Features | Making It To The End
My least favourite book that I have ever read is The Time Traveler's Wife. I know this for a fact because I read it all the way to the end. For about three quarters of the book I was fully expecting to start enjoying the story eventually, and then I had just read so much of it that I didn't see any point in not making it to the end.
This is generally what happens with me. If I'm really not enjoying a book I might put it down but usually with the intention to pick it up again at some point in the future, thinking I'm probably just not in the mood for this particular story right now. Often that works but recently I picked up a book for the second time and after reading about a third of it realised that it wasn't my mood, I just didn't like this book. I knew there was a chance that things might get better later on but there are so many other books on my shelves that I want to read, and I didn't want to spend weeks forcing myself to read this book, when I could spend that time on books I would enjoy a lot more.
Unless you're a super fast speed reader, reading a book takes a lot of time, so why do I and many others force ourselves to spend that time on books we aren't enjoying? I think for some it can feel like an opinion is less valid if you haven't read the whole book, but I think there is usually a strong opinion behind choosing not to finish a book, which is just as valid as any other. Personally, I tend to push through to the end of a book in the hopes that things will get better, but I do find that if I haven't enjoyed the first half of a book, I probably won't enjoy the second half either. Most of the time it's just curiosity. If I have already read the first 100 pages of a book, even if I haven't particularly enjoyed it, I usually still want to see how it ends.
So if I was reading The Time Traveler's Wife for the first time now, would I still make it to the end? Probably. I'm just not sure I'll ever be able to get over that little niggle of curiosity that makes me want to see a book through to the end, even when I know I won't enjoy it.
What about you? Are you the type of person who always has to make it to the end of a book, no matter what? Or do you know when to call it quits?
No comments
Post a Comment