Do you need to finish what you've started reading?

[Gamercow]

I have a compulsion to finish any book I start, just to make sure that I don't miss a surprise upturn in quality, or a twist that suddenly redeems the book in my eyes.  I don't have this same compulsion with movies, tv shows, or video games. This is odd, because with the exception of video games, all of those media require more of a time investment. 

Currently, I'm reading "Orcs", which, like many fantasy books, is long, at 800+ pages.  I'm about half way in, and finding it difficult to continue.  I've got 3 other books immediately behind it in the queue that I would much rather read, but I need to finish Orcs first. 

Does anyone else suffer from this compulsion or have any good stories about it?

[Sandikal]

As I get older, I have less patience for books I dislike.  I try to finish everything I read, but if it's really boring or truly awful, I'll read something else.  As it is, there are too many books and too little time.  I don't give up on too many books though.  I quit Quicksilver and Anathem each about 120-150 pages from the end.  They weren't bad, just too long.  I lost interest.  I gave up on The da Vinci Code in less than a chapter because I just couldn't handle the writing.  I couldn't get through the first part of the audio download of Best Served Cold, but I'm going to give it a shot in print because the problem was the narration, not the story.  Usually though, I slog through and finish.  I always try to have an optimistic attitude and keep hoping a bad book will get better.  It usually doesn't work out though.

[iamafish]

I do like to finish books that I starts, but I've tried to read the first book in the Narnia series several times and haven't been able to get through it. It's a shame because, as a fan of fantasy, I feel like i should read the series, and might try again sometime. This is the only case in which I've found myself unable to continue with a book, although I've come pretty close on a couple of occasions, the most recent being The Girl Who Played with Fire, which only just held my interest.

[FireTurtle]

Oh, I totally feel your pain. I don't have a lot of time to read (who does?) and when I get hung up its almost impossible for me to give up on the book just because I know the guilt will eat me alive. Lots of times I put it down and then pick it months later when things in my life have settled down or the sun is shining or who knows but THEN I'll finish it. Mostly. I can count on one hand the number I haven't finished. Same goes with movies.
But, you can count me in your weird compulsion club. I'm always sure redemption is just around the bend.....

[stePH]

I do like to finish books that I starts, but I've tried to read the first book in the Narnia series several times and haven't been able to get through it. It's a shame because, as a fan of fantasy, I feel like i should read the series, and might try again sometime.

I re-read most of them some years back when The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was in theaters. The thing that I disliked most was that they are written for a very low reading level.

[Ocicat]

I got over the must-finish-it compulsion when I was in high school.  I'd already slogged through several books that weren't any good, usually by classic SF author's who's work I'd previously enjoyed.  But as much as I love authors like Heinlein and Niven, their later works aren't up to their previous standards.  Finally I decided that my time was better spent other places than novels I wasn't enjoying.

Sometimes I'll read something to the end anyway - like if it's a classic that's just not to my taste, but I feel I "should have read". 

Interestingly, in my capacity as a slush pile reader, I'm pretty stubborn about reading the story to the end.  But in that case, my enjoyment isn't the only reason I'm reading it.  But the really horrid writing still gets just... skimmed for content.

[Boggled Coriander]

Only novel I ever gave up on was Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, and I felt pretty bad about it afterwards, like I'd shown myself to be some sort of anti-intellectual dunce.  In retrospect, though, I totally blame Rushdie for not grabbing my attention sufficiently.

Sometimes I'll set a book aside if I decide it's not really what I want to read right now.  I started Philip K. Dick's Valis, thinking it would read like an SF novel, rather than the philosophical treatise that it turned out to be.  My attention petered out after about fifty pages, but now that I know what to expect from it I'll pick it up again someday when I'm in the right mood.

The worst novel I ever read in my adult life was Caleb Carr's Killing Time.  But I never really thought about giving up on it -- it's relatively short, the action moves quickly, and I read the whole thing within two days.  It almost would have been more of a bother not to finish.

[Bdoomed]

Never really had that feeling.  I do, however, finish 99% of novels I start.  Only novel I gave up was The Simarillion, and I know I'm not alone there.  There are a few books that I've started but haven't had the time to really get into, nevermind finish, but I'll get to them eventually.

[kibitzer]

In a word, no. If a book is really bugging me I give it away. There's really, really no point in continuing with something you're not enjoying (bookwise, anyway).

[stePH]

Never really had that feeling.  I do, however, finish 99% of novels I start.  Only novel I gave up was The Simarillion, and I know I'm not alone there. 

