end of the first chapter I'm like, "ehh... this could go either way," I'll give it another chapter or two.

[CyBeR]

I don't generally give up on books as much as I give up on authors. Orson Scott Card is a very recent case of this he has so far 3 bads for 2 goods and my bookcase still has 5 of his. At this point I just know I'll read that whole saga that in there but I won't be buying anything more from the man, no matter what reviews say, no matter what prizes he may amass. Unless all 5 of these prove to be stellar - and I really doubt it -, there's just no turning back on this one. Xenocide, Children of the mind and Wyrms were too bad to ignore.

I don't give up on books because I like completing stuff...that and I'm too young and read too little for now to actually afford the luxury of scoffing at any experience I don't fully comprehend. I'll probably start giving up on stuff later on, but for now I soldier on through every single piece of trash, even if just to have bragging rights at the end (Twilight...bleah!).

But for the authors: they either need to have written so much trash that I just choke on it in the end (Pratchett has a bit of trash, but I'm not yet dreading the next book); or to just write something so abhorrently bad that they just push me away forever (aka Card).

[Grunkins]

I wrongly gave up on a book this past winter. I was coming off a GRRM Ice and Fire high and wanted something similar, and people kept mentioning Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy, so I happily gave it a go with terribly unfair expectations. I was trying to recreate the experience of reading ASoIaF. I never gave The Blade Itself a chance to be it's own great experience. After 140ish pages I gave up on it, highly annoyed. Thankfully I later read Best Served Cold, and really enjoyed it, then read The Heroes and loved it, so I went back to his trilogy, and just finished the first book a couple nights ago. Now I'm hungry for more. Sorry, Joe, hope you forgive me.

Originally Posted by RJM Corbet

EDIT: cmharrogate -- then I will be pleased to send you my manuscript, and you may be the first to find out how it ends

lol, <3