Over the last few years, as I've delved further into book blogging, I've given myself permission to not finish books and rate them a "DNF" (Did Not Finish). I've even created a Goodreads shelf particularly for this purpose.
Usually when I DNF books it's because I'm not meshing with them. There's something about the writing style, characters, or plot that make me reluctant to read the book and so I'll often avoid picking it up when I have free time. Sometimes it's because there's objectionable content (something racist or bigoted, too much foul language, too much underage drinking, sexual content, etc.).
I figured as the years went by I'd start to DNF fewer and fewer books. While I definitely won't DNF as many as I did in 2014, I''m on track to DNF as many as I did in 2015. So what gives?
Best I can figure, I'm still trying to figure out what books I like. I still give a lot of books lower ratings because they sounded like they would be good and they weren't. I know I can't give all books high ratings (I wouldn't trust my reviews if I did), but it disappoints me that I don't love every book I read.
It also appears that I don't DNF more of one genre than another, so that doesn't help me narrow things down. I'm better about culling books from my TBR list lately, though. If it doesn't interest me anymore, I won't read it, thereby eliminating the opportunity for a low rating or a DNF.
But here's to me being more discerning in 2017! Hopefully my DNF total will go down and my average rating will go up...
I've started DNFing books this year! Only a few - basically, if I'm really disliking a book or I can't find anything that I care about. But it's really been so liberating. I've DNFed books where I'd still have hundreds of pages to read, and putting myself through them definitely wouldn't have been fun. I haven't really DNFed enough books yet to find anything in common among them that I could avoid in future books, and I'm not sure whether that means that I'm hoping to DNF more books or not.
ReplyDeleteI think it's helped a little in that I realized I should maybe weed some books out ahead of time. Last summer, I downloaded a ton of iBooks samples for the books on my TBR list and used that to help me figure out if I still really wanted to read certain books or not. But like I said, I'm still DNFing lots of books and giving them low ratings. 2016 was a hard year for books, though, but hopefully 2017 will be better and I won't DNF as many.
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