In a recent discussion in the internal SBTB Slack, Lara asked:
After a reading slump, I am powering through my TBR pile and it feels great! But it got me thinking, at what point do other people DNF a book? Obviously if you hit a red flag, it’s time to kick it to the curb, but… What if the book is just a bit dull. Do you give it 10%? Three chapters?
So you know we had Things to Say!
Carrie: One time I gave up on page 8
Lara: That book must have been terrible
Catherine: A friend of mine had a formula that was 100 pages minus your age. The idea being that the older you get, the better you know yourself and what you like and the faster you can accurately judge whether a book is worth your time.
And I suppose if one wants to be morbid about it, the fewer years one has left, the less time one has to waste on books that one isn’t enjoying. I remember being on a flight from Darwin once and reading a truly dire book that was on the Hugos shortlist, and thinking ‘this plane made a really worrying noise when we took off. What if we crash and I die and this was the last thing I read?’
I rarely abandon a book, but the decision was very easy when I put it to myself in those terms….
Lara: I love that formula!
I abandon books quite quickly. There are so many good ones to read so why bother with the average ones? I make myself hit 10% before I bail.
Sneezy: Lol I’ve come to respect that having ADHD means there are things what will slide off my brain, just because it does. Maybe the book is interesting, maybe not. If I circle back, great, if I don’t, eh. I think when I get to the point where I know better how to navigate my brain, and therefore trust it more, I’ll be more decisive about yeeting books. For now I’m happy to let books live in limbo between TBR and Reading.
Sarah: I can tell pretty quickly whether a book is for me and often it’s inside the first chapter or two. When I stop depends on my certainty. If I suspect that the book I’ve started isn’t working for me but I’m not sure, often I’ll finish the chapter, then stop and query myself if I have any interest in continuing to read. If not, I stop.
But if something is definitively not working, I’ll stop reading in the middle of a page and move on.
I looked up the last few books I DNFd and tried to recall why I did. In one case, I was maybe 50-55% through and the source of conflict/tension I was most interested in dissolved without reason and I didn’t care about the rest of the story or what happened.
Amanda: I give it usually 50-100 pages
Sarah: It’s almost like a mental see-saw: which has greater weight, the “Ok, what happens next?” side, or the “Eh, I don’t care” side?
Shana: I have no problem dropping a book after 2 pages, usually because of the writing style. Life is short, and my TBR list is long. But sometimes I get more than halfway through and something happens with the plot or characterization that makes me lose interest, or stop trusting the book.
Sarah: Yes that is exactly what I do, too. I stop trusting the story and off I go.
That’s a really good way of putting it.
What about you? Do you have a rule for when you DNF a book? Or do you stop when you’re ready to stop? When do you DNF?
It is all about writing style for me. If it irritates me on the first page or I start thinking about how I would rewrite it, I stop. The perils of being a copy editor in real life!
I’m not afraid to DNF a book! The main reason is that the book isn’t really working for me, I’m reading the same line five times in a row or it’s written in first POV with an annoying protagonist (usually a protagonist that’s too badass or goes on about how plain they are, yawn!) Interestingly, have never finished a Paranormal with a midlife protagonist, despite technically being midlife myself. I think because this subgenre is usually written for laughs and I would really like to read one that’s a bit serious (with humourous bits in it, mind) and not cliched. I eye roll every time I read about protagonist’s leaves her after 20+ years of marriage, bratty grown up child and menopause related humour. As for what I call hard DNF’s (red flag ones) it’s usually when a protagonist does something truly unforgivable: raping, murdering innocents and just generally being a jerk. Also have stopped reading books with autistic characters in when I feel they’re being depicted in a bad light or have been sidelined in their own book for the neurotypical character. Look if you’re not willing to develop a neurodiverse character then maybe DON’T PUT ONE IN YOUR NOVEL.
Finally there are those I’d wished I had stopped reading like the accidental by Ali Smith. I was reading it expecting a twist and then it just ended with no resolution. My mistake for thinking it was a thriller instead of a character study of a family of jerks (and one emotionally neglected young girl). Put me off ever reading that author ever again (despite being nominated for a Booker award).
Technically never, and certainly not to a decisive formula. You folks read like bosses!
I’m a skip-skimmer. If a book isn’t working for me, I’ll skip to the end and read that. If the conclusion is unraveling an interesting situation I hadn’t yet encountered, I’ll skim backwards to find it.
But skipping ahead isn’t just punishment for books I don’t like. I read most novels using this method. (I can think of only a handful of romances where I read every word in order on a first read: Hidden Talents by Krentz, Marrying Winterbourne by Kleypas, The Hating Game by Thorne, Act Like It by Parker, and Repeat by Scott.) The difference between a DNF skip ahead and a “this is the way I read” skip ahead is that the DNF is motivated by boredom or disdain and the ending is the author’s only chance to convince me to go back and finish the book while the “this is the way I read” skip ahead is motivated by impatience and there’s a risk the ending will convince me not to go back and finish the book.
