Unfinished Books
Life of a Doctor’s Wife asked me yesterday if I ever had books I couldn’t finish.
I’ll admit that generally I will slog through a book if it is not just unbearable unbearable torture because I hate to leave a book unread and also, if I’m far enough into it, it’s generally worth it to me and my false sense of accomplishment to chalk another book up on the completed list.
But sometimes, if a book is just completely clogging up my reading (meaning, I feel like I’m choosing not to read anything because I feel bad about not reading this particular book) or if it’s just too foul or I just can’t stand it, I’ll give it up.
Most of the time, when I start reading a book, I list it on Goodreads in my “currently-reading” category (which shows up on the right sidebar of my blog), and then, if I don’t finish it, it goes into my “Unfinished” category. It’s not a perfect system, because sometimes I give up on a book before I’ve added it and so I forget entirely that it’s a book I haven’t finished, but here are my unfinished books I do have on record as since the beginning of 2008:
Unfinished Books
- Elegance by Kathleen Tessaro
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
- I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You by Ally Carter
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynn Truss
- One for the Money (Stephanie Plum #1) by Janet Evanovich
- Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do by Tom Vanderbilt
- Playing with Fire (Skulduggery Pleasant #2) by Derek Landy
- The Devil’s Breath by Emily Kimelman
- The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West by Sid Fleischman
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery
- Fat Kid Rules the World K.L. Going
- Hamlet: A Novel A.J. Hartley
- From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges Between Young Adult Literature and the Classics by Sarah Herz and Donald Gallo
- The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
- Horns and Wrinkles by Joseph Helgerson
- Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin
- The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Flemming
- I, Coriander by Sally Gardner
- More than Enough by Elaine Welteroth
- Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson
- Libyrinth by Pearl North
Some of these I feel genuinely bad about not finishing – they are insanely popular and people who I trust love them, but for some reason they just did not do it for me (The Knife of Never Letting Go – I tried so hard!!! I gave it at least 200 pages and it NEVER picked up for me).
And if you’d like a printable copy of this list of unfinished books that you can take to your library or screenshot on your phone for easy access, just pop in your email address below and it’ll come right to your inbox!
Any books you just couldn’t get through?
Love in the Time of Cholera. I tried and tried and tried…I made it about half way.
Also, Wicked took me FOREVER but I did finally finish it.
I, Coriander? Really???? You should give that one another try….it's such a sweet little story. I haven't yet not finished a book; I just can't do it. But I would say Wicked is a book I wish I had never started, as I REALLY wanted to not finish that one.
i love this. i give a book about 100 pages and if i don't love it by then, i give it up. there are too many awesome books on the planet for me to waste time reading ones i hate. who says you have to finish every book you start?
I'm just about 40 pages into "Crossing to Safety" and the topic, characters, and writing just don't interest me–nothing bad just not gripping–so right now I'm trying to decide if I continue or not (40 pages really isn't that far into a book–but there are so many books to read that will probably catch me a lot sooner than 40 pages).
Funny that you mention this today – I was just talking to my mom about this. I am trying to slog through "The Magicians" right now (touted as an edgier "Harry Potter") and I am valiently not giving up because I have made it past a certain point. It seems that if I get to a certain place I feel like I have to finish. I did not finish "Wicked", way too crass for my taste. Some books like "As I Lay Dying" and "The Time Traveler's Wife" – I wished upon completion that I had stopped early on.
ahhhh… i didn't finish team of rivals either. wanted to love it like i expected i would. and i did… until i got to the 2nd half. 🙂 it makes me feel better that you didn't finish it either. same thing with 1776 thus far. loved the political history, but the war history caused my abandonment.
Well, I can't remember some though I know there are books left unfinished. The Tale of Hill Top Farm, by Susan Wittig Albert, took me a year to finish, but finally did. It was my slow book on purpose, to read myself to sleep when Roger was out of town. but by page 175-200 I finally kind of liked it, and by the end I thought it was charming. Weird how some can turn around and some cannot