- That one time that I was halfway through a 400-page book that I was not enjoying and I accidentally left it at the BWI train station. I figured it was my subconscious speaking and let myself off the hook for buying a replacement copy in order to finish it.
- Terribly long, overly detailed non-fiction titles assigned for college courses.
- Terribly long, overly detailed fiction titles assigned for college courses.
- Twilight
She's right, of course. How could a librarian with her own action figure be wrong, after all? I started to apply her advice to my own reading; in 2011, I started and put down 9 books* (about 10% of all of my reading). If I didn't love it, I didn't read it. And it felt good. Really good. I've already abandoned one book this year, and I haven't looked back.
But I guess nothing can be that simple, really, because I find I'm struck with another question: what do I do with the books I kind of like, but certainly don't love? The books that are too long and desperately needed two hundreds pages edited out to maintain their momentum, or the titles that are intriguing, sure, but lack that siren song when you are forced to put them down?
Sometimes, I can tell after fifty or one hundred pages that a book will be... fine. Just fine. Not bad, but not great. And these are the books that give me the most guilt, that I have a hard time abandoning. They are the books I probably should abandon, but have not yet found it in me to do so.
Any advice? Do you read on in these situations, or give up the ghost?
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*The only one that didn't feel good was Laura Lippman's I'd Know You Anywhere, which I really, really wanted to love. And actually, I did; Lippman's writing was spot-on, and her story so well-done and well-conceived as to be totally creepy. So much so that I stopped sleeping well, and had to stop reading after only a few chapters. This particular DNF I consider more a compliment than anything else; apparently, I'm just a weeny.
