Lara asked this question recently regarding her own reading, and I’d been pondering it since then until I came across this article from Sophie Vershbow: “When Is it Okay to Not Finish a Book?”
So how does a conscientious person decide when to give up and when to stick it out to the end? The debate is much older than the internet, but in online reading communities such as Goodreads, or on the literary sides of Instagram or TikTok, the acronym “DNF,” for “Did Not Finish,” abounds—as do arguments about when doing so is appropriate.
There are those who strongly believe that no matter how badly you want to abandon a book, you should always finish it, and plenty of others adamant that life is too short to ever read something you’re not thoroughly thrilled with.
I love Sophie Vershbow’s writing, especially when she’s writing about publishing, books, and reading, and the article gave me even more to think about.
I didn’t have an answer to the “why” part of the question until very recently because my answer to “when do you DNF,” or “when is it okay,” is “Whenever the fuck I want to stop reading something.”
“When?” Whenever I want!
I don’t suffer from completism, nor do I feel required to start at book 1 if I want to read book 3 of a series. If I don’t like something, I move on. There’s no Reading Police that are going to come find me. I don’t think so, anyway. If they show up on my porch, I’ll ask to see their warrant. (And I’ll definitely read it to the end!)
But then I hit a hard stop in a book recently that seemed so absurd that I had to sit and think deliberately whether I wanted to continue. I knew I had a few “whys” when I DNF. This was a new one, though.
I was looking for some examples of the “Touch her and DIE” trope, which typically does not work for me but I was curious. And in the book I was reading, the hero’s pov chapter starts with grumpy ruminating about all the large luxury business buildings…in the middle of Washington DC’s metro area.
Allegedly the hero is in a building with thirty-plus floors?
So this may be a bit too inside-baseball style pedantry, but DC is a very short city. Petite, even. There are laws from the 1890s about how tall a building can be based on width of the street it is on:
The 1899 Height of Buildings Act established that no building could be taller than the Capitol (289 feet), but if that’s the case, why don’t we have a city full of 28-story buildings? Well, in 1910 the act was amended to restrict building heights even further: no building could be more than twenty feet taller than the width of the street that it faces. So, a building on a street with an 80-foot right-of-way could only be 100 feet, or 10 stories.
(Source: We Love DC.com – this article is neat. I really went full nerd on this one.)
I really had to ask myself if I wanted to keep reading! The version of DC in the book was so off the wall, it was nearing Rrrrrrromantasy territory. It was so absurd.
(I did keep reading but I ended up DNFing because the narration kept describing coffee as anything but coffee – “bitter brew,” “dark liquid,” “bitter liquid.” JUST. SAY. COFFEE. IT’S FINE.)
So now my brain has latched onto this query and I wanted to ask y’all as well – have you thought about why you DNF, and what your latest hard stop was? (And is it alternative descriptions for “coffee?”)
Elyse: For me a hard stop is usually content related.
I don’t want to read about sexual assault, violence to children or animals on the page.
I also DNF a lot of books because I can’t get into them, but then return to them later. I’m very much a mood reader and sometimes the world building is taking too long or the romance is too slow burn, and I switch to something else and come back when I’m in a different mindset.
Sometimes I want a quick hit of adrenaline like a thriller and sometimes I want lots of world building and detail like fantasy. It just depends on my headspace.
Amanda: I think the posing of the question “when is it okay” feels silly to me because the answer is whenever you want. There’s no shame in not finishing and I personally love to rant. #HaterAtHeart
However, if I am recommending a book that I finished and know there’s some pacing issue, I’ll definitely mention, “Oh, you do have to stick with it for X amount of pages” and then they can go with god.
I DNF a lot. Like a lot a lot. If the mood isn’t right. If the characters are annoying. If it’s too twee. Usually within the first 50 pages.
Sarah: The first 50 pages part is key for me, too, especially because as I said on a recent podcast, so many romances lately seem to have an inciting incident that is complete career and personal destruction or some form of cataclysmic humiliation for the heroine and my secondhand embarrassment meter cannot handle it.
Claudia: I am a recovering “completionist.” In the past, if a book wasn’t holding my attention, I’d often skip a few paragraphs or pages. I don’t this as much now. I think for me is a mix of my own moods and whether something in the book annoys me, like the example that Sarah gave.
Shana: I consistently DNF about a third of the books I start. I often feel vaguely guilty about it because I’m refusing to consume someone’s lovingly crafted art. Also, a DNF has the potential to turn into a ranting review and I love a good rant.
But I decided long ago that my happiness is more important than reading a book I hate in service of others. I often check Goodreads to reassure myself that another reader has already clocked whatever made my teeth set on edge.
