Booking Through Thursday Challenge
for November 5, 2009:
“Life is too short to read bad books.” Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?
There are two types of “bad” books to me. The first type is the kind of book where the writing is so bad that you are completely embarrassed to know how to read English. The second type of bad book is where the book is so mind-numbingly boring that you wonder why you even bother knowing English.
With these two types of books, I have two different answers. For the writing-is-so-bad-that-you-are-embarrassed book, I have a tendency to finish these books. Why? Hope. I have some hope that this writer and plot might as some point redeem themselves with an amazing ending that I’m never going to get to if I quit! I will readily admit that 99% of the time that incredible ending never happens, but I still hope that it will.
As for the mind-numbingly-boring book, I have less patience. If I’m at page fifty and these characters are still sitting around sipping tea or if I am reading a three page description of a tree, then I’m out. I’ll quit right then and there. No questions, no guilt.
Why the difference? With the just plain bad book, I’m still rooting for the writer. I’m hoping that this writer somehow gets their head out of their butt and goes for the gold. I want the writer to create an amazing piece of work and I know that they want it too. I become their silent cheerleader through every miserable page.
As for the boring book, it’s all about me. This writer probably created a thrilling book that I’m just not into. I can make this all about me and say, “Self, your college days are behind you and there is no reason to read a book that is going to need an essay behind it for you to understand or care about these characters. So, self, put it down!”
For the boring book, it’s just a difference of opinion. For the bad book, it’s about hope and redemption.
8 Comments
Good answer! Here is mine: http://thecrowdedleaf.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/booking-through-thursday-november-12-2009/
I am not as patient as you are, if it doesn’t have me at 50 pages, I am gone.
Hope and redemption–that’s nice! I am afraid I tend to be the complete opposite. If a book is bad–if the writing is terrible–I tend to feel cheated by the author. Why give an author my time, if he or she (or, to be fair, if the editor) hasn’t taken the time to carefully craft the prose?
I LOVE your response and totally agree with the boring one.
My response
http://teawithmarce.blogspot.com/2009/11/booking-through-thursday-to-short.html#comments
Ha! I love that picture. I wish I could put down bad or boring books, but I keep thinking that it has to get better, it just has to.
Here’s my BTT answer.
Good answer. I quite like your classification of a bad book. But in my case, I have a different one. The cheap and the expensive
)
http://cutlex.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/booking-through-thursday-11-12-09/
Hi Priscilla – I always go into the book thinking that the author does not intend to write a bad book. To them, the writing might be the best that they got, so I try to give them the benefit of the doubt.
I can think of a book offhand (The Host by Stephenie Meyer) where I think the book was written more or less for money and was a quick release. That book I wish the editor and the writer had taken the time to do some rewrites, because it could have been better.
Alita, you are more optimistic than I am!!