Friends of Nancy P.

Do you know that your current book isn't worth your time? Are you reading it anyway?

We can help! Connect with others like you, who just have to finish that book no matter what! Break the habit and learn to move on! Because life is too short to read what you don't love!

Welcome to our slightly tongue-in-cheek support group! This is where you can talk about your reading failures and find the encouragement you need to just put it down.

The idea grew out of a short discussion on my thread where I was lamenting my need to finish a book that just wasn't doing it for me. Turns out I'm not alone!

The name is in honor of Nancy Pearl and her Rule of 50:

If you’re fifty years of age or younger, give a book fifty pages before you decide to commit to reading it or give it up. If you’re over fifty, which is when time gets even shorter, subtract your age from 100—the result is the number of pages you should read before making your decision to stay with it or quit. Since that number gets smaller and smaller as we get older and older, our big reward is that when we turn 100, we can judge a book by its cover!

You don't have to agree with her! But you can talk about it!

(Nods to rosalita for the title.)

Love this! I think we can use this as a place for rants about those books we want to throw against the wall!

I usually won't post a 'review' of a book I couldn't finish, so I'm happy for a place to blow off some steam!

I'm a devotee of the Pearl Rule, although I rarely give up unless I've read at least 50 pages, even though my age qualifies me to stop considerably sooner. I've read too many books that rewarded me for sticking to it past a slow beginning.

This is awesome. I so desperately wanted to DNF a book last week but it was a book I owed a review to both ER and Netgalley. I'm pretty good at DNFing non-review books but I need to be stronger about ARCs and egalleys.

It works for me, particularly as I have progressed nicely beyond the 50 page rule and am enjoying the benefits of being a senior as a result. I am greatly looking forward to judging books by their covers.

Oh, love this. I just Pearl-ruled an ARC. It's not a bad book, I just don't want to read it now. At. All. I gave it 50 pages, and will post a review on its good points, while saying it doesn't meet my needs at this time...

Otoh, I finished one I disliked intensely because it's #9 in a series that I've mostly loved. Dumb, that.

I just put this thread on the group wiki so I can find it later!

>6 Matke: I would argue that books in a series are different. Sometimes you need to finish the one in the middle so that you have continuity with the others. Another way to look at is that that book is just a particularly boring part of a much longer work. You don't throw away the whole series because one book is bad just like you don't throw out a book because of a bad chapter. Or am I rationalizing?

I am definitely in need of this support group. Although I rarely pick up a book if I think it's not going to be my cup of tea... I've grown a bit more picky since I started here on LT. If I think it's going to be an average book for me, I'd rather just read something else that I know I'm going to enjoy!

BUT...If I do start a dud? I have a terrible time putting it down. I feel compelled to finish.

I need you guys! :)

Thanks to Marianne (@michigantrumpet) for alerting me of this thread's existence!

I'm definitely a major fan of the Pearl Rule and sometimes I don't even make it to 50 pages before I close the book in disgust.

>2 michigantrumpet: I don't write reviews for books I don't finish either, Marianne... so yup, this is a great place to vent a little. Thanks for the invite. ;-)

Lovely idea for a thread! In fact, we were just talking about this and how to handle it when you don't like a book "everyone else" adores at dinner last night after Booktopia Boulder. Thanks for adding the thread to wiki, Jim.

Definitely agree that the older one gets, the less one needs to finish a book that is just not doing it for them! At this time in my life (even though I'm not quite 90 yet), if it doesn't grab me within the first 10 pages or so, it's history. Well, no, not literally. (I like histories, and historical novels too.) I'll sometimes put a book down and try again in a week or a month (occasionally even longer), especially if it's had lots of good reviews, but I figure I will never be able to read all the books on my wishlist (and every day more get added, but no pressure), so there's no reason to stick with something that isn't a good fit at the time. Anyway, it's why I get so many books at once from the library; I'll probably only end up reading half of them.

Since I began as a panelist for the Maine readers Choice Award,, where we got 140 books thrown at us last year, I've become a firm advocate of the Pearl Rule. Life is too short, there are too many good books waiting patiently on the shelves to be read and touted for me to spend time plodding through a book that is not singing to me. Not to say I won't go back and give some of them another try when I'm in a different time and place, but I no longer feel guilty about DNFing a book.

BTW, if I request a book through Net Galley and don't finish it, I try to give the publisher a note that says something like "just didn't grab me....didn't care for the setting, characters, etc" or something that gives them an idea of why. I also am very blunt about saying ....sorry, just didn't have time to read before your download expired, but hope to get to read a real copy sometime soon. Maybe the publishers will get the hint and give us another go.

and....yes, we're working on our process for Maine Reader's Choice so we don't have such a long long list to start with. Most of us ended up reading about 40 books, and that's plenty.