I often DNF when I pick a book with a trope or theme I usually dislike and then, surprise, I don’t like it. Last week, I was burning through Lillian Lark’s monster romances when I got to Stalked by the Kraken. Stalking in a romance doesn’t usually work for me but I like Lark so I tried it anyway. The hero sees the heroine from across the room and stalks her for a week while she has the creepy crawling feeling of someone watching her. I hated it. So I skipped that book and went on to the next one.
Sometimes I’ll be happily reading until I stumble over one of my least favorite character traits, usually an alphahole or character who stubbornly believes their billionaire love interest is inherently better than they are. When that happens I limp along for a while before admitting defeat.
Tara: I agree with a lot of what everyone else is saying. One of the best days in my life was when I finally acknowledged that life is too short to read books I don’t love.
For the most part, I’ll DNF a book because I’m bored or because I don’t like the characters. I also have a hard time reading romances with characters who have the same name as me, my husband, or my kids. I just bailed on a book with a character named Tara, because her self esteem was through the floor.
I’ll also bail on a book if it’s too sweet or so emotional that it feels absurd.
Sarah: I still can’t believe you got a romance where the two leads had your daughters’ names. Like, whoa.
Tara: Oh yeah. I regret that one.
I wasn’t paying attention to character names when I requested an ARC because I was so excited by the best friends-to-lovers premise. Then it arrived and I saw the best friends have the same names as my daughters. So that one is more of a “will never start” than a DNF.
Lara: I DNF a lot of books. Sometimes for the reasons above, but sometimes because I’m just not in the headspace to read. No book stands a chance in those circumstances, or maybe only the truly spectacular. When I DNF I don’t get far – maybe 5% in – then I chuck in the towel. When I am in the mood for reading and I still DNF a book, it’s either some kind of ick or I just don’t care about the characters at all.
Sarah: It’s really interesting to me that so many people (not in this conversation – I was re-reading Sophie Vershbow’s article again because it’s so good) feel like starting a book requires finishing it. I’ve just never felt that way, even when I skim skim skim to find out who did it and move on with my life.
Lara: I wonder if the source of the book matters. If I’ve bought the book, it physically pains me to DNF. I get properly grumpy about it. When I had limited access to romance novels (small town library), I’d also persevere more often out of desperation for more.
Sarah: I bet it does matter! When there were so few romances available to me, I stuck with a lot of books I’d tap out of now.
Claudia: Yes, or a book that took forever to be available from the library!
Sarah: Scarcity or lack of options, plus having waited and invested time? Oh yeah. That’s a hard situation!
Claudia: Definitely a bit of FOMO.
Sarah: And isn’t FOMO a wild, unpredictable motivator?!
Claudia: Sure is!
Sarah: I know I’ve done somewhat out of character things because of FOMO-influence. WEIRD how powerful it can be.
Elyse: I can’t get over how many books I’ve read because of social media pressure that were terrible.
Shana: I saw a TikTok that recently where @jennis_bookclub talked about popular books that she is not straight enough to read.
(Sarah: I was going to embed but it auto-plays and I don’t love that, so that’s a link to the video in question.)
I felt so seen! I honestly have no FOMO about many Booktok romances because when I try to read them it’s pretty clear they’re not going to work for me.
Elyse: Also, not to be morbid, but I’ll die with books unread. Is it really worthwhile to push through a meh book when I could read something I love instead?
Sarah: My father always says you can’t die if you don’t have unfinished books. It’s his secret to immortality.
Elyse: I’m gonna live forever.
Susan: I remember the bad old days when I would never DNF queer fiction regardless of quality, because it was so hard to find! And now it’s everywhere and I don’t have to finish bad books for crumbs.
(Ask Me About Terrible Queer Fiction, I Dare You)
What I find now is that if a story sets up a mystery and I solve it before the character even has a clue, I can’t keep reading. I have asked friends, “What chapter does the protagonist realise [x]?” and if the answer isn’t soon, I have to bail.
And weirdly, characters betraying their loved ones without even noticing drives me bats. I’ve tried to read the Whyborne & Griffin series five times, and EVERY SINGLE TIME I get to the same page of Bloodline and have to stop. Like, I can read a lot of dubious things, but feeling disappointed or disgusted by the characters is a thing I can’t get past
Basically my thoughts on DNFing are that it’s always okay, and you’re allowed to do it for whatever reason.
… And there’s always the option of just skipping to the last three chapters, which is how I read thrillers.
Sarah: I misread this as “Skipping the last three chapters” of a thriller, and thought you were skipping the whole ending and was IMPRESSED.
