I am a huge mood reader, and I have found through many bad experiences, that trying to force myself to keep going with a book I’m not into just leads to me not reading. So I abandon books a LOT. For every book I finish, I start at least two. But there are some I got further with and that I didn’t stop reading because I wasn’t enjoying them, but more because either I wasn’t feeling it at that particular moment or because it was intense and I just needed a break. Here are the most recent of those.
I was really enjoying Bowie’s Books, but I also felt like it was one that if I consumed it too fast, I’d regret it. Since each chapter is about a different book and how it tied into Bowie’s life, it’s an easy one to pick up and put down at will, so I put it down so I’ll have more of it to look forward to later.
Ducks, Newburyport is one I want to finish, but have been trying to get through for months now. It’s hard to stick with, because there no real momentum. There are no breaks, and therefore no sense of progress. If I had more time to read and could set aside a day or even a weekend to really delve into it, I’d make much better progress. But reading as I do in small bits and pieces, it’s one I’ve struggled to make headway with. I’m still working on it, but I’m not sure when I’ll manage to finish.
Rife is great. It’s a series of short writings by young people, mainly about the things they’re struggling with in their lives. There’s no reason not to keep reading it, and yet I didn’t. Maybe next time.
Shoot the Damn Dog is a memoir about depression. It’s therefore necessarily bleak, and as someone who has been there (and arguably still is), it’s not an easy one to handle. I know I’ll go back to it if life ever feels a little easier, but who knows when (or if) that will happen.
The Good Thieves just didn’t reach out and grip me the way I expected from a middle grade novel. It probably will once I get further into it, but I was in the mood for something that drew me in, and since it didn’t do that right away, I moved along.
I just didn’t get on with Call Me By Your Name. I’ve heard so much praise, and so much about its reputation appeals to me, but I just didn’t like it. I didn’t like the characters, I didn’t like the relationships, and it was slow. I will probably go back to it again at some point, because I figure there must be more to it than I managed to get to, but at the time I threw in the towel.
The Librarian was sweet. It’s quaint, quiet and about books, all things I usually enjoy. But again, it just didn’t grab me and I didn’t find myself wanting to go back to it once I put it down. So I didn’t.
Lowborn is also great. It’s important, timely, and will make you feel all kinds of things. It’s not an easy one, and I’d just finished a couple of books on similar issues, so I didn’t have it in me to finish it at the time. Another I fully expect to go back to and get a lot out of.
White Fragility was fantastic. It’s a great book for white people who want to understand their privilege better, or anyone who wants to challenge their perceptions of the racial landscape around them. I actually meant to get through this and didn’t consciously make a decision to stop. I think I got distracted and then lost the thread.
Evicted is another one that I have heard wonderful things about, and that I could see a lot of promise in. But it was pretty depressing, and some of the stories it told were a bit too hard for me at the time. What I read was excellent, though, and I can see why it has received so much praise. Definitely another one to go back to.
What about you guys? Which books have you abandoned (temporarily or permanently) recently? Have you finished any of these? If so, should I go back to them?
Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly link-up feature created by The Broke and the Bookish and hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl. Every week TTT has a different topic, and everyone who links up has to create a link of ten items that fit that topic. To see past and upcoming topics, go here.
Definitely go back to Bowies Books. Was a good read!
My TTT: https://ignorantsouthafrican.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/tuesday-madness-3/
I definitely will. It’s more a matter of rationing than losing interest in this case! There’s also a niggling feeling that someone’s cashing in on his fame who may or may not be presenting an accurate picture of what he thought of these books and why they mattered to him. I choose to believe it is as accurate as it can be, but still. I can’t help but wish I could read reviews he’d written himself, you know?
I never heard of any of those books which is probably a good thing. 😉
My TTT.
Well, I think most of these books are actually very good, if not excellent – it’s a matter of distraction or timing in most cases!
They do sound as if I would have picked up one or the other.
I listened to Call Me By Your Name on audiobook and the production definitely kept me listening – Armie Hammer has a great voice. 🙂
Lauren @ Always Me
Ooh, good tip! Thank you, I will see if I can find the Hammer audiobook and maybe that will work better for me than the text!
Ducks, Newburyport is on my TBR list and has been for sometime… I feel I need life to be on more of an even keel than it is at present before I launch into it!
