How long do you give a book you aren’t enjoying before you bail?
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Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com
The blog of Luther M. Siler, teacher, author and local curmudgeon
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 
No time at all, if I don’t like why waste time?
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I have a 40-50 page limit before I stop reading. If the author hasn’t engaged me within that section, then I don’t bother continuing. Life’s too short and there are more good books out there to enjoy.
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I don’t read just anything, so if I’m not enjoying it, there has to be something really wrong. I’ve put down books that were poorly written within the first chapter. It’s just not worth the investment.
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5 chapters
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Usually only about 40 to 50 pages. But sometimes not even that. Other times though if I paid for something, I might stick it out, just because I paid the damn thing.
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I typically finish a book, no matter what. If it’s truly terrible, then I may stop after about 20 pages. But usually my eternal optimism kicks in and I keep reading hoping that at some point, things will will get better. Movies, however, I’ll stop after a few minutes of watching.
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It depends on why I’m not enjoying it. If the story simply isn’t all that interesting, I’ll often keep reading in the hope that it will improve further on (or I set the book aside to finish later, because maybe I’m just not in the mood to read this story at this time). If the writing is so technically inept that I find myself becoming angry at how bad it is, I’m more likely to quit after just a few pages.
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If I don’t like it, I usually end up power-skimming just to get to the end and move on that usually means I finish a 400pg novel in a day if I don’t like it.
The only book I’ve never finished is Stephen King’s Misery – I got 3/4 of the way through and just couldn’t do it anymore.
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I feel the need for more detail. MISERY was the first King I ever read, and I loved it– was it the writing or just the subject matter?
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It usually depends on why I am not enjoying it. I read about half of twilight before the writing style became too unbearable, but I read only like three chapters of the maze runner before I decided that I didnt like the characters and stopped. Conversely, I read all of eragon, which I severely regret, even though I restarted it like 15 times because I couldn’t get into it. All in all, it depends on a lot of factors. If its a book I’ve never heard of and I don’t like the characters, the style, or the story, its generally like 30-50 pages. If its a popular book, I try to go further than that before I stop.
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Oh, I struggle with this because I am a completionist. If someone’s told me amazing things about the book, I try to soldier on, but otherwise I give it at least a couple chapters before moving on to something else. And sometimes it’s just a matter of not being in the right mood for a book, so I may come back to it later.
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First few chapters!
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100 pages as a rule of thumb…
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It depends on how important the book is, for me. I’ve read a lot of books I didn’t like for the sake of forming an opinion about them to discuss with others.
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I can never bail. I just limp on and avoid reading it.
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I’m with the “it depends” crowd. If I pick something up because it’s garnering rave reviews, or is a classic of some sort, or won a major award, I will fight through more of it – I read Infinite Jest all the way through, loathing every moment of it, because so many people just loooooved it. But with less and less time to read at all, there are fewer things I will do that for than I used to. (I’m also now somewhat less likely to read something based on a friend’s recommendation than I used to be for similar reasons.)
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I always TRY to finish it, but tend to get about 30pages in before I “lose” it somewhere.
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You’ve got 5-10 pages to hook me. After that, I got a whole lot of books on my Kindle that I can check out.
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Up to the first 50 pages. If the book uses too much description (do you really need to know what count the bed sheet is?), I stop much sooner.
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I don’t bail. If it’s horrible writing – I realize you can learn more from bad writing than you can from good. If I am not connecting with one of the characters – I give them their story and then try to discover what alienated them from me. If it’s good writing but boring – I simply enjoy the words
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I like to give a book the benefit of the doubt, but I have learned that anything that doesn’t grab me in the first 6 or 7 chapters will probably not suddenly change my mind in the 8th. I do switch genres depending on my mood, so if I don’t fancy something in the first two or three chapters
, but sense I might if I was in the mood, it gets a second run!
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One chapter and then I pretend I’m going to get back to it later. I have read books that start slow and get better, you never know, but one chapter is all the time I give it.