Susan: “I’ve seen enough!” [drops book, leaves]
Sarah: A true champion!
What about you? Do you finish the books you start or do you DNF? Have you thought about why you DNF, if you do?
I’ve become a chronic DNF’er, especially since trying “booktok”/social media recommendations, if they are available thru my local library. (In this economy, I use the library to try out new-to-me-authors.) I’ve probably DNF’ed 9 out of every 10. Seriously. If it doesn’t grip me within the first chapter (I’ve generously gone as far as the 3rd on some, hoping things pick up …), if I mentally can’t figure out what the hell is going on, when there’s too much info-dump (show me! don’t tell me!), when the POVs hop around like bunnies and I can’t tell who’s head I’m in, when it’s just poorly written, if I forget I’m reading and start doing something else … I’m outta there. I’ve been really dismayed by the poor quality of work that’s actually being published these days. Are people’s reading-ability levels so low??? Life is too short to read poorly written dreck.
It’s common for me not to finish books, but rare for me to consciously choose not to. It tends to be more just something that happens. I get distracted really easily these days, and if a book isn’t really STICKY, just, something about it latches onto my brain and won’t let go, then unfortunately it’s entirely possible for me to just put it down one day and then forget to pick it back up again.
But I HAVE quit books on purpose before. Most memorable occasion was when I threw The Da Vinci Code across the room. It was the bit where the protagonist was explaining that the Mona Lisa was a hermaphrodite and you can tell because “Mona Lisa” is an anagram for the names of a pair of male and female Egyptian gods. Cue the sound of a paperback hitting the wall accompanied by me screaming “and what’s the anagram for LA GIOCONDA, a**hole??!!”
Oh yeah, I totally DNF – same reason as most of the contributors to the post. There are too many books out there to waste time on ones that I don’t really want to keep reading. There are loads of reasons why I might DNF!
A lot of my romance DNFs are serials where the author spends more time with MCs from previous books than they do on the MC in the current book. If I’m at 20% and the MCs haven’t even met yet, I give up on it.
I’ll also DNF if the characters are too perfect, have nowhere to grow, always say and do the right things. I need some kind of conflict to hold my interest.
I DNF if I just can’t buy what the author’s selling. Sometimes the author just hasn’t done research – the skyscrapers in DC would fall into this category – or there are aspects to the story that just don’t make sense to me and trash my immersion!
Sometimes an author’s style just irks me. I remember being excited to read The Shipping News when it was published because there wasn’t a lot of literature set in Newfoundland where I grew up – and I couldn’t get past the first chapter because the style was driving me nuts. I tried again about a decade later, but same thing.
Violence to animals is a hard no for me too.
I have the 50-page guideline too.
I’ve quite books on page 3 though (once at least because the author was infodumping clumsily, and once for not recognising sexual assault for what it was).
I have been wondering why I, an avowed Greek Mythology Nerd and feminist, dnf so many of the “feminist retellings of Greek myths”. So far partial explanations include: these retellings seem profoundly uninterested in the world in which the stories take place, including the religious and cultural norms – mostly for Girlboss Points. And the language is often very flat, which might be to make it easier to read for readers who are just coming into the genre?
@DejaDrew I wish I had stopped reading The Da Vinci Code at that point… But I simply had to see how much worse it got.
I used to be a completeist, and the book that broke me was an Agatha Christie mystery with Tommy & Tuppence that was so boring that I simply could not keep my eyes open long enough to finish a paragraph.
The best thing about being old and cranky is that I have finally come to understand that I don’t have to like that thing that everyone else loves. I have powered my way through books that I actively disliked because everyone said it was the best thing ever and then wondered what was the matter with me. I wouldn’t choose to spend my free time with people I don’t like, so why should I waste time engaging with books I don’t like?
I have an actual DNF shelf on GR for books that I deliberately stopped reading for good reasons. And I articulated said reasons because they mattered to me so that if I feel the need to try again, I’m warned.
But those books where I try a chapter or two and then drift away from it? That’s not DNFing in my brain. That’s looking for something to read that wasn’t right in that moment. I might try again later when I’m in a different mood.
I have a fantasy novella that I’m “currently reading” that I’ve been stalled on for months. It’s not a DNF because I intend to get back to it one day—FFS self, it’s a novella!—but I haven’t been in the right mood for it since I drifted away from it.
I’m also stalled on the audiobook of Murderbot #7—and have been since it first released—because I don’t like underground tunnels. Now that I own the kindle copy I need to eye-read the damned thing so that I can listen to the rest of if without dreading what’s around the next bend/door/opening in the underground tunnel.
