When you start reading a book and after the first 4 pages, you realize it's the worst book ever written, do...

Question

you force yourself to finish it?

Answer 1

worst novelist: patricia cornhole. oops. meant cornwell.

no. i toss it in the trash. i walk out of movies ALL the time, also.

Answer 2

I'm with everyone who mentioned the Twilight series. It's not just the poor writing, the lack of plot, the unrealistic characters and the shallow relationship around which it revolves - it's the terrible ideas it puts out. Thanks to Twilight, there are teenage girls (heck, there are adult women) who think that stalking is the ultimate in romantic gestures and that the ideal man is one who fulfils almost exactly the criteria of an emotionally abusive person. Well done, Meyer; we really needed someone like you to come along to set feminism back a century. Another awful book I've read is The Abortionist's Daughter. Again, it was badly written and very poorly researched, with completely random and irrelevant characters being thrown in and immediately written out just to bulk out the story. The author stuck in details that she then forgot about. Even taking into account how much it failed to build up any sort of tension, it still managed to be anti-climatic. It was just appalling.

Answer 3

I am going to try to sneak in here.

I usually give the book 50 pages. I have read so many books that I don't have the patience or desire to finish a bad one. After the 50 pages you can hear me say something like this
" Ah shi t! I can't take this anymore" as a loud bang rings throughout the house when the book hits the side of the wall and falls into the pile of broken dreams. Then I apologize to the writer. It has become a ritual.

Answer 4

I used to. Any more, not unless I MUST read it for work or some such. Usually I'll go about 1/2 way through anything. Sometimes I'll skip lots of pages and "finish" it that way. What I CAN"T seem to do is get RID of the useless thing! I have an incredibly hard time parting with books (even ones I've read already). There are 5 bookcases in my house (2 are large) all CRAMMED full. Last week I went through them and managed to fill 1 medium sized box with discards! (the box, btw, is STILL in my living room!) ;-))

Answer 5

If I'm not required to read it, no. I once had to read "The Communist Manifesto" by Karl Marx for a class and was so disgusted with it that when I finished I threw the book across the room. I put Danielle Steele novels in the same category: waste paper.

Answer 6

No. I will write a letter to the publisher demanding my money and time back.

By the way, I just got Augusten's new book. I read the first chapter in the bookstore and I'm pretty sure everyone thought I was mentally unstable, because I was laughing so hard. I'm not even halfway through it, but so far it's damn close to perfection.

Answer 7

No. In fact I have a sci-fi book around here somewhere that I've started to read 4 times over the years. It just doesn't change. I think I sold it in a garage sale a few months ago.

Answer 8

Only once. I was reading Asterix in Britain, which I had high hopes for after the brilliant epic, Astrix in Switzerland. It was tough but I finished it after 3 months of solid study. I felt Obelix's character was underdeveloped and there was some historical inaccuracies.

Answer 9

Yes, if want want to know what happens even if the story sucks. I will still read it, given that it's not boring. For example, Danielle steeles' ''Jewels'', it was interesting because I wanted to see what happened to the woman and her family, but it sucked pretty much and I skipped lots of pages.

Answer 10

No. I burn the book to ashes and mail the ashes. Part to the publisher and part to the author. Then I sit back and wonder. I wonder if I should toast marshmallows as well. Otherwise it's a waste of a good fire.

Answer 11

I'll give it a chance and finish the chapter. If I'm still not satisfied, then the hell with the book.