Do You Have to Finish Every Book You Start?

 I used to be incapable of abandoning a book.

Once I'd started it, that was it. We were in this together until the bitter end.

It didn't matter if I was bored. It didn't matter if I disliked every character. It didn't even matter if I'd spent the previous fifty pages thinking about what I was going to have for dinner instead of taking in a single word.

I'd started the book.

Therefore, I had to finish the book.

I'm not entirely sure who made this rule.

Presumably the same person who decided we have to eat everything on our plates.

These days, I'm much more ruthless.

If I'm 100 pages into a book and picking up the hoover suddenly seems more appealing than reading another chapter, something has gone terribly wrong.

That doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad book. I've given up on books that thousands of other readers adore. Sometimes the writing isn't for me. Sometimes I'm not in the right mood. Sometimes a book and a reader simply don't get along.

And that's okay.

There are far too many books I desperately want to read to spend three evenings battling one that I'm not enjoying.

The difficult bit is deciding when to give up.

Twenty pages feels unfair.

Fifty? Maybe.

One hundred? Surely we've given this relationship a reasonable chance.

I've occasionally reached halfway before admitting defeat, which feels rather like sitting through an awful first date and then agreeing to go on holiday together because you've already invested two hours.

So I've finally given myself permission to DNF.

No guilt. No apologising to the book. Back on the shelf it goes.

Although I still can't bring myself to get rid of it.

I'm not a monster.