Okay, underground tunnels in a book is something that might make me DNF a book? (I’ve hated them since I was five years old and my mom accidentally traumatized me by reading me a Famous Five book where someone was stuck in an underground room at the end of a tunnel…or something. On a place called Whispering Island. *shudder*…I demanded that she stop reading it at that time…and came back to it at age ten when I read it for myself. For closure and because I was reading the rest of the series. I still didn’t like the underground tunnel, though.)
Back in early Kindle days, I used to batch download free books (because I couldn’t get over it – FREE?!? BOOKS?!?). Many were self-pubbed, which is great, but many had sooo many editing errors. Those led to lots of DNFs, because nothing keeps me out of a story than typos, misuse of words and grammar and more.
The other thing – and this I usually don’t make it more than two pages in – is too much colloquial and/or phonetic language. I’d much rather the author tell me someone spoke with a twang rather than write out, “I ho-ope you yunguns shur do lak these here chitlins.”
Oh yeah, and creepy incest vibes. Nope right the heck outta there.
I find that I’ll DNF “sex by fraud” a lot. Those are the ones where one character has a secret/information that they know the other character needs to know but they don’t tell them for little reason other than, “because then they won’t want to be with me anymore.”
If this is happening and I suspect that the author is going to drag this out I will generally read ahead to see when the big reveal happens. If it’s after they have sex, I nope out.
(It was the Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan who actually taught me that I could expect better. In that book the hero is asked to spy and humiliate the heroine and something like four chapters in he says, “can’t do it, and you should know this is going on” and then the book gets GOING.)
Once again, I know I have found my people. I DNF all the time these day, sometimes after the first chapter. The main reasons are harm to children and animals, serial killers, or sexual violence/assault – those are the hard no responses. But I’ll co-sign most of what people have written above: toxic characters, overdose of twee, overly-complicated world-building right at the start, too many historical errors, weird formatting choices (refusal to use quotation remarks in conversations). I do have a pile of books to try again later (if the library holds don’t run out first).
One of best things I’ve realized about borrowing more books from the library is that there’s less guilt in sending them back unread (I still appreciate the work and expense in making these available to me.)
I, too, have a shelf on Goodreads/Kindle for, “DNF or just not for me”. One of the things not mentioned a lot in the previous comments is when the voice of the character becomes the voice of the author and it’s intrusive. For example, a 20 something billionaire (always self-made, I think that must be part of the trope) complaining about colonoscopies — I think that one he compared eating vegan to colonoscopies. I have to say, a 20 something doesn’t know colonoscopies unless they have chronic issues….. Or when the editor should have fact checked something and didn’t. Plots that hinge on illegal behavior (by non-story related characters), or “facts” that wikipedia can tell you aren’t right. I know I DNF one because she “failed” the LSAT. You don’t fail the LSAT. You can get a crappy score, but it’s not pass/fail. So when the plot is utterly stupid, or the author’s voice falls out of the character’s mouth, I can’t. I know I DNF one b/c the MC thought about reading Fountainhead for the romance story. That was after her height, weight, and BMI (incorrect, she was too thin by BMI) were given. Age 24 and she’s the most sought after investment advisory in NYC, yeah, DNF… I get suspension of disbelief, I love sci=-fi/fantasy — but if you’re going for “contemporary” at least treat your readers with a tiny bit of respect. And keep your politics out of it.
Also, if you’re an international business success, you probably think about something other than everywoman you meets breasts and how they would look good bouncing in front of you when you first meet your new board member/ assistant/ rival/ department head / investment.
You have to at LEAST listen to and process the business stuff.
I’ve DNF a lot for that one.
Sarah, I am also in DC and HATE when they get things wrong about how DC works, from the building height to geography to working for the government. That will totally make me DNF.
I echo the sentiments of a lot of us in that the older I get, the more I’m likely to DNF a book that I’m not enjoying. The one rule I have for myself (just for me, I don’t say it applies to anyone else) is that if I want to review a book, I have to finish it. I’ve hate-read a handful of books just so I could write a review to warn others off of it.
If you want to DNF a book, but need some structure to your abandonment there’s a traditional formula. Subtract your age from 100; the answer is the number of pages you have to read before DNF-ing. This has the advantage of reducing the number of necessary pages as you become more distinguished (aka get older!)
I’ve also DNF-ed after the first page if I don’t like the author’s style, especially overuse of adjectives.
Finally I’ll quit a book when I realize that I don’t give a damn what happens to any of these people!
That is such an interesting question !
For me, while I absolutely agree that you can DNF anything you want I tend to finish books I don’t really like because I still want to know the end. Recently I read a romance novel where the hero physically restrained the heroine and it was treated like not a big deal, I absolutely hated him but still read the whole thing (sometimes it’s also fun to hate read I guess?)
