Giving Up

I finish most books I start. (Can’t tell you how many books, though, I’ve read one page of, and then never picked up again).

But some books just are so painful for me that I end up giving up even after investing some significant time in them.

In the last year or so, here are a few of the books I’ve tossed aside:

• Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. I started on this one after it got wiiiiiiildly popular. And then a couple of my library friends, who I know and trust, suggested I would NOT like it. I was far enough in (about one CD) to guess they were probably right. I deleted it from my phone and never looked back.

• Pure by Julianna Baggott. I love dystopian books, and I even used my tried and true stuck-on-an-airplane method to read this book, but . . . no. Too bizarre and freaky (I just couldn’t quite stomach characters who were melded together with inanimate objects (furniture, kitchen tools, toys), animals, or even other people).

• Dark Parties by Sara Grant. I actually thought this was one okay-ish, but apparently not excellent enough to keep reading. Also dystopian.

• The End of Homework: How Homework Disrupts Families, Overburdens Children, and Limits Learning by Etta Kralovec. I love this kind of book. Except not when it’s boring and like reading a textbook. Pass.

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. I’ve heard rave reviews of this futuristic, video-game-centric book, but it was a little too crass for me. And I wasn’t invested enough in the story to want to plow through it despite the content.

• An Economist Gets Lunch: New Rules for Everyday Foodies by Tyler Cowen. I loved the premise of this book (great food is everywhere and usually not at the most expensive and buzzed establishments), but oh. my. word. I did not need to read 10 pages about the different types of BBQ pits in Texas.

• No Cheating, No Dying: I Had a Good Marriage. Then I Tried to Make It Better by Elizabeth Weil. Apparently I either have a GREAT marriage or I don’t care about making it better. Or this book was just boring.