You Have Permission to Not Finish

There was a time, not so long ago, when I would read to the end of a book regardless of whether I liked it or not. This is especially true of physical books as opposed to those on my e-reader.

Books were always precious things. As a child, it was instilled in me you had to be careful with them. I still cringe at people who crack the spines, turn down corners, or leave them out for dogs and small children to rip into pieces. One friend who borrowed my book was reading it in the bath and dropped it. She returned it to me in a terrible state with a brief apology. (I never lent books to her again!)

If I bought or was gifted a book, knowing that it had cost money, I would read it from cover to cover. Unfortunately, that means that I have read quite a few terrible stories alongside the wonderful ones. I found this to be especially true if my preferred fantasy genre became popular. Suddenly, the market would be flooded with books, which at first seemed to be manna from heaven. Unfortunately, the quality of the stories diminished rapidly, and I had to learn to be more selective when browsing the bookstore.

My guilty pleasure is historical (mainly Regency) and suspense romance novels, which I consume at a great rate. I don’t tend to pay out for them, unless I liked the first one in a series and want more. I have hundreds of them on my Kindle and am pretty strict about deleting the dross.

Unfortunately, there is a lot of it!

If the protagonists are obsessed by body parts or use the F-bomb in the first couple of pages, they are gone. I also delete books with spelling and grammar issues. If you can’t proofread your own work, you don’t deserve to have it read. If I get annoyed by the characters, or the author writes inaccuracies, particularly in the historical context, I’m not bothered about finishing.

I need to transfer that selectiveness to my physical books, but for some reason, it’s much harder to close the cover and put it in the charity bag. When we spend time and money on something, it feels as if we should get something back. I talk myself into continuing, hoping that things will improve, or that the story will suddenly take off. I have even convinced myself that I’m the problem because I must be in a funny mood, and if I go back to it another time, it will have miraculously flowered.

I also find it difficult to pick up another book because that’s “cheating” somehow. Like being told to clear my plate because I can’t have pudding if I haven’t finished the main course.

This year, I am giving myself permission to DNF (Did Not Finish). Life is too short to waste it struggling through a book that I don’t like, is boring or badly written. I think of all the great books I could have read instead of gamely ploughing through Ready Player Two, or Fifty Shades of Grey. As for Earthlings, I can never scrub those disgusting images from my brain!

From now on, I will only read those books that fire my imagination, engage me to the point where I don’t want to put it down, and offer me the chance to step into another world and stay there. And if I decide I can’t continue, I’ll donate it to the local charity shop. Because even if I don’t like it, someone else will love it.

Ditch the guilt and give yourself permission to not finish a book that doesn’t engage you – even if it’s mine! (Although I very much hope that won’t be the case.) Just like food, wine and clothes, my preferences will be different from yours. I wouldn’t drink a wine I hated or eat food that turned my stomach, so I shouldn’t have to read a book that I don’t enjoy even if it is one that has been recommended.

I promise you, you won’t regret it.

Happy reading!