My TTT is here https://bookloverssanctuary.com/2020/05/12/top-ten-tuesday-the-last-ten-books-i-abandoned/
I just finished it – I will say audio is a much easier way to get through it. I found because of the style I could listen to it at 2.15x speed, faster than I can for traditional prose, without missing anything. Definitely helped me make fast progress on it while cooking and cleaning up!
Sorry these were fails for you, but I love the attitude with which you DNF.
Hahaha! Thanks! I think most of these book (if not all) are actually really good. Just weren’t what I wanted to be reading at the time!
It’s tough when a book is so “putdownable” that you literally keep putting it down and not really wanting to pick it back up. That’s a sign for me that it needs to be DNF’d or at least postponed to a time when I’m feeling it more.
Happy TTT!
Susan
http://www.blogginboutbooks.com
Completely agree. Because inevitably there will come a point when I just stop reading and watch TV because I don’t want to read that book, and then I lose valuable reading time altogether. And I still haven’t finished the book!
I hate it when I am enjoying a book and then for some reason, often the library due date, set the book aside and then lose my momentum on it. Books I’ve Abandoned
Yep! Happens to me all the time! The worst is when it’s a big or complicated book that I actually made it a decent amount of the way through. Means when I go back to it I have to either hope I’m remembering the important bits or start all over again. I got halfway through The Goldfinch before feeling overwhelmed by it (I stopped around when the setting changes and a new section starts). It was a lot of time and effort to get that far, and I don’t want to do it from the beginning again, but I don’t know if I remember it well enough to pick up where I left off. I don’t remember character names or details about who people are, and I’m sure that will keep me distanced from it. So what can I do?? It’s so frustrating!
I’m such a mood reader, too! Glad someone feels my pain, haha. I loved that you mentioned so many books on your list that you plan on picking up again later… I’m the same way!
Kindred spirits! I’m such a mood reader that sometimes my mood switches part way through a book. I can’t ever just be reading one book at a time, either, so that doesn’t help! I pretty much always plan to go back. It’s very rare that I will consciously DNF a book, and even rarer that I’ll do so planning for it to be a final decision. That said, most books I DNF I don’t end up going back to – or not quickly. Maybe that says more about my indecisiveness than anything else!
I rarely DNF books because I keep hoping they’ll get better. But maybe I should learn to just put them down if I’m not enjoying them. Life’s too short to read bad books.
My TTT: https://www.traversingchapters.com/top-ten-tuesday-the-last-ten-books-i-abandoned/
I agree, though I think it depends a bit on why you’re reading a particular book and how fast you can get through it. Usually I DNF when I can’t handle reading a book and therefore just won’t read because I’m avoiding it, or if I get totally bogged down and it’s long. Other times I don’t decide to stop, I just move on to another book and forget to come back for so long that I’d have to start again! But I agree. There are so many wonderful books out there we’ll never get to, and it’s definitely not going to help if we feel like we have to keep going on every book we start!
I checked out Ducks, Newburyport recently and I read for a while before I thought to see how long it was. I’ve read Evicted, too, and it is bleak.
I did actually finish Ducks – but I’d already written and scheduled the post and forgot it was on there! I can’t say much about my thoughts on it since it’s part of judging for a prize and my group hasn’t finished voting yet, but I will say it worked a lot better as an audiobook on 2.15 times speed!
Shoot the Damn Dog sounds helpful. I’ll keep it in mind if/when my depression returns, too.
My TTT .
I’ve heard great things from a few people who have actually finished it. And I think sometimes it’s useful to find people who have been there (or are still there) because one of the worst parts of depression, in my experience anyway, is how it separates you from people and makes you feel totally alone. When we’re definitely not. It’s happening silently all around us. This book is honest, and brave. One I fully intend to go back and finish!
Cool post
Thank you!
I haven’t read any of these. I don’t DNF books often. Sometimes books take a while to read though.
I never really plan to DNF – at the time I’m just reading one of the other five or six I have on the go. It’s only months later when I look back and realize I never picked them up again that I’ll actually realize I DNFed them!
I’ve had to part ways with a few books that didn’t grab my attention after a while. Life’s full of too many books to read.
That’s pretty much where I stand on the whole thing. Sure, I might miss out on a few I would have come to love, but it’s worth it not to end up missing out on a bunch more because I’m spending so much time and energy on books I don’t want to be reading!