I ask because I tend to jump off a book if It’s not grabbing me, which at times limits me with regards to what I’m reading.
Does it matter? Is it something I should try to push past or am I overthinking this and should just enjoy what I enjoy?
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I usually just stop reading it. My problem is with books I’m liking, but not vibing with at the moment. I used to keep going, but realized that by doing this I’d give it “bad review” because I wasn’t feeling it at the time. Now I just put it aside and come back later. Even if many months or years later
I’m reading the 3rd book in the Mistborn series and I’m about 2/3rds done and am struggling. I just find the characters flat, but my friend keeps telling me to just finish it so the “better books” in the Sanderson universe will make sense. Ugh.
honestly, mistborn isn’t very good and there is no reason you can’t just immediately jump on stormlight. yes, there are tons of references and characters which does make stormlight awesome because you’ll go “omg no way! it’s HIM!”, but it isn’t strictly necessary because stormlight doesn’t actually assume you’ve read the previous cosmere books (few exceptions where brandon just teases too much it takes away from the plot, i.e. the mysterious scarf wearing woman. yes, we get it, it’s the princess from warbreaker, and she’s looking for one of the gods from warbreaker, that we’re also familiar with, and the god in turn is looking for his weapon). but ultimately these characters have their own story arcs and most of them aren’t immediately important to the plot and more like easter eggs.
now, i should point out that … i really don’t care for mistborn. and for now, it doesn’t matter. but after the next stormlight book, there will be an in-world timeskip, and then another 3-6 mistborn books, and then both the mistborn series and the stormlight series become one joint series.
but there is really no reason to read stormlight before mistborn in its current state because the only real way you’ll know for sure one of the hidden characters in stormlight is a particularly well loved character from mistborn is if you read the wiki. there is also a guest appearance of another character in i think the first book but it doesn’t make sense in the timeline and it’s inconsequential to the plot in every way.
I really enjoyed the first 3 Mistborn, though I’ll admit the third was the weakest of them. I’m not sure why you need to have read them for the other stuff, though. I’ve enjoyed a lot of his works, but the magic systems are quite different between them, despite apparently being in the same universe. (Which I didn’t realize until I’d read a lot of his books.)
well for one thing, one of the big bads in stormlight happens to die in mistborn.
Often, I don’t. If I think there is a good chance of a payoff, though… I start skimming the crap. I’ve learned to skim through stuff until something of import comes up, and then I step back a couple paragraphs and start reading again.
I don’t know how you’d learn this, but I learned it back in high school when I needed to find information in the textbook quickly, but couldn’t afford to actually read every page on the way. It was massively successful back then, and now both.
If after skimming like 1/4 of a book I haven’t found anything interesting again, I almost always quit, though. It’s really unlikely that a book with that much content that I don’t care about will have anything that I value later.
That said… I have skimmed entire books on re-read. Some of the middle Wheel of Time books, for example. And some were so bad that I just read a summary, instead of skimming. But I like the first books enough that it was worth it for the ending, which was decent, but not mind-blowing like I’d hoped. (I “re-read” them when the later books finally came out and I wanted a refresher.)
I used to do this but I forgot I did it.
Oh Wheel of Time. I love them for the most part, but I just couldn’t care less about a whole book of Elaine playing politics for the Lion Throne. Then there was the book that was mostly just devoted to taking care of a drought. I get the latter is the Dark One’s shadow falling on the world and all, but the boredom it invoked felt like the Dark One’s shadow on my mind.
I’ve been stuck in Winter’s Heart for months, maybe even approaching a year now. I might finish it by the time i have grandkids.
Whenever I’ve pushed through and attempted to finish a book that I do not enjoy, I end up shelving reading as a hobby for a long period of time.
So I decided to just stop trying and if I don’t enjoy them, I stop. There are too many good books to read out there for me to try to force feed one to myself.
I say don’t force yourself. Why force yourself to do a leisure time activity you aren’t enjoying? Sometimes stuff we learn from is boring, sure, but there are endless things to learn. You’ll also learn more if you’re enjoying the topic.
normally i put them down and forget about it. i think there’s only one book i finished despite hating it, and that was to be sure that i was right and it was an incredibly shit book and i didnt make a snap judgement. it was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_with_the_Golden_Touch
I check out books from the library, which of course jas a due date. If I like the book I finish it before it’s due. If I find myself struggling to get into and haven’t finished it by the due date, I just return it and never look back.
Audiobooks on a long trip? It’s been the answer for me on occasion, but some books are impossible to put up with
I don’t. There are so many books, if I’m not into it I drop it. If I know it should be good I am more likely to stick with it or pick it back up later. Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver took me two false starts over five years to finally reach a place where I could see it through.
Why would you want to?
If a book isn’t working out for you, then it’s not working out for you. Don’t get held hostage to the Sunk Cost fallacy - your time is precious, drop that book and pick up something different!
And if you are just unsure about that book, jump ahead by half of the remaining pages and check out an additional 2-20 pages at that point to see if things have improved. If it still doesn’t grab you, dump it and move on.
Don’t. Life’s too short.
If you’re enjoying it but it’s a hard read take a break and try again. If you’re just not enjoying it sack it.
It depends. There have been books that I have HAD to read and I survived by making notes in the margins about how everything they are saying is wrong. :)
For stuff I didn’t HAVE to read? Fuck that, life is too short. I might consider going back some day, but in most cases, never have.
I got 100 pages into Dune and walked away, that was probably 40 years ago now.
Life is too short to keep up hobbies that don’t bring you joy. If that book ain’t doing it for you, shelve it for now and try a different one.
Huge fan of Do Not Finish. There are too many good books out there to waste time with mediocre ones. I’ve noped out of books by my favorite authors. Finishing a book you started because you started it is the perfect example of the sunk cost fallacy.
I don’t. When I’m clearly not enjoying a book and don’t feel like finishing it, I stop and move on. Unless I have a pressing reason, I see no point in pushing myself to do something I hate. Reading is for me is fun and interesting, it is not something I do to torture myself. Sometimes it’s hard to “give up” on a book, but in the end life is too short.
Do what you enjoy the way that works for you, there are no rules.
