I constantly sit in front of my shelves to contemplate the titles I haven’t read yet. Sometimes, I just sit there and enjoy the view whereas other times I enter this philosophical stage of what I should read next.
Having so many books that I have bought blindly fills me with fear… what if I don’t like them? What if they are not what the covers offer? Lately, I have found myself to be too permissive and too eager to say “yes” to all the books that I found in front of me, and that can be such a bad experience. It is torture to start a book and not liking it! I feel guilty and with an obligation with myself and the author. They want to be read and I do not want to waste my money! I was forcing myself to keep on reading like 2 pages every 30 minutes for a book that I didn’t fully enjoy.
But you know what? We don’t have any obligation with the books we read. Yes, we got them, we read them, but what if we don’t like them? Simple: we just put it aside and move on. We enter the Elsa mode of letting the book go! We don’t have to force ourselves to do things that we do no fully enjoy. (I mean…leave that to your job.) But after all these the million-dollar question hasn’t been answered: when should we stop reading this book?
I am glad you all asked! because I can offer you two options:
- Oprah said that if you reach the 50% of the book but it doesn’t hook you by then, you can drop it. Well… I say Oprah is not right… There are a lot of books that the first 50% is all about character development, exposition, setting, “pre-work”, and defining the mood of the novel and the grand finally… so: if you reach 60% of the book and nothing has happened by then and you are not happy, sing the song together with Demi Lovato.
- Now, if you feel trapped or you are simply not happy by simply picking up the book… then just drop it regardless of your location on the book.
There are tons of books that we can read. Thousands of authors that will love us only for buying their book, so let’s not be too hard on ourselves. We don’t have to feel guilty for thinking of dropping a book. Just do it, and trust me, you will feel better.
We should all stop reading books!… Yes, we should all stop reading books that we are no in love with, the books that do not hook us from the beginning or by the 60% of it, or those who are simply… not for us.
Visit our other post on How to have a DNF shelf on Goodreads without altering your read shelf that will help you start DNFing those books that are not for us!
If you liked what I wrote and/or if you wish to comment or discuss, come and do it!
Thank you for reading!
“Find your peace, find your joy, find your book, and never let go”
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I have to say I agree with Oprah on the 50% mark. I do agree with you somewhat on how the first 50% can sometime just be build up and character backstory etc. but in my experience with books like that there has usually always been something that will still book me enough to make me want to keep reading it. If whatever that is is missing in a book by the time I reach 50% I will DNF it. I have also DNFed earlier than the 50% mark because I was forcing myself to read the book and I was not enjoying anything about it so I decided to drop it.
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Yeah like if you are not enjoying it… they just drop it as easy as that Haha
and then when I get to I dont know 30 pages after that I drops so many bombs that wows me incredible Haha so I am a more inclined to more than 50% 😂😂
I dont know like I have read a lot of books where the 50% hasn’t happened much
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I’ve come across a couple that the first half is really slow but the last half makes up for it but sometimes I’m not so sure trudging through the first half is worth it.
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Maybe we should do a study where that happens to see how many books are worth it haha
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😂
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You have a lot of patience my friend…. my limit would probably only be 20%… I’m too moody and go into reading slumps so easily that I just can’t continue a book if it’s not capturing me…
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haha that is fair! I tried to push myself a bit more but if 20% is enough, then drop it, burn it and move it haha
don’t burn it… just put it away haha
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Haha I know… we book lovers would never burn them.. too precious ❤️❤️❤️
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Sacrilege! haha
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