Casting a Book Aside

This is not something I do lightly. I believe that every book has it's place, even if you hate it, you may learn something from it. It may reaffirm the things you like in a book, which the one you hate may lack or recognize attributes of a book to avoid in the future. Also, I generally find it easier to finish a book and never think about it again rather than stop in the middle and wonder if it got any better. But that's just my personal experience.

There are certain situations and benefits I give a book before it gets tossed (or more likely given away). The following are things I think that anyone should consider before giving up on a book. I will also give examples of books I gave up on because of these reasons.

1. If you don't enjoy anything about a book once you are 100 pages in: In that 100 pages a lot can change and happen. Even if it's a slow read, by that time you should have enough character development to understand a character's motivation. Also in that time, you should be getting a bit of plot so that you know where the story might be going, but not how it will end... unless it's based on history... then you might know already. There are very few books I have given up on entirely. One was The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkein. This has put me at odds with many of my bookstore coworkers. I found the writing pretentious and annoying. I gave it 150 pages and I still thought it was stupid. I wasn't through the dancing and singing in the woods by this point so I said “screw it” and just watched the movie. And in the movie, that stupid dancing and singing was just narration by the wonderful Cate Blanchett and only took about 10 minutes. I stand by my choice. This is also an advantage to abandoning a book that has a movie adaptation, you can generally find out if it is worth going back or reading or not from the movie. I felt Lord of the Rings was better as a movie and left it at that. Done and done.
   
   
   
   
   
2. If you aren't in the right “head-space”: Sometimes, a particular book topic or plot line is not cohesive to your life at the time. It may be a wonderful book when you are in a different place in your life. If a book is making you depressed or angry or frustrated, maybe now isn't a good time to read it (unless you want to be depressed or angry or frustrated). I was reading The Stand by Stephen King, which is a peri- and post-apocalyptic book. I tried to read this while I was in the first trimester of my pregnancy. This was not a good choice. There was even a girl in it that was pregnant through all of this, but I could not read it at that time. The concept of epidemics and pandemics fascinate me, but for some reason I have yet to find a post-apocalyptic book that I enjoy. (I also read The Road by Cormac McCarthy a few years ago and I didn't like that one either, but I did finish it). I have had SO many people tell me they loved The Stand and that it's Stephen King's best, but I couldn't handle the concept of the world coming to an end while I was carrying a baby that I had high hopes for in the future. I may try reading this one again when I'm done having kids.
   
   
   
3. It doesn't fit your lifestyle right now: This is something I have to take into great consideration right now, while I have very little time to read. Sometimes there are days between when I get back to a book I have started, and if it takes too much brain power, or has too many things I need to remember, or there are no good places to stop within 10 pages, it really won't suit my lifestyle right now. I have just decided today to put aside Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. This made me really sad because I was really looking forward to reading this one. The movie came out last weekend and as mentioned in prior posts, I prefer to read the book before going to the movie. But this one is not working for me right now and I'm only about 20 pages in. This is a book that takes brainpower. I'm sure I will love it when I try to read it again, but right now, in the first section of the book, the language (a journal in a 18^th century, I think, dialect) is too much for me. I have quite the conundrum with the movie because of this. Watch it first? Or wait until I can read the book first?
   
   
   

There can be many more determining factors for different readers and different books, but I think most of my “nay” books can fit into one of these three criteria. Especially the first, that one is kinda a catch all since I always give it at least 100 pages.

I suppose in short, if you wanted a summery of this post, I would say treat your books like you should treat relationships... Give them a try if you think you'll like them, but if they aren't meeting your needs don't be afraid to cast them aside and try something new that you may suit you better... (but the better thing about books is that you can enjoy more than one without a moral and ethical issue on your hands ;) )