"Don't give up!"
"Persistence is key!"
"Patience is a virtue!"
"Stick with it!"
"Hang in there!"
It's good, snappy advice to get through an unpleasant task or situation. It's not practically helpful though, is it? Once, these words were likely spoken with genuine feeling and consideration.
Capitalism feasts ravenously on our honesty and empathy, then gaslights us by regurgitating these hollow expressions. Ability, safety, and willingness are gently shoved aside by an imperative to finish what you started.
[Note: This article is about reading books, and maybe consuming other forms of entertainment. For other situations, consider talking to someone or otherwise finding external help!]
The AI really struggled with 'person throwing book'.
Learning to live and work with my ADHD has taught me a lot about motivation and executive function. When someone (especially with ADHD) is passionate about a task, their brain supplies more energy for them to successfully complete it. When working on dull tasks, the lack of energy manifests in feelings of being stuck, lost, and frustrated.
Yet our society is obsessed with the idea that finishing a task has innate value; even suffering through purchased experiences just to "get your money's worth".
That doesn't have to apply when you're not enjoying a book. I've written before about how to spend less money on reading, and mitigating risk is a significant benefit of those practices! A novel borrowed from the library is going back there whether it steals your heart or bores you to tears. A rotten $5 thrift hurts a little more, but it's still preferable to buying new. When you do spent big on a dud, try your best to get a return.
The fact is that it's not your fault if a book isn't working for you.
I loved Susannah Clarke's Piranesi so much that I bought her earlier Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell without a second thought. I only learned when it arrived that it was over 1,000 pages. It took me at least six months to finally crack it open and realize that it would offer almost nothing of the wonder Piranesi inspired in me; instead presenting a frustratingly dull and long-winded Victorian drama.
I pushed myself through a hundred pages, enjoying bits here and there but bored senseless by most of it. I then skimmed ahead to see if anything enjoyable was on the horizon, did the same with the book's Wikipedia summary, and finally set it on my shelf to collect dust.
Other books have met similar fates. Titus Groan is an intriguingly unique 'weird gothic' text whose narrative far outstripped my interest in its setting. The Vorrh's 'weird horror' elements had me hooked immediately, but devolved into a revolting musing on race and sex. Ariadne and The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill offer mediocre prose and little novelty to familiar stories.
At this point, I get antsy as soon as I realize something is Young Adult, New Adult, or Military Science Fiction - simply for the sheer number of bad experiences I've had with those genres: Fourth Wing, The Forever War, and Expeditionary Force to name just a few. (Add me on Goodreads to find those reviews!)
Art by Sandara of Brutus and Bernard from 'Furies of Calderon'
I'll add a brief caveat: there are a few books that I'm glad I stuck with, despite months of difficulty in finishing them. I entered Furies of Calderon as a huge fan of the author's other books, excited by the premise of 'ancient Rome with Pokémon'. The first portion of the book dragged for me, and I might not have made it if not for both my confidence in the author and the fact that it was late 2020 and I was stuck inside anyway. Furies' ending was great though, and I had finished the entire incredible series within 18 months.
Another example I'll give is Mark Lawrence's Red Sister, which swept me off my feet with its dark and mysterious prose. I was enamored, and so felt deeply betrayed by a long scene depicting animal cruelty early in the novel. I threw the book across the room, spent hours feverishly angry about the lack of trigger warnings in books, cried a bit, and so on. My online searches told me that this was the lowest Lawrence's books had ever gone, so eventually I decided to pick the book up again with extreme skepticism.
And I'm glad I did. I've now read thirteen deeply imaginative and enthralling books by Lawrence, the worlds of which are connected in small but tantalizing ways. I've come to learn and respect most of his approach to grimdark fantasy and how it augments his storytelling. But I still hate how far that scene, plus another in the author's Broken Empire trilogy, went; both take 'kicking the dog' to an extreme to build up secondary villains who were already fairly vile.
Finally, Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez. I listened to an hour of this audiobook, then had to delete it from my phone. The book wasn't awful, boring or problematic; the narrator's voice wasn't causing me a migraine. It was too goddamn real, depicting a lovable trans and queer community facing awful harassment and violence. I gave it 5 stars and I hope to return to it one day, but I just couldn't finish it.
It remains your decision whether to trudge through a slow book in hopes of finding a hidden gem. Try setting a book aside temporarily and seeing whether any part of you longs to return to it! If not, that's okay: enjoy a different book and let it fade from your mind. I can even offer some recommendations!
Are there any books that you wished you had put down, or that you're glad you stuck through? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for reading <3
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