Tuesday, May 21, 2019

Bookish Rants and Rambles: DNF



Bookish Rants and Rambles is basically where I either rant or ramble about something dealing with books.

I remember when I first started blogging I was very optimistic when it came to books. If I did not like a book, I kept reading. I thought that maybe, just maybe, it would get better. There were books like StarcrossedSweet EvilAnew, and The Demon Trapper's Daughter, that had so many positive reviews, but I absolutely hated them (sorry, folks). I thought that there must be something I was missing, so I read them to the end. In Starcrossed's case, I actually read the entire series, even though I hated every minute of it. 

I think that was when I stopped having that optimistic approach because if I really really don't like a book, pushing through the rest of the book was not going to make me like it more. It was going to make me hate it even more for making me finish it. So, I did eventually start marking books as did not finish (DNF). If I really am not liking a book, then I should not waste my time on it and read books that are more for me. I admit that since I started marking books as DNF, I've rated fewer books 1 star. The year I really started marking books as DNF was probably 2014. I marked only 1 book as one star, compared to 9 books the year before. The same goes for 2-star reads. Since 2014, fewer of books I read are being rated 2 stars. 

Also, after reading the entire Starcrossed trilogy, I now don't bother to continue a book series if I did not like the previous book.

But lately, I've been thinking about DNFing books. I've been interning at publishers which requires reading a lot of manuscripts. When reading manuscripts, I usually don't read the full manuscript, I judge it based on the first couple chapter, or first few pages, etc. When I switch from manuscripts to reading for fun, I've realized that I have taken that way of reading into my normal reading life. If I'm not feeling a book, I have an itch in the back of my head that I should go read another book instead. I try not to have this affect my reading too much. as I worry at times whether this is negatively impacting my reading. But, through my manuscript reading, I may just be recognizing what does not work in a book for me from the get-go. 

I am curious about how others review DNF books. I don't like to post DNF reviews on my blog (although I had to once for a book I got for review. Yeah. That's another reason why I should not get all grabby-hands over getting a review copy). I also don't like to give DNF books ratings because I don't want my experience with the beginning of the book to negatively impact the average rating. But I do like to post comments on Goodreads to tell others why I couldn't finish a book and to also let myself know what did not work for me so that I don't make the mistake of reading a book with a similar concept. 

While I worry at times that I am marking books as DNF too often, sometimes it's best to not push myself to finish a book I'm not enjoying. The only book I marked as one star this year was a book I wanted to DNF but did not because I had already marked another book as DNF that week. I should stop worrying about that. There are too many books I want to read. I shouldn't waste time on books I don't want to read.

Do you DNF books? Has your ability to DNF changed over time? 
Do you review DNF books?




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