I DNF moderately often and I have no formula, I just refuse to power through the books that I do not enjoy.
I find that my top two DNF triggers are 1)problem with MC’s words/actions, plot mistakes and holes etc; it can happen at any point of the book – first two pages or the last two and anywhere in between;
2)the book drags on and on and I just end up not picking it up again after putting it down. I will periodically go through my Kindle and look at books I have not finished and then I decide whether to DNF them or put them back on my TBR pile. The latter usually happens if I’m 5% or less in.
I suppose it depends on the book (and also whether I paid for it or not–far likelier to DNF a library book). After 2020 happened where I could barely pick up a book, I swung wildly back to my old bad habit of “must finish everything” that I had in my 20s–I’m finally getting back to being able to put down something that isn’t working.
I try to give a book about fifty pages, but oddly enough 2 of my 3 DNFs this year have been almost at the halfway mark of the book. Once because of sexual violence that was a last straw, and once because I realized the book was just boring me to tears. I don’t like DNFing that late because I feel like I’ve put in a lot of investment already, but sometimes you just have to cut your losses.
On the other extreme, yesterday I DNF’d a book after one chapter. It was one I’d been looking forward to for a while, but the minute the POV shifted without a scene break I was out. I gave it til the end of the chapter, but I knew really quickly that I was done.
Oh my gosh,I DNF so much that sometimes I’m afraid there are no more good books left and then I find something wonderful. It’s not about a book being perfect, it’s about a book being right for me. I’m mostly a character/writer’s voice reader and I can forgive a lot of that.
I’m honestly afraid to talk too much about DNFs b/c I can come off as so bitchy and judgemental to someone else’s favorites. IRL when someone asks me “oh, you didn’t like that, why not?” I’m often evasive rather than be truthful, “well, on page 43 there was this one teeny line the main character said that made me hate him and want to throw him into the sun. Or that’s your favorite fictional character of all time? Oops.”
But I will say, here are some of my top ones
1) It is obviously just a man book about men being manly and I can tell there won’t be any interesting female characters. This tends to eliminate quite a few thriller/action books.
2) The main character is just absolutely wonderful at everything and everyone adores them and/or is attracted to them. This is also often in macho man books (Dash Riprock books my Dad calls them after the character on The Beverly Hillbillies) but they often pop in romance (where I feel like the writer is insecure that readers won’t like the heroine so they make her perfect) and occasionally in female written thriller/action stories.
My main thing is character, so usually those 2 will kill a book for me, but there’s also –
3) Tone. If the tone comes off too earnest or preachy I am out of there, even if it is something I agree about.
4) The other side of tone. If the writer is trying to hard to be wacky/cutesy and it just doesn’t jibe with me. I actually love, love humor in my books, but it’s a very subjective thing.
5) Really creaky obvious plot in something mystery/plotty. I’m pretty forgiving of this type of plotting in romance, sometimes if it’s written really well I even chuckle and rub my hands together with glee “oh, they think there’s going to be two beds, but just wait!” I don’t need my mysteries to be devilishly clever in plotting, but if I see a lot of plot anvils flying and then the main character is surprised by them I’m left wondering how the character is smart enough to solve a mystery.
6) Historical inaccuracies. Honestly this one could also be under ‘tone’ but I left it to last b/c it is the thing I’m very fickle about. I can happily read a Tessa Dare or Julia Quinn set in “Romancelandia” and not bat an eyelash. I feel like it’s part of my suspension of disbelief that comes with “light historical romance.” but if I’m reading something that is billed as “serious historical fiction” and someone says “I’m okay” in 1793 or the housekeeper in 19th century keeps calling her boss by his first name? For no apparent reason? And no one even comments or notices the breach of etiquette? Nope.
I would say that I don’t like serial killer books or books with a lot of torture/kidnap of women, but honestly I rarely even start those books, since they are usually upfront about the contents.
I also use 100 pages minus my age or sometimes I use my mom’s trick of if a book isn’t holding my attention, I sit down and read for a hour, giving it my full attention and if it still doesn’t have me by then, out it goes guilt free.
I DNF a lot, whenever I feel like it. The most frequent reason I DNF is boredom; the characters or plot just aren’t pulling me into the story and my mind ends up drifting away. I’m a huge mood reader and like everyone else, it’s been harder for me to read these days. So sometimes it might be more a me-thing than the book’s fault. Which I feel bad about, because I rarely return to a book I’ve previously put down. So I’m trying to be more like @Deborah and skip-skim to the part of the book that made me want to pick it up in the first place.
I diligently vet books because I have neither time nor money to waste. Nobody gets an autobuy. I don’t even download freebies if the sample doesn’t work for me. This is to say, I have a reasonable level of hopefulness that I’ll probably enjoy the books I do acquire.
I still DNF 30-40% of them. Reasons range from boredom to copyediting deteriorating to the point where continuing feels like a job for which I’m not getting paid to the ever-popular “wow, they really contorted themselves to create an excuse to jam that bigotry in there.”