However it’s very common that don’t feel very engaged and I tend to start another book in parallel (something I picked from my partner who reads multiple books at the same time). It usually helps me finish the original book, sometimes I also just give up. Does starting to read something elso count as DNF ?
I DNF for similar reasons as others here, plus overuse of pop culture/memes (like Taylor Swift references, Gen Z slang, and/or using a name as an insult, like Chad or Karen). Too much pop culture is distracting for me. Using a person’s name like a meme is lazy character building and problematic.
The author using therapy slang (triggered, traumatized, PTSD) to be cute is another potential DNF route. It diminishes the real meaning of the words for those who need them and just doesn’t land well for me.
I will stop at any point for any reason, no guilt. Why? Because I want to. I do sometimes choose to hateread to the end, or (rarely) skip to the end, or (more usually) skim huge sections. Anyone who thinks my opinion on a book is less valid because I haven’t read it thoroughly enough to agree with them can fuck right off.
I do think there can be value in reading something that is uncomfortable or infuriating and there are plenty of books that one has to get to the end to feel the full emotional heft or understand what the author is trying to do. If I can’t be bothered to go on that journey, for whatever reason (and a fundamental mischaracterization of real world setting could absolutely do it, DC highrises indeed!) then that author has failed me, and I have no obligation to extend my faith further. That doesn’t make the author a bad person, or a bad writer (although they well may be either or both) and it doesn’t mean they’ve failed any other reader on the planet. Art is personal, and subjective.
Classic example here is Lolita. Nabokov was not in any way attempting to promote pedophilia and indeed I read it as a pretty brilliant inditement of the ways society is complicit. Try telling that to all the publishers and film directors who persist in casting a seductive Lolita. Or all the readers who don’t want to spend one single moment in the head of a monster, and are rightly furious that anyone would attempt to force them to feel so unsafe when they don’t consent. Nabokov can work for me but fail those other readers, and readers may love or hate him and still be failed. One can argue that those readers have failed Nabokov, and I guess that’s sortakinda the same thing if we’re saying there’s no blame to be cast because opinions simply differ. As opinions do. But really that’s a misunderstanding of how power and responsibility work (ironic, given what I think the book is about). My interpretation happens to align with Nabokov’s stated creative intent, but that doesn’t make it more valid. If anything, the fact that the very word Lolita has come to mean a child temptress because so many people did not get from the book what he was trying to convey indicates that the book failed most readers, and anyone who read the opening paragraphs and rejected it is simply more discerning.
There are so many books I want to read that I’m not going to waste my time forcing myself to read something I’m not into. Ultimately it’s a function of whether the book grabs me and if it doesn’t, the heck with it. I have enough rules in my life, I don’t need them for leisure activity.
I used to be a completionist, but after getting KU–and getting old enough to realize I’m not going to get a chance to read everything–I had to alter my approach. Way too much stuff on KU isn’t really edited at all. I can put up with some misspelled words, but misused words and misplaced apostrophes do me in. And like Sue mentioned, sometimes you find a book where it seems like the author was told “you need more description” so they went through and added random adjectives. Or one where an author overuses a particular word–I recently had a book where the half the dialogue was described as a character “smirking” while saying something. No story about people who smirk all the time is worth reading! All those are DNFs within the first few pages. DNFs after the halfway point are much rarer, but I recently had one that was pitched as a thriller, began with some horrific torture and sexual abuse (I made it past that by skimming) then at the 50% point, turned into…a secret baby romance? I don’t mind genre mixing but that was too much. I’ve also DNFed quite a few “grumpy boss” books (okay let’s just go ahead and call them sadistic bosses and call the EEOC, shall we?) to the point I don’t even try to read them anymore. I’ve also been DNFing more historical romances recently–not due to bad writing or problematic characters, but just because it is so depressing reading about the systemic oppression of women.
Sarah, high five on DC nitpickiness. I tried to read a kind of soapy women’s fiction book set in DC once and the author made a big deal about how the female character’s husband was from this big deal political family and his life revolved around being mayor of DC. Okay, being mayor of DC is a pretty, thankless uncool job, but sure whatever.
What really killed it for me is the husband and his whole family were white and old money. Just, no. No. We’ve only had home rule with a mayor since the Civil Rights era (before that it was an all white council appointed by Congress). We’ve never had a white mayor (to my knowledge) and DC mayor is certainly not the kind of title a rich, privileged white guy would be thirsting after. He’d be a lobbyist/consultant or Daddy would be setting him up with a Congressional seat in nearby Maryland or Virginia with an eye on bigger or better things.
