Overheard a librarian say something that changed how I pick books

I was at the library last Tuesday waiting to check out and I heard one of the librarians tell a patron 'if you don't like a book by page 50, put it down and grab something else.' That hit me hard because I always force myself to finish books even when I hate them. My book club has been stuck on this dense historical novel for three weeks and nobody likes it but we keep reading because we feel obligated. I brought up what the librarian said at our meeting last night and everyone agreed to drop it and pick a new book. We picked up a thriller called 'The Last Flight' and finished it in two days. Has anyone else ever felt bad about quitting a book mid-way?

3 comments

3 Comments

tessap979d ago

Page 50 is actually generous to me. I give a book about 20 pages, maybe 30 if someone I trust recommended it. I forced myself through a whole 500 page fantasy series a few years back because I spent money on the books and felt like I had to get my moneys worth. By the end I was so angry I just sat there wondering why I wasted a whole month on something I hated from chapter two. Now I drop books without guilt. Life is too short to read bad books.

kimr919d agoMost Upvoted

I get where you're coming from, but I think you might be missing out on some great stuff by giving up too fast. Some of my favorite books were slow burners that didn't grab me until past page 100. The Name of the Wind took me three tries to get into it, and now it's one of my all-time favorites. I also had that feeling with a series I forced myself through, and it taught me to just put a book down and come back to it later. Sometimes you're just not in the right headspace for it, and picking it up a year later makes all the difference.

knight.uma9d ago

Yeah exactly, I started checking if a library has a book before buying it just to avoid that sting.