I find it almost impossible to stop reading a book, once I have started it. Since these days most of my books are LT recommended I am happy to say I don't get very many that I have to force myself to finish. Knowing I can come to this thread and get some encouragement to Pearl-Rule the odd book that I find myself struggling with will be much appreciated. So far this year I think I only have one book that I was actually able to mark DNF, but there were a couple more that I wish I had thrown to the curb.

I started (for myself) a category of books called Read It Or Get Rid Of It, which sadly doesn't turn into any sort of good acronym at all....(RIOGROI ). and so far I have managed to dispatch five which would be one a month - I think I ended up liking a couple well enough to finish, two I quit very swiftly and one got moved from regular read into that category.

It is a burden being a completist by nature.... I should apply my dessert rule to books - never eat a dessert that you aren't LOVING. Not worth it.

I just find tossing out a book after an arbitrary number of pages too doctrinaire -- but this group could be therapeutic for when I (a) do decide to stop reading a bad book after however many pages have passed or (b) when I have to keep reading simply because it's an Amazon Vine book and must be reviewed and therefore must be completed.

I'm not a die-hard completist, and find the Pearl rule is too much at the other extreme -- giving it a specified number of pages in which to measure up. The jury was out on the new Tom Rachman novel until halfway through, but I ended up really liking it, for instance. And sometimes I go back to a book later and end up enjoying it. I'm reading a mystery now that I've started countless times but never progressed with.

I do have to stop acquiring books in which I only have a moderate interest, though -- those are most likely to end up being disappointments!

Oh good, Gail, you found this :) Great idea, right? I rarely Pearl Rule, but it's happened. And I love the support should it happen.

"too much at the other extreme -- giving it a specified number of pages in which to measure up." Well, it's really only meant to give you permission to drop a book that isn't working for you. I use her parameters as suggestions, not strictures.

>15 Chatterbox: >17 laytonwoman3rd: I definitely do not agree with an arbitrary page limit and do not endorse a strict adherence to the Rule. But, many of us have had the experience of struggling to finish a book and that is what I think this thread should be about - permission to put it away and move on and not feel bad/guilty/failing/whatever.

And also a space to just talk about why a book didn't do it for you and why you didn't finish it.

I can't use the Pearl rule for the life of me. Hopefully maybe one day the guilt won't scream at me because there is a lot of books I want to read and I'm never going to get around to it if I keep forcing myself to read books I don't actually enjoy. Oh, I read and I feel guilty. I don't read and I feel guilty. Boy, do I have some issues. :)

>19 jolerie: Boy do YOU need this thread! :-)

Steve, thanks so much for setting this up! I really hope it can help me kick the habit of finishing books I don't like but if nothing else there will be company in my misery. :-)

One quibble, though: So far lots of people are agreeing that they have read/are reading books they don't want to finish, but nobody is NAMING NAMES. I want titles, people, so I know which books to steer clear of!

>21 rosalita: So, okay.

I requested an ARC of Lisa See's new book, China Dolls last month. Though I can see that it's not a bad book at all, I have zero interest in reading it right now. I'm not completely sure why, but I think my reaction is affected by my love for Snow Flower and the Secret Fan.

I kept trying, but forcing myself to read something unappealing isn't how I want to spend my time. I wrote a brief review, mentioning some positive elements, and said that it just didn't meet my current reading needs, through no fault of the author or the book.

Do I feel guilty? A bit, since it's an ARC.

On the Pearl Rule: I don't take things like that very seriously. For me, as for Steve, it's a reassurance that not every book needs to be seen through to the bitter end. That said, I often try a book several weeks (months, years) later and have a great reading experience. It's all about matching book, person, and mood.

I would cheerfully have kicked Justin Go's novel The Steady Running of the Hour to the curb had I not had a review obligation. Awash with unbelievable behavior on the part of his characters, plot holes, and an egregious "get out of jail free" "twist" at the end that I found simply appalling. I'm still composing a scathing review for Amazon.

And I thought Lisa See did dial it in on China Dolls. It was entertaining, but it felt perfunctory.

There we go! Gail, I totally sympathize with the "it's not terrible but it's not the book for me or for right now" feeling. It sounds like you read enough to write an informed review, so that should be good enough.

Suzanne, I did not even attempt Go's book even though I knew I might meet him at Booktopia. Nothing you or Katie have to say about it has made me regret that decision! I'm looking forward to your scathing review, though — that I will definitely read!

