Choosing to DNF a Book/Series

Choosing to DNF a Book/Series

Have you ever picked up a book that looked amazing, sounded great, held such promise, only to find that you can't get into it?  It's one of the worst things to happen to a book reader.  The dreaded decision to continue on and push through the pain OR put the book down and chalk it up as a DNF (or Did Not Finish).

It took me a long time before I would ever put down a book and not finish it... I just couldn't do it.  I had invested money in bringing it into my collection and chances are, the book was highly recommended through a friend/co-worker/booktuber/reviewer, so how could it not be as good as promised?  I mean, everyone likes ALL THE THINGS don't they?  Once I finally reminded myself that NO, we don't all like the same things and just because someone LOVED a book, does not mean that I will nor does it mean that if I love a book, you will, I came to terms with allowing myself to DNF books.  Even with all that said, it's not something that I do lightly and I make it a point to get at least 100 pages into a book before I finally make a decision one way or another.  

So, what have I learned from the books that I have DNF'd?  Let's be clear, there have only been a handful in my life... but that could be because I am learning from my mistakes.  The main takeaway that I have from looking back at my list of DNF books is that they are all books that fall outside of my chosen genres.  I love, LOOOOVE, mystery/suspense/chick lit style books and have never once put one down in disgust.  I have, however, DNF'd way too many Young Adult novels.  Whether the plot was too far-fetched, the characters completely unrelateable or the story way too confusing, there is something between YA books and I that just does not mix.  There are definitely stories that I have enjoyed (Twilight, Hunger Games, Delirium) but for the most part, I just find the books too juvenile for my taste.

Another thing that will cause me to, almost instantly, DNF a book is poor grammer/spelling/punctuation.  A recent addition to my list is the Chaos Walking trilogy by Patrick Ness (also a YA series) and I gave up on that in less than 20 pages... I couldn't handle the phonetic spelling and lack of any sort of sentence structure.  Am I a perfect English major?  No, but I still like to read my books in a way that I understand and not put so much thought into what the words mean or constantly be correcting the sentences as I go.

Lastly, I have recently learned that the format of a book is really important to me.  In fact, I DNF'd the Illuminae_Files series (YA) just last night for this very reason.  I am a person who appreciates natural breaks in a book.  Whether it be chapters or page breaks, I am not overly picky BUT, I want a place that I can stop reading and feel like I won't come back in the middle of something important and have to backtrack to remind myself.  The Illuminae_Files consists of two books that are made up of e-mails, text conversations, ASCII artwork, random pages with words that mean nothing... I was so annoyed with the constant changing formats that I just couldn't get into the story at all.  I have read books that are all diary entries or emails, I think even text messages, but with them being all ONE format, with natural breaks in the book, it was easy to get into.  Mixed medium books are just not for me!

Overall... my life motto when it comes to books is "Life is TOO SHORT for a crappy book"!