How often do you stop reading a book completely?
I don't very much. Probably once or twice per six months or so.

This really isn't important I was just curious.

This year I've stopped four times.

These were the books...
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
How to Be Alone (essays) by Jonathan Franzen
Baltimore Noir (short stories--crime) edited by Laura Lipmann

Can't recall more than one from this year, although there probably are more - I stopped Anno Dracula fairly early on. Uninteresting plot and the CONSTANT name dropping just made me crazy. Bah.

Hold up - thought of another - The Magus which I so wanted to like. I waited and waited for something coherent to materialize, but nothing ever did. I stopped about 3/4 of the way through and it felt like wading through hip deep mud while on a treadmill - lots of effort and absolutely no progress.

I've probably stopped about 5 this year. The last one I don't remember the name or author of - it was some vampire fiction - but I stopped it about 10 pages in when the lead character completely reprises (steals) Lestat's speech from the opening of "his" book about how his tone may ruin the atmosphere. It was awful.

Not very often. The last book I gave up on, and I think the only one this year, was Lauro Martines's book on Renaissance Italian city states, which I found too dry and academic.

Aaaaah, I wasn't the only one to chuck Wicked!

Thank goodness. I thought I was a Bad Woman for not buying into its pseudo-political proto-feminist-from-male-POV rot.

To my dismay, I've been doing it quite a lot lately. The last three books I've picked up all ended in partially-read, or skimmed-through-the-last-half condition: The Kite Runner was a contrived, bumpy emotional hayride that I didn't appreciate, The Fountainhead is so painfully didactic and beat-you-over-the-head repetitive that I stopped around pg 400, Middlesex has phenomenal prose but is in essence a family epic whose characters are simple and plot offered nothing captivating.

Maybe I'm far too picky... ?

Life of Pi, Angela's Ashes, A Fine Balance are next, and now a quick jog through a delightful little The Perks of Being A Wallflower...

Message edited by its author, Nov 14, 2006, 9:52am.

I find myself close to dumping one currently ... though I'm still gritting my teeth and managing a few pages in between other reads. Druid Priestess by Emma Restall Orr.

I've found it very heavy going - it has a hard time deciding if it wants to be a diary, an abc's of druidry or a typical mildly evangelical religious text and the jumps in style make my poor brain hurt.

The main reason I've held out, other than friends reccomendations, is the fact that the diary sections make quite interesting reading, provided you keep track of what's going on in the dream/vision sequences.

I am on the Kansas Reading Circle, which means I get a copy of almost all young adult fiction books published. This is my first year, and I'm a little overwhelmed since I have to have them all read by the end of November. There are several I didn't like at all, but still had to at least make an effort. Reading a book you don't like is pure torture. Rarely have I decided I did like it as got further into the story. I read probably 10 books a week, so fortunately this doesn't happen too often.

Message edited by its author, Nov 14, 2006, 10:15am.

I think the only book I've stopped in the last twelve months was I Am Charlotte Simmons. It was dreadful and I will never pick up anything by Wolfe again. I was ill when I was reading it. And when I think of it now I feel sick again. I don't know if I'm just remembering my illness, or if it was really that bad. It taught me a lesson, though: sometimes it is wise to trust bad reviews.

Count me in as the third person to quit on Wicked. Take that, Gregory Maguire!

I chucked The Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire, so never even attempted Wicked.

I seem to toss aside unfinished maybe one to three books a year. Possibly a couple more and I'm just not remembering.

Mostly I can get through a book even if I don't care for it - I'm a quick reader, so unless it's ridiculously long (I got halfway through The Historian last year and...well, sort of mean to pick it up again, someday) it doesn't take me all that long to finish a book. And I generally only completely stop reading books I hate, not books I just dislike.

I also don't always realize how much I dislike a book until the end (The Notebook, for instance - well, I knew I didn't like the writing, but it wasn't until the end that I realized I hated...basically everything about it. Luckily it is quite short.).

#2 and #6

I really really liked Wicked - the story of elphaba really captivated me and how notions of good and evil are often skewed. I guess it did go a bit pseudo-feminist anti-establishment but that was the point!
I even went so far as to then read the follow-on about her son, which I concede was rubbish.

I used to never NOT finish a book once I began, but I got the the 3/4 mark on 3 of the last books I read and just gave up because the delightful premises were poisoned by an absence of action. Those were The Janissary Tree: A Novel, The Pale Blue Eye: A Novel and Tinisima. It comes down to the fact that I will never read all the books that I WANT to read in a lifetime, so why waste time finishing a book you don't like? Luckily right now I am into The Abyssinian which seems promising. But I haven't made it half way, much less to the dreaded 3/4 point, so we'll see...

