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?
Generally, if a book hasn’t “grabbed” me by page 50, it doesn’t get finished. Once or twice I ditched a book about two pages in, though. Those were really bad books (though one was a major bestseller).
Oh, and I am, I am afraid, really tough on historical fiction (that’s trying to be serious). I have a real bugbear about “suffragette” in books set in the 19th century, but other things can set me off, too. If I think it’s intentional and “going someplace,” I’m fine, but my more frequent reaction is “if they don’t know that, what else do they not know?” and it breaks my immersion almost immediately. Part and parcel of being a historian, I guess.
Bahahaha – “Page 100 – your age.”
I’ve been in a similar slump for the past 3.5 years. I’ve found myself hitting page 44 and then advancing to 85% of the book to see what the final conflict is and how it was resolved. (My fancy way of saying that I am jumping to the end) If I feel like I have truly missed something, then I will keep reading. Otherwise, to the virtual DNF pile it goes.
A definite DNF for me is when the main character is TSTL – too stupid to live – I can’t remember if I got that acronym here or made it up. If I did, I gift it to all y’all to share. I read quickly and have become almost entirely reliant on ebooks from my libraries which makes it easy to DNF if necessary. I find myself more fickle lately so I DNF more – including things I normally really enjoy but it just isn’t working for me at the moment, usually 2 chapters in. There are so many more books! And I work at a library (from home on the phone and computer at the moment for which I am grateful) but when I worked in person, I would tell people that if they’re not enjoying a book it’s okay to put it down. If it’s something they think they ‘should’ like, sometimes it’s not the right time for that book and it may come back to them later. I’m a very strong proponent of reading what gives you joy. There have been so many women who are ashamed of asking for romance and it gives me great joy to tell them that there’s lots of great stuff, I read it too, and to direct them here to the glorious smart bitches.
I don’t DNF all that often. I pretty much exclusively read romance these days, I know what formulas I like (Beauty and the Beast retelling? Gimme it now), and I have a pretty high tolerance for not all that great writing, especially if something about it is keeping me on the line.
However, I totally have some partially read books in my Kindle library that I will definitely go back to one day, I promise, uh huh.
Lots of reasons. Writing style, poor writing, incompatible life philosophy, annoying characters, plot that hits me wrong, bored… Really it’s my mood. Depending on my mood I might keep reading through everything (momentum), or my mood will mean it’s hard to settle into a book.
And lately I’ve found I won’t continue a book if the plot tension is stressing me out. Though I might read a stressful book if I trust the author. Maybe. Probably depends on my stress levels outside the book.
And I could stop at any point: the first few paragraphs, halfway through, almost the end. Sometimes I stop reading for external reasons (sometimes I sleep) and fall out of the book’s world and lose my suspension of disbelief, and sometimes I just don’t care enough to go back.
When I put a book down and then find myself thinking “I really should try to finish that” with the same feeling I have when I know I ought to clean the toilet.
I was a literature major in college, so I thought not finishing books was a type of heresy. And I’m kind of a completist (if I find a new author I like who has written lots of books I never knew about, I tend to read through all of them, too). But these days, I’m very able to DNF a book. Many of the reasons already given apply to me, too, especially TSTL characters, a conflict that’s not much of a conflict (just talk to each other!), or I just don’t care what happens to the main characters, including bad things. Interestingly, this has happened with some of my favorite authors who I’ve been reading for years, have read all the books in their series (not serials–I hate those), and consider “auto buys.” In one case, I had picked up two books in a series by a favorite author (I had somehow gotten behind). I gave up on the first one fairly early because I was really bored by the main characters. But I started the next book and loved it immediately. I have continued to read all of these authors and their series, just not those particular books. No hard and fast rule, just realizing I don’t care to spend any more time with the book. There are always other books that I won’t begrudge the time to read them.
I don’t DNF a lot overall. And normally, at least in fiction, I’ll skim through to the end just to know how it ended. It can be anything that can make me not like a book – the writing style, the story, too many things gotten wrong…
With romance, I’m quite choosy, I check the blurb and read a few reviews, and if they mention something that’s a deal-breaker to me I probably won’t buy it. Some authors come close to auto-buy for me, but if it’s a story that doesn’t interest me, I’m not buying it. I read a couple of self-published books last year that were really, really bad – completely turned around from what it started as and – nothing against self-publishing, there’s great writers out there, but these were just so bad, they made me kind of angry. And there was a m/m romance that made me just as angry for the way the female ex of one of the MCs was presented as an un-nuanced total villain and how called her all sorts of terrible names. And it was written by a female author – it was just all sorts of bad. I don’t usually return books but that one made me angry.
As for non-romance books, I get most of them from street libraries and the like, so I figure, no money lost if it’s a dud. I’ll probably skim to the end or finish them anyway and then take them back. I got a few crime thrillers this year that didn’t turn out as I’d imagined, but I finished them anyway because I needed to know how it ends – and that’s anyway usually the reason, like I said, why I rather skim to the end but not DNF.
