Did Not Finish Titles [DNF] - And Why

[Renate]

I ditched "The Lager Queen of Minnesota", J. Ryan Stradal, on page 220 of 280.
I felt that he was taking me for a ride.
I can take Cinderella fairy tales but at some point it sticks in my craw.
I had read "Kitchens of the Great Midwest" a while ago and the "feel good" didn't seem so cloying.
YMMV
Next on the stack: "Machine Gun Manual" (1917)
I hope that it's not too upbeat.

[HLS]

I DNF 3 this year. Mainly because the books did not interest me or got to be too boring to stay engaged in the story

[HLS]

Today I DNF A fate inked in blood. Writing style a bit juvenile. Story bland.

[DNSB]

Last year I set a personal record by DNFing 5 titles. None so far this year.

[Aylfllough]

I just read The Road, and his tenuous grasp on punctuation is obnoxious, indeed.

[John F]

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I gave up on this fairly quickly. I read the first couple of pages and I'm not currently in the mood to give this the effort it would need. Maybe I'll visit this again in the future.

This is the second Booker Prize winner book I haven't cared for, although I made it through The English Patient. Reading Booker Prize winners is one of my long term goals.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by John F

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I gave up on this fairly quickly. I read the first couple of pages and I'm not currently in the mood to give this the effort it would need. Maybe I'll visit this again in the future.

This is the second Booker Prize winner book I haven't cared for, although I made it through The English Patient. Reading Booker Prize winners is one of my long term goals.

I don't read a book just because it's won an award. I find a lot of award winning books to be sort of not all that good.

[John F]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't read a book just because it's won an award. I find a lot of award winning books to be sort of not all that good.

Neither do I. It has to be an award I'm interested in.

[HLS]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I don't read a book just because it's won an award. I find a lot of award winning books to be sort of not all that good.

I don't as well but if I am looking for something new from a new Author I use the award status to help me make a decision on a book to buy

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by HLS

I don't as well but if I am looking for something new from a new Author I use the award status to help me make a decision on a book to buy

What sort of book are you looking for? Maybe someone can give you a recommendation based on what you like.

[Cactus Chef]

I just put down The Found and the Lost by U.K. Le Guin, as I severely underestimated how many novellas the good lady wrote, and I was starting to lose steam. Especially after I realized that I could skip several of them that I had already read in Five Ways to Forgiveness, but doing that barely made a dent in the book's progress!

[sydmalicious]

I still have an issue with not just not finishing books, but video games as well. I try to tell myself it is not a personal failing to quit something I don't enjoy as there's so much out there that I could possibly enjoy if I gave up on something I disliked sucking up most of my time.

One of my favorite YouTuber's said on his recent video about art and AI:

If you're consuming content you hate, in the year 2024? That's a skill issue.

--Drew Gooden

He means, tongue-in-gamer-cheek that there's too much to consume and if you choose to stick with something that you're gritting your teeth to finish it is a you problem and nothing else.

[shmn]

Originally Posted by John F

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. I gave up on this fairly quickly. I read the first couple of pages and I'm not currently in the mood to give this the effort it would need. Maybe I'll visit this again in the future.

This is the second Booker Prize winner book I haven't cared for, although I made it through The English Patient. Reading Booker Prize winners is one of my long term goals.

Sorry to hear that. It's a difficult book to get through. Not because of the writing but the topic. It's a depressing subject and it's message is timely (although, the message can be considered "timely" at any time in human history) which can frighten more than horror novels.

Nevertheless, I found it to be one of the best books of 2023 and will probably read it again in a couple of years. I also found his prose to be engaging given it's sparse, relentless, stream-of consciousness style.

Although I don't necessarily agree with the goal of reading prize winners for the reason they won a prize...have you considered another Booker Prize winner which is a bit lighter in tone than Lynch's offering? Like Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac from 1984. It's not "up-beat" but, at least, it's not dystopian.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by shmn

Sorry to hear that. It's a difficult book to get through. Not because of the writing but the topic. It's a depressing subject and it's message is timely (although, the message can be considered "timely" at any time in human history) which can frighten more than horror novels.

Nevertheless, I found it to be one of the best books of 2023 and will probably read it again in a couple of years. I also found his prose to be engaging given it's sparse, relentless, stream-of consciousness style.

I enjoyed Prophet Song as well. But I let Gerry O'Brien read it to me, so there's that.

[JSWolf]

Sometimes listening to a well read audiobook can be better then reading the book where you may not finish the book, but you will finish the audiobook.