I've tossed Animal Farm and Catch-22, although I'm planning on going back to Catch-22. I'm currently reading Starship Troopers, and I'm honestly not sure whether or not I'm going to continue it. I knew it was going to be different from the movie when I first started reading it, but it just seems so different from the tone of the movie that I'm having trouble getting through it.

Hour Game by David Baldacci lies unfinished because it was insipid and so badly written that it actually made me laugh out loud. Thankfully it was a $5 Sam's Club deal.

Message edited by its author, May 28, 2007, 7:13am.

I recently could not finish A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle. I really wanted to like this one, because I think the woman who recommended it to me has really great taste. But we had to disagree on this one.

Hi! I'm new to LT and when saw the name of this group I laughed out loud so simply had to look into it.

I'm so glad to know I'm not the only one with too many books to read and too little time for reading them to suffer through to the end of those I dislike for one reason (like cliched or obtuse writing) or another (disinterest in the subject).

Count me in on not finishing Wicked...

I didn't mean to quit reading it, I just laid it down and never got around to picking it up again. Maybe someday I will try it again, but for now, eh.

#7 Ditto on the Kite Runner. I never felt so manipulated in my life.....unless I count The Secret Life of Bees, which I finished before feeling the slap in the face that it was.

Thanks to everyone for saving me from reading Wicked.

Wow, others who hated The Kite Runner! I put it down when I realized it was categorically chasing tears. People kept begging me to pick it back up, but I finally shipped it away.

I hated A Fine Balance too, but slogged through the whole darn thing. What a waste.

On Beauty
The Inheritance of Loss
Temptations of the West by Pankaj Mishra

Oh, there must be more, at least five per year but I'm glad I can't recall what. I will have to get back to the last one (nonfiction) but I won't go back to the others.

Maybe this is some consolation: I recall when I was in college reading something by John Gardner or John Barth. He said that he admired young, 20-something readers because they would really give a book a try. Meaning they welcomed experimental forms perhaps. As he got older, he just didn't have the patience.

Message edited by its author, Sep 15, 2007, 4:46pm.

Set 2012: Crossing the Bridge to the Future aside. Yet another horrid New Ager's autobiography. Had little to nothing to do with 2012, which is why I wanted to read it in the first place.

I normally toss books (well, not literally) when they start to bore, irritate, offend or disappoint me. However, this year, the year of the 888 challenge, I made myself a promise to finish everything I start. So I'm being extra careful in what I start.

I'm struggling through Shades of Glory, my April ER book. I'm going to pick another 888 book to reward myself for continuing S of G.

#6 Xenalyte - tell us what you REALLY think! My sister raved about it and it's on my shelves, but I haven't been wild about starting it.

I bet I'm not the only LTer who starts and puts down a book, only to pick it up months or years later and absolutely adore it. I usually do that 10-15 times a year.

Hah, I didn't like Wicked either. I finished it, but I didn't like it.

I'm reviving this old thread. I am much more willing to do this now. This year I have given up on three Umberto Eco novels as, while they are full of good, clever ideas and concepts, there is no plot to tie them together. Name of the Rose is the only one of his I would say I like.

I canʻt think of many books that I really hated while reading them; of the ones that I did give up on somewhere along in the book, only a few were so admirable in parts that I would consider trying them again. One of those is Lawrenceʻs The Plumed Serpent Terrific prose --at times -- and even terrific ideas, but it didnʻt hold together for me as a novel. His Kangaroo (said to have been written in haste) had the same result in my reading of it, though for very different reasons.

I think it is a huge testament to the skills of publishers' readers and editors that I find so few books to be unworthy of completion.

"...the skills of publishersʻ reader and editors..."
(#28)

Yes, Iʻve had that feeling, too. Contrary to most of my generation, which was usually wondering "how does so much trash get published?"

In 2008 I resolved to finish every book I started.

Silly me. It was very stressful and I slogged through Snow Crash and Any Given Doomsday (among others) absolutely hating them but reading the first for bookclub and the second because it was an ER book.

It has made me much more careful about what I buy and open, but I'm back to my lifelong habit of cheerfully abandoning books when they cease to hold my attention or make me mad (usually at the quality of the writing).

#28 and #29 - Hmm. I think there is a lot of trash published - particularly in the romance genre and, more and more, in the mystery genre.

Message edited by its author, Nov 6, 2009, 5:20am.

#30 reminds me that the books that I have abandoned this year were romance genre fiction and the other that stretched my patience was a recent murder mystery.