I ask because I tend to jump off a book if It’s not grabbing me, which at times limits me with regards to what I’m reading.
Does it matter? Is it something I should try to push past or am I overthinking this and should just enjoy what I enjoy?
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I say don’t force yourself. Why force yourself to do a leisure time activity you aren’t enjoying? Sometimes stuff we learn from is boring, sure, but there are endless things to learn. You’ll also learn more if you’re enjoying the topic.
Life is too short to keep up hobbies that don’t bring you joy. If that book ain’t doing it for you, shelve it for now and try a different one.
Why would you read a book you don’t want to?
Personally, because I’ve spent long enough reading it and I want to just finish it if I’m like two thirds of the way through.
In reality, I spend a week thinking “I need to finish that” and then forget about it completely.
If I’m in that situation where I really hate the book but also really want to finish, then it’s usually because there’s that nagging mental thread of something left undone.
But I don’t want to read it. I just want to be done with it.
What I need is closure, which means knowing how the key points wrap up and what happens at the end.
And so knowing that, I commit a crime against literature - I skim.
Normally I’d never skim, but it’s far preferable to never finishing at all, and it ties off that unpleasant dangling thread, letting me be free and move on to something I might actually enjoy.
It depends. There have been books that I have HAD to read and I survived by making notes in the margins about how everything they are saying is wrong. :)
For stuff I didn’t HAVE to read? Fuck that, life is too short. I might consider going back some day, but in most cases, never have.
I got 100 pages into Dune and walked away, that was probably 40 years ago now.
Huge fan of Do Not Finish. There are too many good books out there to waste time with mediocre ones. I’ve noped out of books by my favorite authors. Finishing a book you started because you started it is the perfect example of the sunk cost fallacy.
If it isn’t for a test or essay for school, why would you push through a book you didn’t like?
If the phrase “time you enjoyed waisting wasn’t time wasted” is true, then spending time doing things you don’t want do is wasting time. Life is too short to waste time on a book you’re not enjoyingOften, I don’t. If I think there is a good chance of a payoff, though… I start skimming the crap. I’ve learned to skim through stuff until something of import comes up, and then I step back a couple paragraphs and start reading again.
I don’t know how you’d learn this, but I learned it back in high school when I needed to find information in the textbook quickly, but couldn’t afford to actually read every page on the way. It was massively successful back then, and now both.
If after skimming like 1/4 of a book I haven’t found anything interesting again, I almost always quit, though. It’s really unlikely that a book with that much content that I don’t care about will have anything that I value later.
That said… I have skimmed entire books on re-read. Some of the middle Wheel of Time books, for example. And some were so bad that I just read a summary, instead of skimming. But I like the first books enough that it was worth it for the ending, which was decent, but not mind-blowing like I’d hoped. (I “re-read” them when the later books finally came out and I wanted a refresher.)
Oh Wheel of Time. I love them for the most part, but I just couldn’t care less about a whole book of Elaine playing politics for the Lion Throne. Then there was the book that was mostly just devoted to taking care of a drought. I get the latter is the Dark One’s shadow falling on the world and all, but the boredom it invoked felt like the Dark One’s shadow on my mind.
I’ve been stuck in Winter’s Heart for months, maybe even approaching a year now. I might finish it by the time i have grandkids.
I used to do this but I forgot I did it.
Whenever I’ve pushed through and attempted to finish a book that I do not enjoy, I end up shelving reading as a hobby for a long period of time.
So I decided to just stop trying and if I don’t enjoy them, I stop. There are too many good books to read out there for me to try to force feed one to myself.
I don’t. When I’m clearly not enjoying a book and don’t feel like finishing it, I stop and move on. Unless I have a pressing reason, I see no point in pushing myself to do something I hate. Reading is for me is fun and interesting, it is not something I do to torture myself. Sometimes it’s hard to “give up” on a book, but in the end life is too short.
Do what you enjoy the way that works for you, there are no rules.
I check out books from the library, which of course jas a due date. If I like the book I finish it before it’s due. If I find myself struggling to get into and haven’t finished it by the due date, I just return it and never look back.
I don’t. There are so many books, if I’m not into it I drop it. If I know it should be good I am more likely to stick with it or pick it back up later. Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver took me two false starts over five years to finally reach a place where I could see it through.
normally i put them down and forget about it. i think there’s only one book i finished despite hating it, and that was to be sure that i was right and it was an incredibly shit book and i didnt make a snap judgement. it was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_the_Golden_Touch
Audiobooks on a long trip? It’s been the answer for me on occasion, but some books are impossible to put up with
Why would you want to?
If a book isn’t working out for you, then it’s not working out for you. Don’t get held hostage to the Sunk Cost fallacy - your time is precious, drop that book and pick up something different!
And if you are just unsure about that book, jump ahead by half of the remaining pages and check out an additional 2-20 pages at that point to see if things have improved. If it still doesn’t grab you, dump it and move on.
Don’t. Life’s too short.
If you’re enjoying it but it’s a hard read take a break and try again. If you’re just not enjoying it sack it.
