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:

1. 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.
2. 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!

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Thank you for reading!

“Find your peace, find your joy, find your book, and never let go”

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