I finally gave up last week on The Woman Upstairs. Tried it in print, and in audio. Neither worked. It was positively BORING. A Narcissitic exercise in "woe is me" - let me see how many fancy sentences I can string together to say how I hate my life.

Maybe.......maybe....when RL isn't so stressful....this might be worth another look.

I finished it but for the life of me I do not understand all the fuss about The Rehearsal by Eleanor Catton. She's a good writer and I kept reading because I thought surely, at some point, things would start to come together and make sense. Does not make me want to try The Luminaries at all.

Stephanie, I was not at all carried away or even picked up by The Luminaries, so I'm not surprised when I hear you say that The Rehearsal didn't grab you. There.
No Pearl Rule for me. I have tried not to formulate this, but what I do is leave the bookmark in a book that I'm not liking, and then put it back on the shelf. I might get back to it; I might not, but I almost never say to myself that I'm not going to finish it some day.
The only things I've said a definite NO to (and thrown across the room at least once) are Hopeful Monsters and anything by George Meredith. But who knows? I might try Meredith again.....

OK, so to name names, I finally had to put Bloodlands down a few weeks ago. It is a history of the Soviet and Nazi mass killings in eastern Europe before and during WWII. Very important history and informed by the mass of data released since the fall of the USSR. It got great reviews and I really wanted to be informed about this. But I finally had to stop (after about 200 of 500 pages) because it was just a catalog of death. I feel like it's so important to understand this history, but how often can you read various iterations on the number of people who died in this village or region, killed by this group because they had a quota to meet. (Yes, quotas: they were expected to kill so many people to show that they were rooting out ... something.) It's horrific and just too bloody depressing, so I finally had to set it aside. Maybe one day I'll try to finish it, but I'm not sure about that.

>28 scvlad: I think sometimes that well-written history is harder to come by than good fiction. It appears that many historians feel that they must regurgitate every piece of research they compile, thus compelling the reader to make a choice to slog through the morass or give up. It seem to me that a good historical writer will be able to sift the research (evidence if you will) and use it to present a well-defined, interesting explanation of the period/event/personage, while giving the reader an extensive and well-documented set of notes and/or bibliography encouraging those who want more to pursue it. I didn't PR Bloodlands, I just didn't start because I knew it would be (as you so aptly put it) a "catalog of death."

>29 tututhefirst: Unfortunately, it's the way academics are taught to write. While I was getting my BA in history and wondering what I might do after, I realized I might want to write some day. I had subscribed to the prominent history journal and was on at least one academic mailing list. Then I realized that the way they were training me to write was not the way I wanted to write.

>29 tututhefirst: >30 AuntieClio: Interesting perspectives. You guys may be right about this. What's good for a dissertation may not be right for a work of 'popular history'. Phew! I feel better already! :-)

I need help NOW. I'm reading Delta Wedding for the American Author Challenge. It's boring and I'm not engaged with any of the characters at all. But I finished another book for the AAC that I actually loathed.

Someone tell me it's ok to stop?!?!

Tina V.....STOP ALREADY. Think how many really good books are languishing on your shelves while you waste time and energy on this. We promise the American Author Challenge police will not visit with a warrant to see whether you finished that book. Repeat after me...."It's Ok, it's ok it's ok to stop." Just think of it as a positive act to allow you to move forward with your reading life.
//signed// Tina Tutu

>32 TinaV95: If it's no fun, and it's not required for some reason, then STOP. You have my permission to just stop reading right now. Reading is supposed to be a pleasure, not a chore.

>32 TinaV95: Yep, I'm with Tina & Stephanie. Give yourself a pat on the back for trying a new-to-you author and then move on. Just because someone is considered a great or classic writer doesn't mean their work will appeal to everyone. You gave it a shot and it didn't work. For whatever it's worth, I am currently reading a collection of Welty short stories and not loving them as much as I wanted to. But at least they are short stories, so I can read one a day and not get bogged down.

>32 TinaV95: Tina, stop this instant! Reading should never be a chore. Just put the book on the shelf and step away slowly.
Or run away as quickly as you can...

>32 TinaV95: Put the book down. Step back from the book. Walk away, while keeping your eyes on it in case it tries to follow you and hunt you down...

>32 TinaV95: What everyone else says! Good luck! :-)

>32 TinaV95:

Step one - close it and put it down.
Step two - pick up something else and start reading it.
Step three - don't look back

>32 TinaV95: NOooooo!!!!!! Get right back in that chair and READ, young lady! (Naw...I'm kidding.) I will just say that there is an awful lot going on in Delta Wedding, but if you're looking for action you won't find it; if you're hoping to fall in love with or even identify with one of the characters, that probably won't happen either. There are lots of reasons to keep reading it, but if none of them are your reasons, you should definitely move on, guilt-free.

