This week’s topic:
So €¦ you’re halfway through a book and you’re hating it. It’s boring. It’s trite. It’s badly written. But €¦ you’ve invested all this time to reading the first half.
What do you do? Read the second half? Just to finish out the story? Find out what happens?
Or, cut your losses and dump the second half?
If I was hating a book I’d stop reading it, before getting halfway into it. I might skim through it if the story was interesting enough to find out what happens or read the end, but if it was that bad I’d dump it straight away. Life is too short and there are too many good books around to waste time and effort reading a boring, trite and badly written book.

I usually try my best to finish up a book I pick up, because there’s a part of me that’ll keep wondering what the ending will be like and this part irritatingly refuses to give me some peace of mind. So this results in me spending months sometimes to read a particular book, usually in between some other book. At times, this pays off, and I find a plot that is riveting. Unfortunately, I’ve also had unpleasant experiences ‘suffering’ through a book only to end up hating the ending.. give and take I guess :)
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I too think that it is best to move on something which works for me!
BTT: Half way
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“Life is too short and there are too many good books around to waste time and effort reading a boring, trite and badly written book.” I agree! It’s good to have the freedom to make our own syllabus.
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I agree with you. If I’m reading a book and it hasn’t gotten my attention by the fifth chapter, I quit reading and go on to another book.
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That’s almost exactly what I said! ;)
~
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I agree. If it’s poorly written, I cannot invest my time in it. Case in point–The Shack. First of all, the author used about 50 ellipses in the first few pages. I just could not continue, even though it was for my book club.
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I very much agree. Life is too short. I put down books I don’t like and move on to something else.
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Great answer, life IS too short to spend it on bad books! :) Love it. My answer is at The Crowded Leaf.
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I used to try to finish every book I started, but I’ve given up on that now. I move on to other books if I don’t find the book interesting.
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I pretty much said the same thing, completing it is like choosing to punish myself. Way to many great books to push yourself through a bad one.
my response
http://teawithmarce.blogspot.com/2010/05/btt-half-way-give-up-or-complete-book.html
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I’m the same in one way, at least – I sometimes just want to know how it ends. My full post is here.
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Mood and deadlines play a part when I’m deciding how patient to be with a dull book.
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