One of my favorite things about ebooks is that after I’ve completely forgotten everything about a book, including why it’s unfinished, it opens to the exact spot where I decided I was done so I can immediately see what a good decision Past Me made.
There’s no fixed location to which I force myself to read before I’m “allowed” to DNF. Back in the olden times of paper books lying around as physical reminders of my fickleness, guilt drove me to pick them up often enough to slog through to the end, so I know my perseverance never improves a dismal reading experience. Rather, my complaints stack. Instead of a quick “nope, not wasting any more of my time on this,” I proceed all the way to fuming at “that was a huge waste of time, and it’s my civic duty to save others by sharing this 187-point list detailing how much this book sucks.” While GIF-laden, F-, negative-star reviews have their charms, that requires me to spend even more time with the offending book, when the whole time I could have been reading better books.
Every minute of miserable nonmandatory reading is a disservice to better books. (And to me—I have quite enough suffering without martyring myself for an item of commercial entertainment, thanks.)
I try to give it at least a couple of chapters, but if I notice that it’s really not catching my attention before that, I’ll stop.
Sometimes I’ll try longer, if I went in thinking it would be a book I’d really enjoy, but I’m trying not to do that so much.
I’m also more likely to hang on longer if it’s a difficult book.
I’m more likely to force myself to finish a book that I think is really bad because I’m waiting for it to get good – especially if it has been highly recommended and seems to be universally loved. The ones that are just meh – I have no problem dropping.
I DNF for all kinds of reasons, most of which boil down to just don’t feel like it, as illustrated by it having been checked out from the library for three weeks and me not having gotten more than 10-20% in. No hard and fast rules but a lot of the time I’ll skip to the end to decide if the ending seems worth the rest of the book or not. And sometimes I’m just not in the mood and I’ll drift back months later and actually enjoy it.
I used to DNF any book with an architect character because the consistent glaring lack of accuracy was so annoying, but not I just never even start one, ha.
I DNF with ease — I generally don’t pick up books that are not well written, so if I somehow get one that is just poor language skills I will DNF within a couple sentences. Usually though it is disliking the protagonists, or not caring enough to stick with the story, or Too Stupid To Live. I’ve even gotten to within pages of the end and realized that there is nothing that could happen in the next few pages that I would care about and stopped. These days it’s mostly — does picking this up and reading it feel like a chore? If so, there are plenty of books out there that won’t be a slog.
I will stop within the first five pages if the writing’s clunky, or if the grammar is so bad that it’s distracting me from the plot. After that… I often don’t intentionally DNF but I will wander off and get seduced by a different book, which results in the same outcome.
I think since becoming an author I’m much more inclined to go by a book preview of the first chapter than reviews (since I’m more aware of how very personal reviews can be). So if a book isn’t engaging me after a few pages, I’m happy to abandon it. I can’t imagine feeling obligated to finish every single book from which I read a chapter. It would make picking my next read so incredibly stressful.
For me, it’s more of a question of when I choose to continue during a lag period of my attention. I will say that there were a few Dickens that I loved the first 400 pages, got really bored when the whimsical subplot took over, but struggled through because I know that’s how he writes, until I finished. Quite often, during such long books, I’ll take a break, read a short 200-300 page mystery, and then head back in.
I think knowing yourself as a reader is helpful. I admit, I really don’t like high fantasy, science fiction, or very opaque and baroque sentence structure like Henry James’s and Faulkner’s works. Obviously many people disagree with me! But I’m old, and read enough books I don’t like, I feel I can at least have an educated, subjective opinion about what doesn’t work for me.
I feel people who refuse to DNF have this reverential attitude to writing and books as something good for you, rather than pleasurable. I also sort of feel they are the people who get very upset when libraries have to throw out or recycle books no one is reading.
Life is short. I mean, yes, reading is good for you, and I think it’s important to stretch yourself. But like eating vegetables, if you’re not happy, go out and roast that cauliflower and Brussel sprouts in olive oil, rather than forcing yourself to eat boil-in-a-bag Bird’s Eye.
I don’t read very fast and I have a long TBR of books I’m fairly sure I’m really going to enjoy, but I can’t read the same kind of thing continuously, so the books I tend to DNF are library books I’m getting b/c it’s the new it thing or something from an author I like but I’m not caught up on the books of theirs I already own. I sometimes partially speed read these, and I DNF’d two last year. I’m going to be more picky about library books in the future, I think.
The main thing that keeps me from DNFing is knowing that I’ve lost that reading time on my reading challenge, which isn’t really a good reason. I also find it interesting to think about WHY I didn’t like a book, esp if it’s one I may need to talk about with others.
I also know with my depression the tendency to just be “meh” about everything at the beginning is high and if I never give things a proper chance I WILL miss out on some good stuff. And reading not-actually-good-imho books also helps me keep perspective and get really excited when I do find something that works for me.
