Ok, if you're in a book club and the book really doesn't speak to you...do you force yourself to finish it?
Maybe a result of being in the middle of a lengthy and serious writing project, but I've bounced out of a lot of books this year, and a lot of them have been from book club. Maybe I should be pushing myself more, but this isn't grad school, so...I don't know.
in the book clubs i participated in, there were always people who didn't read the book, they still showed up & helped out with the ritual drinking of the wine
i think if they're NEVER interested in reading, they'd eventually drift away but some members are always going to have more time to read than others
@pretensesoup@bookstodon
I do my best. I don’t always succeed. My attitude is that my friends make the effort to read what I choose. The least I can do is return the favor.
@pretensesoup@bookstodon when I was in a book club, my rule was that I wouldn't attend unless I'd read the whole book. So it left me open to not reading it, but that would mean that I wouldn't show up.
I'll sometimes continue if I'm really enjoying the book club experience and it's not an onerous read. I'm actually deciding right now if I want to go on with Ghosted by Amanda Quain because it's not grabbing me but it's also an easy read so I don't feel compelled to stop.
But in general, yeah, I'll just drop out. All my book clubs are online so it's not that obvious. 😁
@willaful Haha. It took me a year to read Gravity's Rainbow. I had to make a chart of all the characters, and then I decided I would never tell anyone what happened because it had been too much work to get the knowledge. By contrast I read Ulysses in like eight weeks. Although, uh, still working on the Wake...
@pretensesoup@bookstodon I think it's completely okay to dnf a book if you don't feel compelled to continue reading it. After all, you are reading for pleasure. There are definitely lots of other books out there that you could enjoy instead.
@Narayoni@pretensesoup@bookstodon It took me a long time to learn to do this, but I agree. There are more books I'll enjoy than I shall ever have time to read.
Mind you, I also feel that if you haven't read the book you shouldn't turn up to the book club that discusses it, and I'm clearly in a minority there.
@pretensesoup My reading mojo is super fragile these days, so I don't force myself to read something that's not appealing. I often know I may enjoy it at a different time, and so I simply set it aside for that time; if whatever is making it unbearable now will make it unbearable later, I DNF with prejudice.
Life is short, and hard, and sometimes cruel; reading should bring joy not misery.
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