The last book I truly DNF’d – just left it on the shelf – was acutally a book about Marco Polo. I love books about history, but that book was written in such an unegaging way, it put me to sleep…
I too DNF for a variety of reasons with no rule as to when, more often to do with when I encounter TSTL, gratuitous violence, violence that is lingered over, slut shaming, child neglect in the wrong kind of book – in fact that extends to springing something on me that I percieve as out of character for the book type etc. I seem to have broken up with a whole series because of an unexpected miscarriage that was to my mind completely out of that book’s character, at least despite enjoying the series otherwise I haven’t been able to persuade myself to read more of the series since that book.
I also have “DNF in that mood” books which I realise I might enjoy if I were in a different mood, so I don’t count them as proper DNFs because I fully intend to try them again when in a mre suitable mood.
I still think with disfavour of an English teacher, not even one that ever taught me, who insisted I promise to always finish a book.
I once DNFed with two chapters remaining. I tried to soldier through, but I just couldn’t stomach the idea of finishing it because I was bored out of my skull and couldn’t bring myself to believe a couple who’d spent a grand total of 20 pages together in a 280 page book were actually in love.
Once I DNFed about halfway through when the hero raped the heroine in a public restroom and it was presented as not rape. She kept telling him to stop. He also took the alpha a-hole trope to heights I hadn’t known existed. The premise really intrigued so I kept soldiering on wondering if it would get better. But there’s no coming back from rape in a restaurant bathroom.
Usually I know within a chapter or two and I stop then and there. Life is too short to keep reading a book I don’t care about.
I also have a private handwritten nope list of authors who really tick me off when I DNF, to make sure I don’t forget who they are and try again.
I usually consider anything i didn’t get through more than a sample worth as “didn’t read/didn’t start” rather than DNF, simply because those (20-40 ish?) pages don’t take me long. Especially on books that will only be borrows rather than owns. A browsing session looking for new books can easily lead to maybe 5-10% of books sampled getting to the Will Try Reading stage, so I don’t even attempt to count all those!
Getting deeper in and DNF’ing is less common, simply because the book has to have something going for it to make it that far. I don’t feel bad about it when it does happen though. Different things for different people, and one person’s “couldn’t stand that” and another person’s “loved it beyond reason” are both perfectly valid. 🙂
If i’m reading something for a book club or otherwise to read and talk about *with* someone else, its more likely that i’ll keep going even if it’s not great, but even those i have sometimes quit, or resorted to only skimming through certain parts.
Also, sometimes it’s just the wrong time, and while it took awhile, i can mostly recognize that happening by now, and those books i’ll usually try again later. Most recent example was something that started off in second person, and i just went “Nope! My brain can’t brain right now – saving you for later, book!” Then a few months later i tried again, and i felt up for the mental shift of reading in second, and the book was great, but there was no point in forcing myself when i wasn’t ready, it wouldn’t have been fair to me or the book.
When I was young, I ALWAYS finished books. I was a voracious reader, and I read any book that fell into my hands. Once I had a child, reading time became less available, and I became more selective. These days, I stop reading books all the time — it might be on page one (if it doesn’t grab me) or it might be three fourths of the way through the book (if the book ceases to hold my interest).
I usually cite the Nancy Pearl Rule (Give a book 50 pages; subtract a year for each year beyond age 50.) when I feel the need to justify ditching a book. However, at the 30 page mark, why would I care to justify myself?
I DNF a book at whatever moment I recognize that reading it will cause me more misery than quitting it. The reason for not finishing might be technical, e.g., crappy grammar, poor editing or wooden dialog; emotional, e.g., hateful characters and tropes, or rage-inducing behaviors and situations; or conditional, e.g., a mismatch between the book and my mood or life circumstances.
It took many years to recover from high school English class conditioning, but I no longer feel any obligation to anyone (including me) to finish a book that I’m not enjoying. If I buy a book that’s a poor fit, I don’t owe it my time anymore than I’d be required to wear shoes that pinched my toes. I don’t have any qualms about reviewing my DNFs either, as long as I lead with the fact that I didn’t finish and I’m honest about the reasons.
I do have a category on my Kindle called All Paused for those books that just don’t work in the moment due to mood or life stuff, and there are a fair number of books living there. I can revisit them when my mood is not so tetchy, and I’m less likely to delete them, rebuy, and double DNF them. Few things are sadder than paying for an awful book twice.
I DNF quite often. Usually it’s bad writing. Sometimes I find my mind wandering so often and I realize I’m bored or I just don’t care enough. Now and then it’s because don’t like the characters or the direction of the story – I recently DNF a romance that was third in a series because I was disappointed in the guy the author wrote for a character I really liked as a secondary character in previous books.
I don’t have a formula and I typically don’t give it a few more pages or minutes. If I realize I’m not enjoying it, I pretty much stop where I am and find something else.