But at what point? When I realize I’m having so little fun that I’m genuinely feeling bad (also when I pause actually good history books), and flipping thru the latter part offers nothing to look forward to; when I feel like I’m mad that the actual editor didn’t catch all the bad research and nonsense I’m finding (I wish I was actually editing!); when I realize the book just isn’t what I wanted.
I’ll add that like a few other commenters here I’m trying to put way more stock in samples (and flip thrus in bookstores) than in reviews. So many books I’ve loved that some ppl have trashed, so many super popular that I’ve regretted bothering with…
I really like the idea of 100 pages minus your age. But I’m much more haphazard. Sometimes I quit after five pages if I don’t like the tone or writing style. Sometimes I quit more than halfway through when I realize I don’t care what happens to any of these characters and I can’t even be bothered to flip to the end to see how it all works out. The older I get the less patience I have.
I rarely DNF a book that I’ve purchased—aside from my innate thriftiness (some in my family would say “miserliness,” but they’d be wrong!), most books I pay money for are by authors I know and trust or are books that have been well-reviewed by sites/reviewers who are simpatico with my romance reading tastes (“angsty-with-a-splash-of-melancholy” is my favorite way of describing it). I make liberal use for of the “Look Inside” and download-a-free-sample features on Amazon before I pay for a book by a new-to-me author. However, library books, freebies, and KU offerings are another story (yes, yes, I know that technically I’m paying for KU, but at $9.99 a month, as long as I finish at least four KU books per month—and right now I’ve read well over 100 books from KU since January 1–I feel I’ve gotten my money’s worth) and I will DNF. I do try to give a book 50 pages, but tell-not-show, passive/docile heroines, inconsistent characters, and slapdash plot execution are the main reasons I DNF (you don’t read as many books from KU as I do without realizing that you’ll often be putting up with grammatical errors and sloppy editing—and I rarely DNF for those reasons unless they make a book truly unreadable). According to my notes, I’ve only DNF’d eight books so far this year. Here are some of them:
AFTER THIS by Liora Blake: full of tedious tell-not-show, it failed to retain my interest. I couldn’t even give it 50 pages. This could be a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” because I know Blake’s books are well-received by many readers. Still, no book can do it for every reader and this one just didn’t do it for me.
THE SWEETEST OBLIVION by Danielle Lori: I gave up after THE GREAT GATSBY was referred to as “a great play.” Hello, Editor! I somehow missed that Broadway triumph. Yes, I can be an intellectual snob (even while consuming mass quantities of dark forced-mafia-marriage romances).
THE BRAZEN by Willa Nash: I really wanted to like this book because it featured antagonists-to-lovers, one of my favorite tropes, but the execution was dreadful. I gave up when the heroine—an aspiring business woman, has a curse-filled tantrum on a public street and throws the torn-up pages of a loan document at the hero (he’s called in the loan). Yeah, that’s the right behavior if you want to be taken seriously and possibly renegotiate the loan. When, instead of being appalled, the hero finds the heroine’s behavior “feisty” because it gets his dick hard, I was like, “Check, please.”
Earlier in my life, when I had very little money, I finished everything I started. But now I DNF a lot, often enough that sometimes I catch myself thinking “okay, book, let’s see if you can convince me to read you” when I pick up something new. A lot of the time, this clusters, because my system for ensuring that nothing on my TBR gets lost has a side effect where there are often quality clusters (both good and bad). I’ve also noticed that if I’ve just read something really incredibly good, my standards get temporarily inflated, and I’ll DNF more.
On Friday, I finished reading Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, which
may be the actual best thing I’ve ever read. So then, probably inevitably, yesterday I DNF’d five books. Vi Keeland/Penelope Ward’s Dirty Letters lost me when the hero started talking about how hot it was that the heroine hasn’t had much sex and how women make it “too easy” for men. I tried the start of a Lauren Blakely trilogy but had to bow out after a few chapters because it was just too On for me (shame; I really liked the other thing of hers I’ve read). Then I tried a trilogy by Kate Canterbary, a new-to-me author, which I liked enough to try each book but not enough to finish any. Those I might have finished if I hadn’t just read the Abraham series. I also read one book, Tarryn Fisher’s The Wives, which I didn’t really like exactly but found interesting enough to continue with, and the first half of Priscilla Oliveras’s debut novel, which I’m meh on. When I put it down last night, I intended to pick it back up because the heroine’s family dynamic interested me even though I don’t really care about the romance, but this morning I’m finding my enthusiasm waning, so I might not go back to it after all.
That’s all fairly typical for me except for trying all three of the Canterbary books. Missing, fortunately, was a DNF for bad writing; bad writing I virtually never get past, so I’ll DNF within a page or two for that unless I really want to like it, in which case, sometimes, I’ll persist until the end of the chapter.
There’s a genre effect too: I’m more likely to stick with fantasy or thrillers I’m less than enamoured of than I am with meh romance. This is partly because of the difference in how the different genres address plot (cf. the Fisher situation) and partly just because my TBR has more romance than other genres, although the latter has been starting to change over the last year.