Does that even count as a novel? I thought it was more like a collection of JRRT's backstory notes.

[Bdoomed]

Never really had that feeling.  I do, however, finish 99% of novels I start.  Only novel I gave up was The Simarillion, and I know I'm not alone there. 

Does that even count as a novel? I thought it was more like a collection of JRRT's backstory notes.

I'd say it's a novel.  It's written somewhat like the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, where it details the hobbits, just more-so like a history text.  And confusing and boring as watching paint dry on growing grass.

[iamafish]

Only novel I gave up was The Simarillion, and I know I'm not alone there. 

I read all of that and took in none of it. Biggest waste of my 12 year old self's life.

[CryptoMe]

If I start it, I *must* finish it. Always been that way. Can't kick the compulsion no matter what. The only thing age and experience have done, in this regard, is make me much more picky about what I start.   

[eytanz]

I used to compulsively finish everything I've started.

Then I went to grad school, and stopped starting things, because I never had time to finish the previous book I've read. And after a while, something changed. I don't think I actually made a concious decision, but I started reading again, and when I got too busy and end up not reading for several weeks, I would start something new when I had the time again.

My problem is partially that I do a lot of (non-fiction) reading for work, and I often don't have the energy to read when I get home. I get home, cook dinner, spend time with my fiancee, maybe watch some television, and go to bed. I mostly read on weekends and holidays, and it's hard for me to get a continuous experience. If I have time and energy to read during the week, I often hit the Escape Pod slush pile as that way I can get something done + those stories are short.

These days I think I only finish maybe a third of the books I start. I'm not happy about it, but I find myself attracted to a lot of books and I start them and then I don't ever pick them up again. I don't exactly give up on them, it's more that I have a whole shelf of books I plan to return to "one day", and realistically I know I won't.

Geesh, I kind of depressed myself a bit here...

[jrderego]

I don't "HAVE" to finish them but I usually do. In fact, I think I've only dropped two novels half way in my entire life, "Better than Life" by Grant Naylor, and "Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkawhatever" by J.K. Rowling. I dropped the whole Potter series right there too, 100 pages in. I deep sixed a couple of short story collection before the end too, but I don't know if that's really the same thing at ditching a novel as you never get "closure" ditching a novel.

I don't typically read novel-length fiction when I am writing fiction and for the last 10 years or so all I've done is write fiction. When I take a break from writing for a few weeks every year or so I usually spend it with classics. I read a whole lot of non-fiction year round.

As for non-fiction, I'd ditched a couple of titles before the end, but these were usually episodic narrative nonfiction war correspondence type books where the style of writing became so oppressive and florid that I couldn't keep from rolling my eyes even though I was interested in the POV and subject matter.

[Devoted135]

If I start it, I *must* finish it. Always been that way. Can't kick the compulsion no matter what. The only thing age and experience have done, in this regard, is make me much more picky about what I start.   

This is exactly how I feel, and couldn't have expressed it better. Hope you don't mind the quote!

[ElectricPaladin]

I used to finish what I started. Then I was finished with that, and stopped .

Honestly, what changed is that I found a career (instead of a job) and got really busy. Suddenly, slogging through a book I wasn't enjoying and saw no chance that I would start enjoying became a bigger waste of time than I was willing to deal with. It still takes a lot before I'll give up on a book, mind you, but if I'm really not enjoying myself I'll do it.

Of course, the list of books I've actually given up on so far consists of... The Wayfarer Redemption, by Sarah Douglass. So I'm clearly not so great at this yet!

[DKT]

Heh. I'm also with CryptoMe, it appears

I do find it very hard to stop reading something, even if I really dislike whatever it is I'm reading. I want to believe it gets better...or maybe I'm just masochistic. Either way, I can count on my fingers the number of books I've stopped reading. These days, I try to be wiser about the books I start reading.

[Listener]

No matter how bad a book is, I'll finish it if I start it unless it's a physical chore to read. I tried to read "Anthem" (Ayn Rand) and got three chapters in, and it was just didacticness and not an actual story. And I tried reading the translation of "The Stone And The Flute", but it wasn't interesting enough for me to fight my way through the translated text.

I hate thinking I missed something.

[Gamercow]

Never really had that feeling.  I do, however, finish 99% of novels I start.  Only novel I gave up was The Simarillion, and I know I'm not alone there. 

Does that even count as a novel? I thought it was more like a collection of JRRT's backstory notes.

