Reading along, and stopping...

[fajrdrako]

for May 6, 2010: So … you’re halfway through a book and you’re hating it. It’s boring. It’s trite. It’s badly written. But … you’ve invested all this time to reading the first half.

What do you do? Read the second half? Just to finish out the story? Find out what happens?

Or, cut your losses and dump the second half?

This is such an easy one to answer. I bail, and fast. It's highly unlikely I'd get as far as halfway if I was hating it. I don't usually read beyond page three if I'm not enjoying it. I have a low tolerance for boredom, and for bad books.

The only question might arise if I read reading a book I enjoyed well enough, but wasn't excited over. Or which I liked part of - one main character, say, not not the other main character. Or a book that had started out fine but then something happened that disturbed my suspension of disbelief.

That's when I might read halfway, then stop.

I don't have time to read substandard books.