Knowing When to Abandon a Book

Decide thoughtfully when to finish a difficult book and when to set it aside.

Experienced readers do not finish every book they start. Life is finite, and forcing yourself through a book you dislike can drain your enthusiasm for reading altogether. But abandoning books too quickly can mean missing works that reward patience. The key is to diagnose why a book is not working. Is it difficult in a way that feels productive, where you are learning and stretching? Or is it simply not for you, perhaps because of subject, style, or timing? Some readers use a rule of thumb, such as giving a book fifty pages before deciding.

Consider an original scenario: a student struggles through a dense novel's first chapters but notices she keeps thinking about one character between readings. That lingering interest suggests the book is working, even if slowly. Another student feels nothing after a hundred pages and dreads opening it. Setting it aside is reasonable, and she can always return later, when the timing may be better.

• 1Not every book must be finished.
• 2Diagnose: productive difficulty or poor fit?
• 3Lingering interest is a sign a book is working.
• 4Abandoned books can be revisited later.