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I’m not a huge King fan (style issues) and Misery was the 4th (?) King I read at age 12. I think it had something to do with the unrelenting torture – I skipped ahead to the end just to see how it shook down and the main character was still in hell and I wanted an end in sight. Not necessarily an HEA, but some kind of resolution at least on the psychological front. I would’ve accepted a suicide as an ending, really.
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About 20 pages…sometimes though I have read all but the last 20 pages and then decided to drop it anyways for I have other things to do…
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5-10 pages, especially fiction. non-fiction 20-30 pages. But with infinite free time it wouldn’t matter!
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I keep at it longer than I should, sometimes to the bitter end. Lately I’ve been giving myself permission to stop after about a third of the way through. By that point I know if the plot or the writing has changed enough to keep me interested.
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For me it depends. I got about 50 pages into Double Feature by Owen King, was getting bored, then came across a 16 page paragraph. One paragraph, 16 pages long. That did it. I just gave up on 1Q84 about 200 pages in because I thought I could see where the story was going and it didn’t seem like it should take over 700 more pages to get there.
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When I was younger I’d finish what I started reading, just on principle … thankfully I grew up. If I’m not having a good time reading then I stop. Period.
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I once pushed on through the next 350 pages of Gandhi’s autobiography (because it was GANDHI, for goodness’ sake!), and apart from learning how to skim read, I got nothing out of it except eye-strain and a deep deep scar where my osmosic reading receptor used to be; reading should be as naive as wave-into-sand-on-flat-beach – exhausting as that can be
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I try to soldier on, I’ve only given up on a handful, but if it’s really bad probably a couple of chapters.
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About the second chapter. It’s kind of like a new show on television. You watch the pilot, then the first show, Sometimes the pilot is not great but when the show officially starts, they got most of the kinks out.
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If a book doesn’t grab me by the end of the first paragraph, then it’s on notice. If it doesn’t pique my interest in the first few pages, then it’s time we had “the talk”. If it doesn’t cut it by the end of the chapter, then I’m sending back to the library early.
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The first five chapters or the first 150 pgs, which ever comes first.
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The first sentence or so (mercy is a great virtue). If the author wants to pour meaning into his work he will do so from the start. If not, I’m not interested.
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Twice I got to half way through the last book of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy and then thought “I just don’t care” and stopped.
Usually about 20 pages though.
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A couple of chapters maybe, but more often I read the whole damn book and then promise myself I’ll never be that stupid again.
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I spent years in prison so I suffer through a bad book til the end. I had a cellie one time that was on more than a dozen different “psych meds.” When he slept he snored like two trains on a collision course. Finally he ate too many razor blades and they took him away. That’s how I read a bad book – I just hope that it’ll hurry up and eat enough razor blades to be gone.
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I used to finish books no matter what. Then I read Mists of Avalon, all 800 or so pages, and regretted every minute. Now I will allow myself to quit if the writer annoys or bores me – there are too many good things to read out there. How long it takes will vary. The Parasol Protectorate lasted 3 paragraphs. I suffered through one entire Charles Stross novel before I found him too unbearable. Neal Stephenson lasted a few pages in one case, a few dozen in another. On the other hand I made it all the way through several cases of appalling writing because the story was sufficiently gripping. I still kind of regretted it though.
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Charlie Stross is weird to me– I read all of his books, and I want to like all of his books, but they tend to be really hit or miss, and his recent NEPTUNE’S BROOD is the only one I’ve really loved.
I’m a big Stephenson fan, too, but wouldn’t argue with people who dislike his work.
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I don’t think either of them is a bad writer, I just find their styles grating. Too cute, too clever, too self-congratulatory. It’s like they’re nudging the reader, whispering ‘see what I did there?’ and it gets in the way of the story.
100% subjective of course. 🙂
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I usually will trudge through even the most terrible of books
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