Tuesday Tea: Do you DNF books? How do you know it's time to quit?
Sometimes quitting is winning
(Hello! Tuesday Tea coming at you on Wednesday because Mel got confused about the days of the week. Oops.)
As podcast makers, we’re pretty much required to quit books quickly and frequently to find the best recommendations for our show.
As human readers, our urge to stick with a book ‘to see how it turns out’ or because ‘other people love it’ can be strong — and/but, there is something freeing in releasing a book that’s just not working for us.
I’m late to the DFNing habit, but as I’ve gotten older, I realize I am not giving up my time for a book that isn’t right for me. Like many others, I give a book about 50ish pages. I have a good understanding of myself as a reader, so luckily it doesn’t happened too often. However, when I don’t connect with the book, I am “Thank you for your time. Next!”
I 100% DNF books. In fact, I just cleared off my nightstand and there were at least 4, if not 5 books that I had DNFd. Sometimes I know within the first page or two, other times, it's further in. I've read several books to the 75% mark and then decided to put them down. That typically happens when I don't care about the characters. I MUST care about at least one of the characters!!! If I quit earlier in, it's almost always because of writing style or I am just plain bored.