Often I’ll re-read a favourite after I’ve abandoned a book to cheer myself up.
Speaking of DNF-ing books, I’ll give a movie 20 minutes before turning it off if I’m bored.
Exactly what @Deborah said!! I’ve had friends think I’m just slightly better than a psychopath after I’ve admitted skipping to the ending of a book (where I almost inevitably read a chapter or two backwards,a few pages at a time.) If I cannot get excited about the characters/ story after reading the ending and seeing how everything works out (and especially in romances where you get the HEA), then I’m never going to get excited about it and I’ll quit. It’s nice to hear that I’m not unique in this practice!
I got a lot more likely to DNF a book I’m not enjoying or finding useful after I became a stroke survivor.
Rapemances usually trigger my DNW button, but I’ve continued on through unexpected plot wtfery (prime example: unwarned for petplay element in the last Christine Feehan I read).
I never DFN ever.
It looks like I am in the minority here.
I am not sure why I don’t? Maybe because I read fast.
What I do do now is return ebooks when I have truly disliked them.
It’s a rare occurrence but it happens (detailed description of sexual violence, but that’s why I avoid serial killer books, or really really terrible attitude of hero, that one was a Linda Howard where the hero seduces the heroine on the day of her dad’s funeral and puts on a condom while dancing with her in order not to break the flow of seduction… what is that?)
Otherwise, if they were just boring I just don’t put them in a collection on my kindle. Once in a very great while, I’ll go through my 1600+ books on my kindle and delete those but I usually don’t bother. When I used to buy physical books, I would simply give the books I didn’t want to reread to charity.
I’m glad to hear that others don’t finish books. I get a lot of e-books on sale, so it hurts less to not finish a book. And the hard copies I get are mostly on sale or second hand, so again, less pain at not finishing. Really poor editing may turn me off, although if the story is intriguing enough, I’ll probably finish it. Ditto for infuriating plot points – there was one I plowed through even though there was a point that was SO WRONG that I’m still steamed over it. My most recent DNF was when I realized, fairly early in the book, that I hated the main character/narrator and couldn’t stand him, so I gave up on it. I do try to finish books, but life’s too short to read bad (for me) books.
I’m fine with DNF-ing, but I struggle to make the decision each time. There have been some books that I’ve powered through (often because I paid for the book and wanted to like it) and in the end, I was glad I had. I try to figure out if it is going to get better by skimming ahead or reading online reviews.
Like @Rachel, I’m an editor (dev). If a book doesn’t turn off my editing brain, I’m out right away because I just do not want to work on my free time. I’ve always said that once we take our love of reading and go professional we tend to have a harder time turning off the analytical parts and just relaxing into a story. It doesn’t mean that the book bad, just that it’s not achieving what it needs to let us relax into it.
I decided as I graduated college that I was never going to force myself to finish a book I didn’t like again. And I haven’t!
–I will DNF if the plot turns into a plot I dislike, such as Fake Dating/Fake Engagement or its close cousin, Dating Under False Pretenses.
–I will DNF if the plot has not grabbed me after 100 pages.
–I will DNF if the hero is a big Manly Masculine Alpha Man who gets an erection the minute he lays eyes on the heroine, but can’t be bothered to call her by name because that would somehow be Weak.
–I will DNF if at any point, the hero says to the heroine “I know you better than you know yourself, and I know what you need…” OMG YOU DON’T SHUT UP.
–And I have DNFed with great prejudice any number of old-school romances where the first (and second, and third) sex scenes were extremely coerced and creepy. I don’t care if she had an orgasm, she was crying and saying ‘no’ right up until she lost the ability to speak, and any hero who finds that erotic isn’t a hero to me.
I just got through DNF-ing a historical fiction about Poppea (Empress for Nero) when she discussed how much she enjoyed the pineapple she had on afternoon.
No. Just No. The Romans got around, but not *that* much.
(I also ran into a novel about Wiliam Rufus where they spoke of hummingbirds in a medieval English forest. Also nope).
And today, I gave up on the latest entry into a very longrunning series where we caught up on each character in a page long scene, and then switching to someone else whom I could not remember either. Yes, I’m all for fan service, but please spend more than a page on a point of view before switching to someone else. Please.
I generally give it 30 pages (if I’m reading with my eyes) or 30 minutes (if I’m listening). Though I’ve definitely DNF-ed before and after that mark.
I know I’m a little late but I wanted to add my 2 cents!
– If the writing style literally makes me feel nauseated or enraged, out it goes after like… 2 pages (Rainbow’s End – absolutely not)
– Otherwise, I do maybe 20% of a book (uh, I might start the 100 rule since it would be 69 for me, ha). If I realize things are not sticking in my brain because I’m so bored OR that I’m just arguing with the book? Out it goes.
I’ve found it easier to DNF as I’ve started to track that for my reading challenges, too. The sunk-cost fallacy would make me grit my teeth and suffer!