November Group Read: First Check-In

[kalloway]

Here we are, one week in. Have you finished or started anything? How are you feeling? (It is perfectly fine if the answers are "no", "nope", and "augh", of course.)


For added optional discussion, if you'd like- Do you ever DNF (Did Not Finish) books? If so, what makes you DNF something and when? Style? Content? Not grabbing you after x% of pages? Something else? Or are you the type of reader who finishes everything you start, no matter what?

Comments

[fred_mouse]

This is definitely a time of DNFing books for me. I've finished some of the Hugo nominees that I've started, but once I have a story/entry in a category that I truly love, everything else has to meet that standard. If it is nearly there and it is early in the book, I'll keep going. But I've put two aside for saying nothing new. I'm sure they are great books, but so far they aren't reaching what I need them to do to consider them as contenders,

And I'm a big one for DNF. I've just moved from goodreads to storygraph, and one of the things that I love is that you can list did not finish, and it asks the reason why. Which means I can actually write those kinds of reviews, without having to worry about it being counted in my 'read' books for the year.

There are lots of reasons I do this, not least because my eyes are bigger than my available time, so I always get too many books at the library. Other than that, the main reason is because the author isn't doing anything interesting with a trope I find interesting but not must read, or there isn't a hook that grabs me at all. What irritates me is when I encounter fiction written by people who are obviously not paying attention to what is happening within their sub-genre(s), for whatever reason, and so I'm all 'we have moved past this, get with the programme'. (particularly egregious are those non-SF people who claim to have done something visionary by doing something that was passé when I was a teen). The particular one I remember vividly was a short story collection on the theme of werewolves, where they were all macho military men, and I was all 'Teen Wolf and attending fandom has taken the werewolf story so much further than this you are all an embarrassment'.

[kalloway]

I admire your dedication with your Hugo reading. I don't think I'd have the patience at all. (Or, more correctly, I don't think my personal interests within the genre are broad enough and it could be fabulously written but a lot of, oh, mil-spec and whatnot probably won't grab me.)

[fred_mouse]

I've been really fortunate in recent years to have gelled with the zeitgeist, so am finding lots of interesting books this way. However, see above on willingness to DNF -- I had several I didn't try, because I've declared those authors to be Not For Me.