Let’s Talk About | Not Finishing Books

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Have you ever not finished a book?

Today in my planned drafted outline for March’s blog posts I was supposed to sharing my book review of Cassandra Clare‘s latest installment in The Dark Artifices series, Queen of Air and Darkness. This book, dear friends, is 880 pages long and I’m only just over half way through it. I thought the others in this series were long (coming in at 688 for Lady Midnight and 699 for Lord of Shadows), but apparently my perspective was way off. Apparently you can write a book that you need to hire an actual fork lift to move the tome from the table up to your eyes to read it.

I don’t think I have ever not finished a book.

There have been some terrible books that I’ve soldiered on through, mostly because I want to give the author a chance to pick up the story on the next page. Perhaps it’s the next chapter where it gets really good, or there’s a twist so mega the first whole half of the book makes magical genius-writing sense. Nine times out of ten that doesn’t happen and I’m left with a one or two star book. I should really learn to put a book down if I’m not enjoying it.

That’s not quite the case with this book, though.

With Queen of Air and Darkness, it’s not like I’m not enjoying it. It’s this mix of not minding the story, liking some of the characters too much to put them down, and wanting to finish the series. All those things are 100% true; the story isn’t bad, the characters are many but there are a few that I really enjoy, and I need to know what happens, especially if I want to keep reading Clare’s stories (which I do, because I actually love the world she’s created) – she has the beginnings of two more different series coming out this year, The Red Scrolls of Magic (April) and Chain of Gold (November). She also has a compilation of short stories coming out in June (Ghosts of the Shadow Market), and all of these new stories are based on some of my favourite Clare characters…so that also keeps me going through QofAandD.

But you guys, the size of this book does.my.head.in. You need a pillow or a table, or a thigh or two to prop this book up on so you can read it, while still using both your hands to hold it open. Even when I got to the middle, it was difficult. Why, Clare. Why!?

I am so tempted to just throw in the towel, as they say, and give up. I’m not even close to the end. I read 100 pages yesterday and thought I had done well; logged that in Goodreads and I’ve only just hit the 60% mark. I’m getting tired of the book, that’s what it is. It haunts me. It doesn’t help that I have all the other great books now literally piling up next to my bed that I really want to read. But no. I must get through this! (Queue ‘Gotta Get Thru This‘ by Daniel Bedingfield.)

So what I want to know from you guys is: have you ever not finished a book?

Have you been reading a novel and you’ve just thought ‘you know what? No. No thanks. Not today’ *insert gif of Bradley Cooper in the Silver Linings Playbook throwing the book out the window* (I know you know the one). What was it about the book that you didn’t like? Would you ever come back to that book? Does that put you off the author, or just this one story?

Let me know in the comments, or flick me a Tweet!