Overall, I pretty aggressively DNF. Sometimes, “isn’t for me” or “isn’t for me right now” is enough. I recognize I can be quixotic and won’t generally leave a bad review of something I can’t finish.
But I have some petty ones too. One that pushes my buttons is when fat people are written as if they are to be pitied. I’ve realized that bothers me more than fat people being villanized b/c I really feel like the author feels they’re being wonderful and magnanimous and they’re really just being a different type of a-hole.
Subjective, but there it is.
I have a DNF habit that hasn’t been mentioned yet. There have been quite a lot of contemporary romances, mostly MM, that I’ve enjoyed up to a certain point. Which is the point at which I feel the book should have ended. The characters have established a relationship and it’s all over bar the shouting. Except it’s not…. The book goes on and on with a heap of scenes that don’t advance the story and I’m already mentally checked out and eager to read about somebody else. After suffering through enough of those dragged out endings, these days if I feel that the conflicts are overcome and the book still has 20% to go, I just stop there and pick up another book. It’s not that I hated the book, I just get impatient with poorly structured work that I feel is wasting my time.
I have a system now… I read almost everything on Kindle and it goes like this: 1)folder for free stuff 2)folder for samples. Ruthless DNR’s of free things. Ruthless stop and delete for samples. Buy a small portion of samples — those go into a different folder. when I’m done folders for: Done, Worth Rereading, Don’t know if I want more (i.e. to sequel or not), and Did Not Finish Yet (stopped part way, but not a DNF, more like a Not Right Now).
@Susan I’m curious about why you DNF’d BLOODLINE, if you can say a bit more without being too spoilery? It’s one of my favorite books in the W&G series so I’m curious. Not intending to disagree or start a flame war (is that still a thing?) Just interesting to note why something works for one reader and absolutely doesn’t for another.
The hardest thing for me is to DNF an auto-read author whose books I have loved in the past. I DNF’d Beth O’Leary’s THE WAKE UP CALL bc I couldn’t get past the miscommunication between MCs. And I DNF’d AGAIN, RACHEL by Marian Keyes because the story became too painful (pregnancy-related issue). O’Leary is off my auto-read list now bc the use of that trope disappointed me, but Keyes is still a favorite bc the DNF was related to a triggering plot issue, and I’m hopeful that she will focus on other issues in future books.
Ten pages. That’s it. If I’m not hooked right from the beginning, I’m out of there. This is more a reflection of my mood and not the writer, though sometimes it truly is the writing. When I say I’m a mood reader, I really am so I’ll often come back to books when I’m feeling a particular trope or set up. One thing though that I’ve discovered about myself is that ‘the best thing since sliced bread’ book is 99.99% of the time not for me. I can count on one hand super popular books that I actually liked.
If I’m just kind of bored or don’t like one of the MC (for example they actively annoy me by being too stupid to live), I’ll skip to the last 3 chapters to see how it resolved. Based on those chapters I’ll decide if I’m going to actually read the rest. There’s a line between naive and « oh my goodness how do you survive in the world » and I’m finding more instances of the latter these days, I can’t put up with it.
I’m struggling with a library book right now, old Star Wars EU stuff, and the infodumping is a real problem. i might need to dnf and admit I’m no longer the 90s youth who mainlined these.
I stopped writing the completionist train many years ago, but I still try to give the benefit of the doubt to most books I’ve chosen to read, especially if I’ve paid for them. Library books get cut off faster, but if I already paid I live in hope that it will get better.
Mostly these days I DNF when there is bad writing or lot of grammar errors. I just don’t have the patience, and I know even if I get to the end it won’t be fun to rant about. I recently DNF a nonfiction book from a major publisher because it had an astonishing number of typos. I gave the book 1 chapter, but when the same error continued on into the second chapter, I noped out. It was really disappointing that a major publisher could hire a decent copy editor for some reason.
Usually though I only end up not finishing three or four books a year, as I’ve gotten older I know generally what I like to read and have had pretty good success in finding books I enjoy most of the time.
I have both a “dnf” shelf on Goodreads and a “flung with great force” shelf. I have DNFed books for a romance with a childhood bully (bullied too much as a kid and told ‘it means they like you’), alphahole heroes, questionable consent, wild historical inaccuracy, and turns of phrase that just turn me right off. The ‘flung’ shelf is for things like rape (especially if there’s no warning and it’s clearly happening to heap trauma on the MC), totally unexpected pedophilia, and being thrust into the head of the killer in the second-person ‘you’, which made me feel dirty.