Thank you all SO much. I feel terrible. I never, ever give up. I'm giving up at 80 pages, thanks to the support from each of you.

I just want to enjoy my reading. Work is so very hectic these days that I really need my books to engage me or I'm not enjoying it. Clearly I'm a broken reader with baggage. :)

>40 laytonwoman3rd: Hear! Hear!

>41 TinaV95: quite the support group, eh?

I probably should have stopped reading The Tiger's Daughter but I didn't because I wanted to see where Mukherjee was taking her main character, Tara. Sadly, no one went anywhere, especially Tara.

>43 AuntieClio: Oh Goodie, another DNF vindicated. I think I only got aout 60 pages into The Tiger's Daughter Decided after 3 days of constantly picking it up, putting it down, and turning to something else, that I wasn't going to finish it.

>44 tututhefirst: glad I could vindicate that for you :-) It wasn't the most boring book I've ever read but ...

Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee - on page 49 of 152
Started okay, but has bogged down a bit. Went to Wikipedia for a summary and read that it's supposed to get more interesting. But good grief I am tired of this man having an existential crisis with his penis. Will trudge on for a few more pages.

>46 AuntieClio: Ha! I love your judgment on that one, Stephanie. I hope for your sake it picks up but if not, you know what to do!

I thought this article at Book Riot could be the manifesto for this group:

How I Became A Book Quitter

I love this paragraph:

When I was a finisher I thought it made me a reader of principle, though I’d never made a conscious decision to be a finisher. It’s just how I read and I didn’t give it a lot of thought. If you’d asked me why I was a finisher, I would’ve told you it was because I loved reading, because I cared about stories, because I wanted to get to the end, because I respected the book and the work the author put into it. They were all perfectly good reasons. But one day I just couldn’t be a finisher any more.

I usually don't have a problem tossing a book, but there are some I feel like I "should" read and Waiting for the Barbarians is one of those. He did win a Nobel Prize for it, I'd like to figure out what the fuss is all about.

>46 AuntieClio: and >49 AuntieClio: Love these, Stephanie. Now I'm dying to know if you finished, and if it ever seemed worthwhile.

>50 Matke: Gail, I did push on and I'm glad I did. Full review posted. Having said that, I won't be pursuing any more of J. M. Coetzee's work, despite his Nobel Prize in Literature.

>43 AuntieClio: That reminds me of a collection of memorable performance review comments I found once. One of them stuck in my mind (from a military officer): "His men would follow him anywhere, but only out of morbid curiosity."

>51 AuntieClio: Coetzee explores some important themes -- indeed, in a lot of ways, his novels become vehicles for his ideas about morality, the role of the outsider (that's definitely the case with Waiting for the Barbarians) and also the politicization of language. Even more so than the other writers who formed part of the white South African anti-apartheid movement, some of his books ended up being extremely allegorical and sometimes fantastical, and often quite bleak. Andre Brink is a much easier read, although he explores similar themes. I gather Coetzee is an equally uncomfortable person, prickly and ascetic in the extreme. His writing is oblique, but elegant in its own way. Not always to my taste, but usually rewarding if not comfortable.

>52 Chatterbox: It was rewarding in its own way and, as I say, I'm not sorry to have read it. Parts were very uncomfortable, some bleak and uncomfortable, and some just "what?" I'm pretty sure the section I jokingly called the Magistrate's existential crisis with his penis was an allegory about "others." It doesn't surprise me that Coetzee is considered uncomfortable to be around. His writing is important, of that there's no doubt, but it takes someone uncomfortable to write such uncomfortable work.

I am Pearl Ruling Frank Herbert's White Plague. Almost 200 pages in and I am questioning why I read it the first time.

Go figure. I liked the White Plague when I read it 20+ years ago, but I will agree with you that Frank can can be pretty difficult sometimes. Sometimes he seems to like being obscure just for the sake of it. Probably for the best. Go read something you don't have to force.

>54 AuntieClio: Stephanie, did you like it the first time you read it? What made you decide to re-read it?

I just Pearl Ruled Burial Rites

>55 scvlad: yup, 20+ years ago was when I read it last. So far this year, I've only liked Dune and God Emperor of Dune by Herbert. And I'd read Dune a third time.

>54 AuntieClio: Julia, it came out of Mysterious Box 38, and it's going into the "outta da house" bin.

>57 mckait: Good for you, Kath!! Way to be strong!