There are two different types of DNF for me. In one instance the books seems dumb to me. I just don’t like it, it is silly, the characters are not developed, — everything everyone has mentioned above. Often I know that in ten pages, though if I paid for it, I read at least 50 pages (which is also 100 minus my age, so I love that, btw).
Second type of DNF — I am very careful, with help from all of you, about what I actually buy, and if I DNF those, it’s more often me, not the book. I’m tired, I’m impatient, I’m not in the mood, I don’t have the time right now to dive in. Those are in the digital library as books that might be worth the effort, but not today.
This conversation came up at a work thing (lawyers, all book worms, no surprise) and I was shocked by how many completionists there were — you know that NO ONE GIVES A FUCK IF YOU FINISH THAT BOOK, right? This is for you, and you set the rules. Do what will make you happy (however, I DO care that you share your recs on WAYR, SO DON’T TRY AND WEASEL OUT OF THAT!) Enjoy your Sunday, and have a great week!
I’m kind of like Deborah, inasmuch as I have an approach that’s based on reading out of order: read the first chapter (introduces the characters, often sets the primary conflict), then read the final chapter (everything is resolved, right? or if it’s part one of [n], I can set my expectations). By then I also have a sense of the author’s style (and I’m cranky enough to have pretty low tolerance for poor grammar or repeated spelling/usage errors and the like). I don’t really believe in the concept of spoilers (if it’s worth reading, says I, it’s worth re-reading). But I gather that some people find this outright heretical. It does make it easier for me to decide if it’s worth reading. And life’s too short (especially after enough decades have added up) to read straight through something that I know I’m going to regret.
I don’t have a required number of pages for DNFs. If I’m not interested, the writing is bad, or something really bothers me in the first few pages, I DNF. This is why I try to read at least a few pages before checking out library books. I’ll often find myself reading along constantly arguing with the author or a character. I’m pretty argumentative, so I’ve had to learn to stop and put the book down– why waste my time on something that just annoys me? Unfortunately, I’m currently very far into 2 fantasy series in which I love the MCs & world building, but find how all the other characters treat the main character very upsetting. I keep reading because I want to know what happens next, but I also feel quite distraught by the end of each book. So plainly, my DNF system needs work.
I also will often read the last few pages of a DNF, just to see if everyone came out OK.
It’s either the first 10% or after finishing the first chapter. If I’m not interested by then, I’ll DNF the book. Like many, if there’s something I’m not lacking is stuff to read, LOL.
As for why I’ll DNF a book, it’s usually a matter of not connecting with the writing style (it’s too flowery) or the plot (people behaving in a way that defies real life logic. Frex, a regular person being stabbed in the stomach, barely getting the wound closed up is (within hours) ready to be intimate with another character and not even considering taking any kind of painkillers.) Occasionally, the beginning is so boring that I don’t see any reason for me to continue reading.
Bad Spanish, i.e. Spanish that’s obviously Google translated, gets not only an automatic DNF, but also a I’ll Never Read This Author Again. (Looking at you, Layla Reyne.)
Caveat that around 90% of what I read I’ve borrowed from my wonderful local library so, in a way, it’s easier for me to DNF than someone spending their money on books.
After the few times I pushed myself to continue reading something I was not enjoying, I realized it was a genuine waster of my time. Hence my “If I’m not in into it, then goodbye” reading attitude.
P.S.: 100 minus my age is a bit too much to ask (even though that’d mean 40-odd pages)
I used to *never* DNF. Never. I’m not sure why. I mean, I’m very stubborn but one look at all my half-finished craft projects demonstrates my ability to be a quitter if I’m bored/irritated/distracted. Maybe it was my cheapness but I own more books than I can ever realistically get to in my lifetime so it’s not as if I didn’t have other options at my fingertips. Maybe it was the memory of reading books I despised all the way up to the final chapters when I was hit by that omgthisisamazing thunderbolt of book joy. Maybe it was because I’m one of those weirdos who can feel sad for inanimate objects. Who knows?
As I’ve aged, tho, that ever-present tick-tocking I hear in the background has freed me up, at least partly, to cut my losses and move on with fewer qualms. The pandemic has also increased my DNF frequency. But I don’t have any hard and fast rules so it can literally be on the first page or at the 80 percent mark.
The medium plays a role in DNFing, too. If I start to have doubts about a book, I have no qualms about flipping to the end to see if I’m satisfied by how things get wrapped up. It’s harder for me with audiobooks. Since it’s a pain to skip forward with them, I tend to either nope out really quickly or slog through ’til the bitter end. Googling for enough spoilery info to help answer the “do I go, or do I stay” question is often inconclusive so I end up sticking with it by default.
And then there’s the “DNF but maybe try again later” category, which is totally distinct from the “DNF and permanently consigned to biblioblivion (TM)” category.
So, I have no rules for DNFing. My book decisions and habits are as messy as everything else in my life.
