If you’re not enjoying a book, will you stop mid-way? Or do you push through to the end? What makes you decide to stop?
No, I push through to the end. I know that life’s too short to read bad books, but I have to finish what I start. I actually consider bad books educational; they teach me what not to write and hone my editing eye through their badness. And I have to admit, writing a review for a bad book is easier than writing a review for a mediocre one–at least there’s material for a review!
The only way I don’t read a book is if, beforehand, I discover there’s gratuitous animal death or, if it’s a contemporary novel, disgusting concepts concerning women, people of color, or queer folk. But other than that, I power through ’till the end.
The Literary Omnivore 
Yes! That’s one of the things that will make me drop a book immediately – when an author kills off an animal just for effect. Or introduces an animal just to kill it off. Can’t stand that.
I do admire readers who can soldier on to the end, even when they’re not enjoying a book. Just can’t seem to make myself do it.
It’s a perfectionist thing, I think, although I’m not really in other areas of my life. Hmm.
Frankly, I think why should I waste time reading something I don’t like when there are so many more to choose from..
Here is my BTT: Giving Up post!
But there’s so much to learn from bad books for me as an editor, a writer, and even as a reader. It’s useful to me.
I rarely give up on a book. But I can’t cope with animal deaths – it’s kept me from ever getting more than a few pages into Richard Wright’s *Black Boy.* But if I’ve gotten 50 or more pages into a book, it’s rare that I give up. Sometimes – as in reading Twilight – I grit my teeth and moan and whine my way through the remainder. But it feels somehow like a cop-out to stop partway through.
Exactly. I have to finish what I start!
Good point about their being educational – makes me feel better about my own reluctance to abandon books 😛
Experience is education- I can’t take that away from myself. 🙂