Top Ten Tuesday: Reasons You’ve DNF’d a Book

This was a little bit of a different theme, but I had a hard enough time thinking about the reasons why I Did Not Finish (DNF) a book. It doesn’t happen often as I know what I’ll like and I don’t often stray too far from those things. But, every once in awhile, I’ll stop reading a book that just isn’t grabbing my attention.

I used to never be able to stop reading a book in the middle of it, but I’ve learned over the years that there are too many books out there to waste my time on the ones that I don’t want to read.

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Reasons You’ve DNF’d a Book

Just Can’t Finish It

I’ve had books that I’ve renewed multiple times at the library and just can’t seem to finish. It’s not always that they’re not enjoyable, it’s often that I just don’t seem to be in the right headspace to want to read them.

Themes I Don’t Want to Explore at the Time

Sometimes I’ll pick something up and not realize that there is a theme that I’m just not interested in reading about, usually something sad. I will read sad books, but they’re definitely not my go-to, I want to read to be entertained and enjoy the story.

Not Invested In the Main Character

This doesn’t always happen, but sometimes I just don’t really care about the main character. It’s hard to continue reading a story if you honestly don’t care what happens to the main character. Like I said, this is a rare occurrence, but it has happened.

Inappropriate Authors

This isn’t a regular occurrence, but if I hear about an author that I’ve read before acting inappropriately or saying something they shouldn’t, I’ll just choose to stop reading their work. People are allowed to make mistakes, but sometimes they show their true colors and if it’s something that I don’t agree with in terms of racism, homophobia, etc. I’ll choose to spend my money and time on other creators.

There are a lot of different approaches to things like this and everyone is allowed to have their own way of handling them. This is just a personal preference of mine.

Just Don’t Like It

It doesn’t happen often, but sometimes I just don’t like the story and I’ll choose to stop reading rather than spend time reading something I’m not enjoying.

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.