I fully agree that life is too short to read things you don’t like. I usually DNF quietly, and will try to make a note on Goodreads as to whether this is a ‘come back to it later’ book, or if it has something I really don’t like, but may not be a dealbreaker for others.
I DNF without an ounce of shame or regret. Books written in present tense, for whatever reason, are among the things that I will DNF fastest. If I don’t like or care about the well-being of the main characters, out I go. If I’m 75-100 pages and the plot has done nothing interesting, bye-bye. I am almost 46 years old, and there are too many good books out there for me to just sit here and not enjoy myself.
@JoanneBB consent issues are one of the things most likely to leave a poor review — as a warning to other readers. I remember most vividly a book that kept saying (as a joke?) “it’s not stalking if you’re pretty.” there were a lot of 1* on that. But back-catalogs and republishes are often sketchy on consent in ways that aren’t something I want to enjoy, now.
When I was drafting this post and talking with the other reviewers, I had a thought as to whether the topic was relevant. Since romance is extremely abundant right now across so many platforms and subgenres, I presumed that DNFing was equally abundant!. I figured may y’all would wonder why I even brought it up.
Then I was texting with an old friend who said, and I quote, “I HATE not finishing books.” I was relieved that not only was this relevant, but that not everyone thought the same. PHEW. She just doesn’t like to give up on a book, and I find that so interesting.
Thank you for how thoughtful and introspective y’all are being.
I do try to give a book 50 pages before making the decision to DNF, but I’ve reached the point where I have enough favorite authors and books I want to read on my tbr that decisively DNF-ing a book is a rare thing for me to do. In the cases of new-to-me authors or authors who have been hit-or-miss for me, I’ll download a sample or use Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature: that has saved me many a DNF by letting me know when I don’t want to start a book in the first place. There are also books that I haven’t made a decision to DNF but that seem to slip further and further down my reading g queue while I continue to start (and finish) other more enticing books. For example, right now I’m midway through two books (Dominick Lim’s ALL THE RIGHT NOTES, which has been very well-received here, and Adriana Anders’s WELL BRED, an erotic romance featuring breeding kink), that just aren’t grabbing me enough to keep me reading when other books snag my attention. Hopefully, when I’m in my next reading lull, I’ll be able to finish both of them because neither is objectively a bad book, it’s just that I’ll read a few pages and then get pulled into a different book that engages me more. Perhaps we should refer to books that we just don’t get around to finishing as “quiet DNF-ing”, lol. Coincidentally, the last book I decidedly and definitely DNF’d (as in, I know I’m not going to finish this book or come back to it in the future) was also set in DC: Sierra Simone’s SALT KISS (the first book in her Lyonesse trilogy, a modern retelling of the Tristan & Isolde story). It was a hard decision to make because Simone is one of my favorite writers and I’d been looking forward a new book from her. However, SALT KISS was so similar in set-up to Simone’s previous New Camelot trilogy that it felt like a lazy retread. More importantly, one of the key elements of SALT KISS was a DC-based sex club where all the capital’s movers & shakers—regardless of political affiliation—are welcome. Harrumph! In today’s political climate, the idea of even a fictional club that welcomes people who are actively working to deny other adults their rights to bodily autonomy and consensual sexual expression just didn’t sit right with me, and so DNF it was.
I DNF books that reveal old fashioned behavior or beliefs. TSTL female characters get dumped if there are no plans for growth. I’ve also dumped a bunch of supposedly feminist characters who behave in ways that we wouldn’t let men get away with anymore. The worst was a very highly recommended book where the female character has sex with a drunk and thus non-consenting male who she had been crushing on but he had not reciprocated. Then she got pregnant and he was the bad guy due being so mean about it. There is no redemption from starting out as a rapist.
I read an average of one book every 1.5 days across genres (including nonfiction). In fiction there are entire genres I barely read at all. So while I do occasionally DNF, and when I do it’s due to boredom, or bad writing, or characterizations that annoy me too much to care where they go, I tend to be choosier about the books I actually acquire than about the books I finish. 🙂 I very rarely write reviews, I rate instead, so if I DNF there’s no rating. If I really, truly hate something, I’ll skim to the end so I can give it a vengeful 2 or even 1 star. That’s happened maybe three times.
As an author myself, I know how painful a bad review can be and also how very personal it is: it reflects a single reader’s viewpoint. Every reader comes to a book with biases and expectations that the book *was not written to meet.* It was written for the author’s own reasons. Thus I err on the side of keeping my mouth shut, except in one or two curated spaces. A bad book doesn’t harm me, and I can choose how much of my time to waste on it. Obviously, at the pace I read, any given book doesn’t waste much of my time. 🙂
It’s interesting to hear from so many people who DNF often and find it an important part of their reading practice. Myself, I rarely DNF things. This is maybe not great, but it’s a big part of my personality as a reader.