No set rules. I usually finish books, but I have given up on them anywhere from the first page to the last chapter. I find the act of reading soothing. I’ll read shampoo bottles, so a book has to be pretty off-putting to bug me. I know what I like so it just doesn’t come up that often. I read fast enough it isn’t high stakes – it rarely takes me more than a day to finish a book even if I am trying to savor it. I also read multiple books at a time, which makes it easier for me to tell whether I can’t settle on anything at all or don’t want to settle for something lousy.
I used to finish everything I started out of desperation but with ebooks from the library I don’t run out of reading material the same way. The time I have wasted (and the scoliosis) from trying to be sure I had enough books!
I maybe used to finish books out of a sense of obligation to the author but if so I outgrew that feeling so long ago I can’t swear it ever actually happened, but I think I did that in grade school?
I have different categories of DNF including:
-Some major red flag that warrants immediate rejection (racism/sexism/gratuitous violence/lack of consent)
-I don’t care enough about the characters to find out what happens to them. I will do the same thing as Deborah and figure out if the ending seems like the story might improve and make a decision based on that.
-Just the wrong book for me at the moment. I DNF’d NK Jemison’s THE CITY WE BECAME even though the writing was gorgeous and I kept thinking, “Wow, I wish I had written that line,” because pandemic brain and I just needed something fluffier.
-Books I wish I had DNF’d because I got to the end and howled in rage at the ending (ex: THE BIRTH OF VENUS by Sarah Dunant)
I usually quit somewhere around the 15-25% mark, but I did quit LET THE GREAT WORLD SPIN on page 255 out of sheer spite because I hated it so much (I felt compelled to try and finish it because my friend loved it and it won the National Book Award, but OMG it was just so insufferably impressed with its own cleverness and NOTHING HAPPENED.)
I’ll DNFa book with no guilt these days. I usually DNF books that either make me angry, bored, or roll my eyes. I sometimes DNF within the first few pages, but once recently I DNF’d at 40% because the story was all anger and angst, but not terribly interesting. I recently DNF’d one SFR book because the heroine basically blackmailed the hero into doing something that could possibly risk the lives of the entire crew because it was “important to her.” Nope!
I only make note of DNF books on Goodreads if it feels significant, like a book I expected to enjoy, or an author I probably want to avoid in the future.
I will usually bail after a chapter or two if I’m not digging it. There are too many good books in the world for me to waste my time slogging through something I am not enjoying just because I started it and now feel some sort of obligation to finish it. The author will never know, and since I get most of my books from the library, I’m not losing money by DNFing a book. The only exceptions I have made and read despite being bored or outright hating them was books I had to read for school, but I hated every minute of it.
There are books that I want to read but hate the font so much that I can do it. “Legend” by Marie Lu is one – the font + weird brown color of the font is just too much for me. Or the Harper Perennial edition of “Bad Feminist” (and the rest of that line). The font is like nails on a chalkboard, but for my eyes.
I used to only DNF terrible books, but then the pandemic hit, and my focus just disappeared. I had real trouble reading for the first time in my life, and I found myself falling back on the old mainstays I’d read dozens of times before. In 2020, I read the Anne of Green Gables series, I read Sarah Rees Davies’ Lynburn Legacy, I read the Cordelia Naismith books, the Dicey Tillerman books, and my old favourite, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin.
I’m embarrassed to admit that I DNF The House In The Cerulean Sea. Is it a terrible book? No, I suspect it’s very good, but I got a few chapters in and my tired pandemic brain couldn’t keep the children’s names straight. I tried a few other critically-acclaimed books that I knew I should love, and had a similar experience. Reading was suddenly too hard, even new romances by authors I usually like.
I’m doing better now with new books. I know I should go back to my long pandemic DNF list and try again, but honestly, it’s still a bit mortifying. (Who struggles to read Lisa Kleypas?!)
In my childhood and teenage years I was such a fast and voracious reader that I would tear right through a book even if I hated it. Half a century later I don’t have that energy. There was a transitional period where I would wonder why finishing some book was a struggle, before I became used to the idea of abandoning a book at all– and I am now listening more and more to vague “this isn’t doing it for me” feelings, leading to ever more unfinished books. I sometimes worry that in a decade or two I won’t be able to read at all. Well, there’s always picture books; I read them to my nieces and nephews and love them myself!
I have no problems DNF’ing books.
The earliest I DNF’d a book was in the second chapter. It was a dual POV and when it got the the hero’s POV chapter I found his voice so repulsive I have no desire to continue. I am sure that the author probably redeemed him but the first impression was so bad that I didn’t want to stick around to find out.
I’ll DNF quickly if I get a vibe about the story or there is blatant racefail or misogyny.
The latest I DNF’d a book was probably around the 60% mark. And that was because I was bored. It was a book that I found easy to put down and read other things only to return and pick up again later and try to soldier on. I probably would have bailed on it much earlier but the author is a long time favorite so I gave her a lot more latitude than I normally would have.
I tend to take a bit longer to DNF if the story just isn’t holding me for whatever reason. I am usually hopeful it will take off.
