national velvet

DNFing, Part II

I managed to clear nine titles from my TBR this week!

Of course, I only read five of those all the way to the end. Four of them, I DNFd.

This is a big deal. As I said in earlier posts, it is against my nature to DNF books. I find it really difficult to stop reading something once I’ve started it, even if I don’t even like the book. And I don’t think I would have DNFd those four books this week, if I wasn’t focused on this challenge.

Because of this challenge, I’m hyper aware of how I’m feeling about a book as I read it. I’m thinking about what I would rate it, because I’m sharing how I felt about it after 50 pages here on this blog. I’m thinking about the difference between reading a good book that I really want to read and reading a book that’s just “meh” that I got for free. I’m thinking about all the books I really want to read and the time I’m wasting when I’m reading something I don’t even want to read. These are the books I DNFd this week:

The first two were Amazon First Reads. If you don’t know what those are, if you are a Prime member you get a free book (from a list) every month. The past year or so they have also been giving an additional free short story. Until I started this challenge, I don’t think I actually read any of the books I got from First Reads. They usually aren’t books I would pick up in a bookstore, but some months have more interesting choices than others. Though I will say that it isn’t often that I can’t find something. (Of course, I still pick something every month. Why?! This is why I have a problem.) These two books I attempted this week, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with them, but I just didn’t find myself wanting to keep reading. I wasn’t really interested in the characters. If these were books I had purchased, I probably would have kept reading them. Because they were free, I think I more easily gave myself permission to let them go. Doesn’t mean I can’t pick them up again someday, but right now, they weren’t holding my attention.

The other two books were ones I had downloaded for free when I first got my kindle. I didn’t make it to 50 pages in One Night in Boston – I just disliked the main character so much I knew it was never going to work. As for the other book, I actually find freemasonry really interesting. But I decided my time would be better spent reading a book about this topic than this book, which was basically outlining the rituals. In the past, I would have definitely pushed through this one, and to be honest, probably not gotten much out of it.

These were two very different kinds of books, but I really feel like I’m growing because I was able to stop reading all four, letting me spend time reading something I really was enjoying. That I’m actively trying to go through my owned books I think is making it easier to let ones go.

Week 5 Update

This week, I did win a free digital book from Fable (affiliate link there) called Two by an author I really love, Kristin Cast. I will be reading that as part of a book club starting next week. Fingers crossed it’s worth it! But that upped my TBR by one.

In addition to the four DNFs that came off my TBR, I read five books. Here are the counts:

These are the books I read:

The God Project by John Saul – (Supposed to be Horror, but it’s more Suspense): Not Worth It

Rating after 50 pages: 3.5 stars

Final rating: 2 stars

This was a book I inherited from my sister, and as I’d never read a John Saul book, I thought I should read it (and finish it). But I kind of wish I hadn’t found it buried on a bookshelf.