Why I Can't Not Finish a Book

As you can maybe tell by my reviews on this blog I am hard to please when it comes to reading. I read many books, but I only like a few, and I only really love even fewer. I read different genres, although there are a few I tend to avoid, like thrillers and mysteries, but regardless of genre a book will captivate me if it has interesting characters and an exciting plot. 

I always start any new book full of optimism hoping that this one will be a great one. Otherwise I wouldn't have started reading it in the first place. But I am often disappointed. I try to give the book a chance and read the first few chapters at least, before I hand down my judgement. But even if the book does not intrigue me after a few chapters I will still continue to read it. Why? Why do I keep reading when odds are I won’t enjoy the rest of the book, if I didn’t enjoy the beginning? The answer is I don’t want my time to be wasted. Now this may seem like a paradox. If I don’t want to waste my time, why am I continuing with a book I don’t enjoy?I just feel like if I give up before the end, then I will definitely have wasted the time I spent reading the first chapters, but if I keep reading, the book might get better and then the time won’t be wasted after all! I am an optimist…

At the same time I have FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). Usually everybody else loves this book or it is a classic, so I feel like I am missing out on something if I don’t finish it, and maybe the reason everybody loves it, doesn’t come along until the end. Maybe…

In all my time as a reader I have only managed to put down 5 books before I had finished them. These are them:

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Stern

Brobyggerne (Det store århundret #1) by Jan Guillou

Castle to Castle by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

A History of Seafaring; Based on Underwater Archaeology by George F. Bass

Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love" - The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931-1932)

Tristram Shandy and Castle to Castle had absolutely no plot development and the writing style really bothered me too. Brobyggerne I had borrowed from the library and didn’t have time to finish before the due date, and I just never got around to checking it out again, as I wasn’t that into the story anyway. The same goes for the History of Seafaring even though this is a non-fiction book. I just had other, more interesting things to read at the time I guess. As for Henry and June I hardly remember it. This was also a library book, and since it was a diary I wasn’t really into it. Reading other people’s diaries isn’t really my thing, as I find the syntax annoying. 


I have recently read a few books that I just couldn’t get into, and for one or two I did seriously consider just stopping. But for some reason I kept going. I just feel better knowing that I missed nothing about this book and I can cross it off my list and never think about it again. If I don’t finish a book, I will always be wondering “Am I missing out?”. But I think it is time to get over the FOMO and stop wasting my precious reading time on books I don’t enjoy. There are so many books out there, so you shouldn’t waste time reading stuff you don’t really like, just because everyone else likes it. It is okay to say “This book isn’t for me” and put it down unfinished. You can always return to it later if you feel the need, or you can happily skip away from it and pick up another book and never look back! It is okay!

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