Much rarer is when I DNF a book that I am enjoying but something comes out of left field that sours the experience and I can’t bring myself to finish even though I might have enjoyed finishing it. This happened when the heroine in a book I was reading, who I was already iffy about her personality, decided to slut shame and be bitchy about other women. It felt like an intrusive ‘not like other girls’ moment that took me out the story because it felt very try hard.
As with everyone else, there are several levels to this.
Sometimes the writing just doesn’t do it for me. That’s one of the reasons I like to look at the first chapter before I buy a book, if possible.
On the next level, if the book just isn’t grabbing me in the first couple chapters, I will put it aside and go back to it later. Sometimes, I just don’t have the emotional or even the physical bandwidth to keep going. I remember that after my step-son died, I couldn’t concentrate enough to read for about three months. And during the pandemic (well, that’s still ongoing but), some stuff just didn’t resonate. Sometimes, my interests are elsewhere.
If it is offensive, that is, racist or sexist or otherwise, it’s gone.
I mostly avoid “inspirational” but sometimes it isn’t labeled. That usually gets DNF’d when the Bible verses start showing up.
If it’s about something I know well (eg., medical work) and it gets it wrong, that can be a deal-breaker.
Another thing is that some books may be interesting and well written but not for me. I have started being gentle with myself and there are some things I just don’t need in my head. Forty years of practicing medicine has given me enough nightmares. Plus my own life has contributed some PTSD. I will read some horror or other books with my specific triggers but there is a point where I just say, let’s not.
Also, I had a BIG birthday this year. I have maybe 200 unread books, ebooks, hardbacks, paperbacks, and, at some point, I will run out of time. I am now choosing to DNF more often.
BTW, @Tam, I struggle to read Lisa Kleypas.
Used to be 100 pages, now 50 (or less). Style can make me quit quickly — can’t abide 1st-person-present for example. If it gets put down midway and I can’t remember anything about it later, another sign.
I’m resonating with so many of these comments! Interestingly, my favourite book of all time – Barbara Kingsolver’s The Lacuna – I initially DNF’ed. Bored at chapter 3. A couple of years later I tried it again and found it astonishingly beautiful. But this is the exception. My other thought is that we can read for so many different reasons. I’ve finished many books that I haven’t enjoyed but I still got something out of it, some kind of “nutrition” (thanks to a previous commenter for that concept!)
@Tam: I know I’m in the minority, but the only Lisa Kleypas book I ever enjoyed was one of her earliest (possibly her very first) book, GIVE ME TONIGHT, a time-travel romance (set in Texas in the 1870s and the Depression era). I loved that book! My subsequent attempts to read Kleypas were all unsuccessful; I find there is something false and cloying about her books and I just can’t get into them. I’d love to re-read GIVE ME TONIGHT, but, as far as I can tell, it isn’t available as an ebook and my paperback copy (from 1989) is long gone. I don’t even know if Kleypas officially acknowledges the book, but it’s the only Kleypas title I’ve ever read without a struggle.
I don’t DNF a lot of books, but then there are whole huge piles of the fiction world that I never pick up at all. 🙂 I’m more likely to say ‘eh the odds are against me liking this one’ and simply not buy it.
Also I read insanely fast. I’ll start a typical romance novel at 6:00 after work and be done with it by 11:00 bedtime, including dinner, conversation with the husband, and watching something on TV. So something has to be really annoying before I’ll chuck it in.
When that happens, it’s usually at less than 20%. I’ll give the story a chance to kick in, give the characters a chance to redeem any initial side-eye, give the narrative voice a chance to overcome any OH PLEASE editing problems like ‘pouring’ over a document, or ‘reigning’ in his temper, or the streets ‘teaming’ with people. Homonyms seem to be a real problem; do people dictate their books to Dragon these days or what? There are also OH PLEASE style things like ‘”It’s fine,” he spat’ or ‘”Damn,” she cursed.’ So many dialogue tags simply do not need to be there, are a clumsy attempt to convey mood that typically signals other weaknesses, and/or may be just a way to plump up the word count.
There have been a few books that were moderately engaging up to the 80% mark (or later) and then pissed me the hell off. Once or twice I’ve stopped, metaphorically flinging them against the wall, but more often I’ll read grimly to the end because I’ve already invested most of the time and there’s always the chance the author will pull the situation out of the fire. I can recall only one book that I hated enough to permanently delete from my content. I mean, it was an offensive waste of my time. I keep a reading journal because once I’ve written about something I tend to remember it, and this helps me purge my feelings about a book that went wrong for me while at the same time noting the things I liked about character, setting, etc because sometimes I want to give the author another chance. I will forgive a lot of style oddities for characters I love.
I tend to assume that a self-published book will be of equivalent quality to a traditionally-published book, only because I’ve read so many of the latter that are poorly constructed and edited. There are some self-published authors (like myself, full disclosure) who improve their writing over time, and some who don’t; thus if I come across a new author with good reviews I might choose the latest title rather than the earliest. 🙂 This might help with the DNF rate too!