Last month I Pearl Ruled Raymond Buckland's Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft mostly for getting critical pieces of information wrong. Arthur Miller's play about the Salem Witch Trials was not named "The Salem Witch Trials," it was named The Crucible and was about the Salem Witch Trials, crucial difference there. I found that book so bad that I put it into the recycle bin instead of the donation bin.

Today, I Pearl Ruled Dorothy Hughes' biography Erle Stanley Gardner: The Case of the Real Perry Mason. After having a wonderful lunch and a trip to the bookstore with a great friend, I found books I'm very excited to get to and just don't find Gardner that interesting or likeable. So bye-bye, into the donation bin it goes.

I just removed a few, which shall remain nameless. Haven't read them; not going to, either. They're off to new homes.

And no guilt was felt, for a wonder.

All right, so here's a question for you all: Does it count as Nancy Pearling if you put aside a book in a foreign language that is just huge and daunting? I'm running into this with Il Nome della Rosa which, for those of you who don't speak Italian is The Name of the Rose. It's odd. I'm about 60 pages in and enjoying it, mostly. But it's such a slow read and so much work. One page a day if I'm lucky. And I've set it aside for about the last 2 weeks just because I needed a break.

But the thing I most regret is that in trying to read this, I delay reading other books that I would like to read. The war in myself is: easy enjoyment (and lots of volume) vs hard work enjoyment (and little volume - but with serious educational value). There's also the guilt of starting the book and not finishing of course.

Anyway, just venting here. Happy to hear any thoughts if there are any. Or not.

I think it defeats the whole point of reading to keep reading something you hate/aren't engaged with/just don't get/dislike.

I agree with >63 tiffin:. The point of the Pearl rule is to eliminate that whole guilt thing by giving you a rule of thumb for "I tried hard enough with this, and I'm allowed to stop now".

I agree with >63 tiffin: and >64 laytonwoman3rd: in general. But it seems to be what you are choosing to do with Il Nome della Rosa isn't Pearl-ruling it; it's not that you don't like it, it's just that it's a little too heavy-going to tackle in the original Italian in big chunks right now.

On the other hand, your dilemma about easy enjoyment vs enjoyment you have to work for — I struggle with that one all the time! Lately I've been on a kick of reading a bunch of the Ian Rutledge mysteries by Charles Todd and I feel guilty for plowing through them back-to-back-to-back without mixing in some more "serious" books. But I keep doing it anyway. :-)

Sorry, scvlad, I was referring to a conversation further up the thread (which I can't find right now). I found The Name of the Rose slow going in English, and unless you are a native Italian speaker, can't imagine how much slower it must be in its original language. Good for you for even trying it!

Pearl Ruled after 100 pages: Le Mee, Katharine - Chant: The Origins, Form, Practice, and Healing Power of Gregorian Chant

Just ... the history parts were fun but I just couldn't get into the technical parts about Chant because it turns out I don't care.

>67 AuntieClio: Hah! (That's all, just expressing my amusement.)

>62 scvlad: How timely -- my Real Life book group chose this for the next book. A re-read for me after about a 20 year lapse. I agree with Tiffin -- it can be slow going even in English. I admire your effort for tackling it in Italian!

>69 michigantrumpet: Just to update, I switched to reading it in English which is going much better. On the other hand, I just got back from a trip to Italy and want to get back to serious Italian studying. So once I'm done in English, I may go back and do it in Italian again.

I first read it about 20 or 25 years ago too. I'm enjoying reading it again. No matter what the language.

>70 scvlad: I'm enjoying my re-read, too. Looking up some of the arcane references is much easier now, in the age of Google/Wikipedia. I know I read it before the movie came out -- so it's been a long time!

Even in the English version you can use your language skills translating all the Latin!!

Also Pearl Ruled The Jesus Incident by Frank Herbert. I think this means that aside from Dune, all Herbert gets expunged from my library. No Pearl Rule necessary.

>72 AuntieClio: Have you tried The White Plague? I vaguely remember liking it decades ago.

>70 scvlad:: it was a wonderful story, wasn't it?

>73 Morphidae: Morphy, The White Plague go Pearl Ruled too. It was a re-read and didn't hold up over the years.

>75 AuntieClio: Ah. Like I said, it's been decades!

>72 AuntieClio: Yup, I think you've given Herbert a fair chance. Life is too short, space is too dear ...

>74 tiffin: >71 michigantrumpet: Great story and much easier to read in my 40s than in my 20s (or earlier). Taking me a very long time to read (I had a major vacation where I didn't read at all), but I'm really enjoying it too.