Once I start a book, I have to finish it, even if I absolutely hate it.
This just happened recently where I looked down and realized that I was only on page 100 and still had to get through about 350 more pages. It was like walking in heavy sand on a summer’s day with the sun beating down on your back and dragging extra weight to boot-you get the picture. The book, which will remain anonymous to protect the innocent, just didn’t do it for me. One of the main characters was totally unsympathetic. From any angle, I just couldn’t warm up to him and he was also the main love interest. On any level he didn’t do it for me.
But enough about that.
It’s my optimistic spirit *tonguedeftlyincheek* that keeps me turning the page on a truly horrific, badly written, put-downable book. It’s called redemption and I’m looking for it somewhere by the last page. There just has to be some redeeming quality by the end that justifies the time I spent reading it (time is precious), the money spent (recession, anyone?) and the emotional involvement. Sometimes, there is none of these.
And there has been redemption in the past.
Trinity by Leon Uris comes to mind. I picked that book up three separate times before I finally finished and loved it. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen- initially I struggled with it, but soon fell in love with it and everything else written by Jane Austen. Jane Austen books are in that rare category of books that I will read over and over as I never tire of them. I can not tell you how many times I checked The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova out of the library before finally being sucked into it and the only disappointment was that it had ended. And the list goes on and on.
And yet *sigh* there are the clunkers out there that make me want to cry.
A friend of mine recently gave me this advice with my obsession about finishing crappy books: life’s too short, put it down and read something else.
This just happened recently where I looked down and realized that I was only on page 100 and still had to get through about 350 more pages. It was like walking in heavy sand on a summer’s day with the sun beating down on your back and dragging extra weight to boot-you get the picture. The book, which will remain anonymous to protect the innocent, just didn’t do it for me. One of the main characters was totally unsympathetic. From any angle, I just couldn’t warm up to him and he was also the main love interest. On any level he didn’t do it for me.
But enough about that.
It’s my optimistic spirit *tonguedeftlyincheek* that keeps me turning the page on a truly horrific, badly written, put-downable book. It’s called redemption and I’m looking for it somewhere by the last page. There just has to be some redeeming quality by the end that justifies the time I spent reading it (time is precious), the money spent (recession, anyone?) and the emotional involvement. Sometimes, there is none of these.
And there has been redemption in the past.
Trinity by Leon Uris comes to mind. I picked that book up three separate times before I finally finished and loved it. Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen- initially I struggled with it, but soon fell in love with it and everything else written by Jane Austen. Jane Austen books are in that rare category of books that I will read over and over as I never tire of them. I can not tell you how many times I checked The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova out of the library before finally being sucked into it and the only disappointment was that it had ended. And the list goes on and on.
And yet *sigh* there are the clunkers out there that make me want to cry.
A friend of mine recently gave me this advice with my obsession about finishing crappy books: life’s too short, put it down and read something else.
Nick Hornby said that every time you keep reading a book you're not enjoying you reinforce the idea that reading's a chore, not a pleasure. These days, I probably give up on five books for every one I finish (but most of them have been sent to me, i.e. aren't books I would have chosen for myself).
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