I usually try to commit to at least 50 pages, but I just DID finish a book because I liked the authors past stuff but wanted to DNF at the 40% mark which felt too invested and then it would grab my interest a bit then flag then I’d almost dnf… any how, long story short is I finished the book and should have DNFed at the 40% mark because it was a dud for me and I wasted precious book reading time by slogging through that. So trust your DNF gut, where ever it hits you!
I guess I’m a skip-skimmer as well. While I do have tropes that tend to bore me or make me worry I’m going to roll my eyes right out of my head, I don’t even bother picking up those books (i.e. malepreg, vampires, werewolves, heroines defined as under 20 and innocent, billionnaires, etc.). For books that have nifty covers (don’t kid yourself, we all do it) and interesting synopsis on the back cover, I usually know by the end of the first paragraph whether I’m going to read it 100% (heck, Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red had me knowing I was going to read it 101% and come back for more after the first sentence. To wit – I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites.)
Or I’ll know I’m going to read it but skip boring paragraphs, or give it a complete toss. Sometimes, if I’m not sure at the end of the first paragraph, I’ll open at random and read a paragraph or two. If I’m still not sure, I’ll read the last page – which occasionally really confuses me on books which have an excerpt of another book in the back.
That first paragraph read also lets me know what kind of mood I want to be in to read it… for instance is it a book that I can take with me to an appointment or is it a book I’ll want to sit down in a comfy chair with a large container of coffee/wine/lemonade nearby because I wouldn’t want to interrupt myself by actually getting something to drink.
Once I start I usually don’t stop unless I hit Bible verses in a romance or a how-to book. Really. I read a book once that said (paraphrasing here) ‘to solve that particular problem (I think it was crying children or something about laundry) turn to Bible verse XXX 4.35.
Horrible behavior (mostly male), too stupid to live characters (mostly female) can occasionally stop me but I’ve usually weeded those out by my first para/middle para/end page triage. Even if something is incorrect or out of period, I just turn my believability filters way down. Out of the 360+ books I’ve read so far this years, I DNFed one (a non-fiction). So, I guess once I’ve decided to read a book and how to read it (totally immersed or read excerpts while waiting), then very little can stop me from finishing. I once even threw a book – White Wing – across the room (not at the writer but at a particularly poignant plot twist – the traitor was revealed to be a sympathetic character) then immediately ran over to pick it up and continue reading.
These days in reading fiction, I’m usually trope- and character-driven. Give me a beast of a hero or a confident Regency governess and I’m in 100%. A second chance at loves makes me swoom (which is not quite a swoon). A reasonable misunderstanding (not one of those misunderstandings solved when two people actually exchange words) or a secret baby or cyborgs or wounded heroes… yeah, I’m all for that. Certainly authors I will (or won’t!) read, certain editing (or lack thereof) that I won’t tolerate. I think being pickier about what I begin means that I’m more likely to finish what I begin.
The nicest thing with an extraordinarily large Mt. TBR is that I’m really unlikely to ever run out of books I want to read, finish, and luxuriate over.
I don’t have a formula; for me it’s more like “if I put this down and don’t feel the need to pick it up again.” I used to force myself to finish every book but after one particular slog (will not name because it’s fairly popular and I don’t want to yuck someone’s yum) I realized I was wasting my leisure time on something I considered a chore instead of something enjoyable.
I’m a big believer that something shouldn’t “get good eventually,” it should be at least passably interesting throughout. Maybe the best part is in the last chapter of the last book of the series, but that shouldn’t be only reason to read the whole thing.
The immediate DNF’s for me are writing style or characters doing something I consider irredeemable (not necessarily “evil,” I mean something I, the reader, am unwilling to deal with in a book–being too stupid to live, being a jackhole and having the other characters brush it off, being too perfect and precious, that sort of thing). I might skim for a while to see if it’s going to get better, but if a sampling of the next few chapters doesn’t show any improvement…well, I’ve got other books waiting TBR.
First person will always get a DNF from me. I have not been good about looking at a sample before buying to make sure it is in third person. First person just doesn’t work for me. It frustrates me when an autobuy author switches a series into first person or a combo of first and third person. I abandon the book and sometimes the author.
Other than that, I don’t DNF very often. I do remember a book I just couldn’t get past the first three pages. It was a PNR and the “hero” just kept calling humans chimps (he did this at least 20 times in 3 pages) and was so rude and disparaging I couldn’t find it in me to like or care if he ever found someone. And, I knew I would pity whoever he did hook up with.
It varies widely. If I find the writing annoying and want to re-write it, that’s usually a pretty fast drop. If it really offends me (usually plot-wise) early, that’s also usually a fast one. If it’s a case of bait-and-switch with what’s on the blurb – that depends on if it’s worse than what was promised. If I’m just kinda bored I may just never get back to it, but it’s not an intentional drop. Some books are “OK, this book is fine, but I’m not in the mood for it” and I may or may not get back to it.