I'd say it's a novel.  It's written somewhat like the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, where it details the hobbits, just more-so like a history text.  And confusing and boring as watching paint dry on growing grass.

I once heard someone say "If JRRT had had access to the Internet, the Simarillion would all be in the Tolkein wiki."

[ElectricPaladin]

Never really had that feeling.  I do, however, finish 99% of novels I start.  Only novel I gave up was The Simarillion, and I know I'm not alone there. 

Does that even count as a novel? I thought it was more like a collection of JRRT's backstory notes.

I'd say it's a novel.  It's written somewhat like the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring, where it details the hobbits, just more-so like a history text.  And confusing and boring as watching paint dry on growing grass.

I once heard someone say "If JRRT had had access to the Internet, the Simarillion would all be in the Tolkein wiki."

And probably The Hobbit would have been podcasted.

[kibitzer]

...and "Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkawhatever" by J.K. Rowling. I dropped the whole Potter series right there too, 100 pages in.

Intriguing. Why?

[jrderego]

...and "Harry Potter and Prisoner of Azkawhatever" by J.K. Rowling. I dropped the whole Potter series right there too, 100 pages in.

Intriguing. Why?

Disclaimer -

Please take the following fact into consideration before reading my answer - I HATE fantasy literature, all fantasy literature except for Robert E. Howard's Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane stories, and even those try my patience after two or so tales in less than a month. My hatred of fantasy lit is documented in the commentary "The Fantasy Haters Lament" available in the archives of The Writing Show (www.writingshow.com) as well. I don't listen to Podcastle (because I hate fantasy lit), I don't read Fantasy and Science Fiction (because I hate fantasy lit), I don't even like the fake fantasy lit, Glory Road, written by my all time favorite author, Robert E. Heinlein (because I hate fantasy lit). I hate fantasy gaming, I hate World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy (1-infinity). I hate Dungeons and Dragons, LARPING, Renaissance fairs (faires), Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Krull (which I read as a kid before I saw the movie also as a kid), Xena, Buffy, Angel, and Firefly (just threw that in there for good measure).

Second disclaimer - I like fantasy lit as presented in movies. The Potter flicks were great fun, I even liked the Azkabandana film, the CS Lewis adaptations were good, and the Tolkein ones were three movies too long, but the battle scenes were great, I even sort of like Krull. (I hate Firefly as a film too). I love asian fantasy movies (the Majin films, for example, are some of my favorites), and some of Myazaki's older stuff.

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Short answer to why I gave up on Prisoner of Azkabanana - because it was crap.

Long answer - the first 100 pages were a retelling of the previous two crappy books, which I'd grown increasingly bored with from the second chapter of Philosopher's Stone. I could see how the journey was developing and didn't care if Harry was killed and eaten by super-intelligent carrots at that point. Never did I find a character to sympathize with after my initial understand of how Harry would develop through the series made itself clear in the second book, or how Rowling's storytelling style wasn't going to change irrespective of how many additional unnecessary pages of mcguffin-ising she added to each volume.

I realize I am the odd man out on this one, but lots of people never read Moby Dick and I read it once a year and try to participate in a 24 hour marathon read of it every January (my longest sitting span was 8 hours), so I figure in some way that balances the scales of the universe.

[Bdoomed]

I have Moby Dick on my bookshelf waiting to be read... way too busy with school right now to pick it up, and I have a few books ahead of it on the queue.  :\

[DKT]

Disclaimer -

Please take the following fact into consideration before reading my answer - I HATE fantasy literature, all fantasy literature except for Robert E. Howard's Conan, Kull, and Solomon Kane stories, and even those try my patience after two or so tales in less than a month. My hatred of fantasy lit is documented in the commentary "The Fantasy Haters Lament" available in the archives of The Writing Show (www.writingshow.com) as well. I don't listen to Podcastle (because I hate fantasy lit), I don't read Fantasy and Science Fiction (because I hate fantasy lit), I don't even like the fake fantasy lit, Glory Road, written by my all time favorite author, Robert E. Heinlein (because I hate fantasy lit). I hate fantasy gaming, I hate World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy (1-infinity). I hate Dungeons and Dragons, LARPING, Renaissance fairs (faires), Tolkein, C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Krull (which I read as a kid before I saw the movie also as a kid), Xena, Buffy, Angel, and Firefly (just threw that in there for good measure).

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Short answer to why I gave up on Prisoner of Azkabanana - because it was crap Fantasy.

Fixed that for you, sir