It’s partly the baleful influence of Goodreads, as Vershbow mentioned. My Goodreads is not public, but marking and tagging the things I read is my personal Project. I like to be able to look at my “baseball romance” tag or whatever and think, this is the ground I have covered, this one was great, this one was terrible. I want to have as complete a map for myself as possible about where I have been as a reader.
It’s partly that my reading is a place where I let my ADHD go wild. I tend to read many books at once, but rarely do I strongly commit not to return to one. I always let myself begin a new book when I feel like it, which is an absolute joy. There may be books that I “quiet DNF” in DiscoDollyDeb’s terms, but I rarely feel strongly that I am 100% done. I like to feel I can return.
And part of it is the mirror image of Elyse and Sarah’s thoughts on mortality. When I read, I feel like I will live forever! I don’t want to think about the books I’ll never get to. I feel like I want to enjoy–or if not enjoy, to investigate and understand–my current view from the path, and trust that I’ll keep moving along it and eventually end up somewhere new.
I DNF a number of books 20-30 pages in because it’s not just clicking with me. I shrug and move on. Maybe it’s the book, maybe it’s me. And there’s been more than one where I’ve come back later and enjoyed it.Sometimes, I DNF because the writing style grates. :: shrugs :: Not every book is for every person.
Then there are the things like picking up a book billed as a “light, feel-good, heartwarming story,” getting halfway in and being hit with several chapters in flashback detailing how the female lead was groomed as a teenager by her older sister and older sister’s lover by being put in sexual situation with other men (but no penetration), before said lover married her and gaslighted her. Oh, and he was engaged in criminal activity with a sexual angle. Yeah, I DNF’d that, and if it hadn’t been on an expensive device, the book would have gone flying across the room and possibly used to line the litterbox.
Yeah, I wrote a review, “spoiling” the “twist” because I felt the author had definitely not been truthful in the promises their subtitle offered, and I didn’t want people going in to thinks this was a fluffy book, which is the impression the cover and blurb offered. Most of the time, I don’t bother reviewing DNFs, but I made an exception for that one.
I’m more likely to just not get back to a book (ie. kindle tells me it’s 40% ready, etc) than consciously DNF a book. I did recently DNF one – or at least, I skipped to the final chapter to read the HEA – because it was a new to me author and I couldn’t handle the writing, but had wanted to support fat representation in MM romance.
I’m slogging through my “published before 2000” book for Summer Romance Book Bingo because it will give me a complete blackout of my bingo card. I would have stopped reading (or never picked it up) because it’s an MF historical which I normally don’t read. The euphamisms are really getting to me, but I’m determined!
My TBR list is around 700 books long, so yes, I DNF if the book isn’t hitting right, for whatever reason. Most recent DNF was a main character who threw a toddler tantrum for being ghosted after a one-night stand. I love a diva-y twink, but there needs to be a reason for all the pouting and yelling followed by the silent treatment. Over 50 pages in and I want to whisper to the other main character “run away now”, yeah, that book’s not being finished.
I think about 50% of my DNFs are because the main character/s is/are not sympathetic. Other recent reasons include not being able to figure out how we moved from plot point A to plot point B (poor writing style), too much description with nothing happening (5 chapters in and the chapter format was still describe superyacht section, MC meets coworker, MC and coworker have conversation, repeat – yawn), and too much ___ that’s not moving the plot forward (most recently a prank war that just kept going – I don’t need every prank idea that crosses the author’s mind).
Thank you for this post. I recently self-published my first novel (under a completely different name so this is not a marketing ploy!) and your commentary and reviews were incredibly helpful during that process. This one is particularly fascinating.
As someone who reads e-books almost exclusively, I try to weed out books that won’t work for me using samples, and I don’t count it as a DNF if I don’t click to buy. That works pretty well for writing style and quality of editing, and I can usually tell if the story will interest me. The things that usually makes me give up are: insta-love, characters that are TSTL, phrases/descriptions that are repeated more than a couple of times, sex scenes that are physically impossible for human bodies and filler (lots of text, no action).
Reacting to the aside, I also haaaaate all the other terms used for coffee and tea that aren’t “coffee” and “tea”. I never think of either as a “steaming brew” or “fragrant brew”! It just not realistic.
Agree with the stickiness- I borrow a lot of ebooks from the library. If a book hasn’t caught me by the time it’s due/almost due, I’ll DNF it, but I end up with a lot of guilt around it! I take out too many books, so sometimes I know I’d be able to get into it if I gave it a real shot.