You Don’t Have to Finish Every Book
The Hidden Joys of a DNF Pile
Once upon a time, there was a girl who loved to read.
She read everything she could get her hands on; tattered secondhand copies of The Babysitters Club, pristine hardback collections of children’s poetry, classics from the local library, wrapped in wipe-clean plastic covers and stamped with return dates older than her, Point Horror paperbacks, teen magazines, even cereal boxes. She just loved to read, and no matter what she read she always ALWAYS read to the end. She always finished what she started.
That girl grew up, and she still loved to read but now she had other demands on her time. A full-time job, a baby, seemingly endless amounts of housework. Her reading time became scarce and all the more precious.
She still tried to finish every single book she picked up but one day, she noticed that she was no longer enjoying her reading time like she used to, that she wasn’t looking forward to it the way she should. That she’d be quite happy to leave that book on her bedside table for a few more days...or weeks...or forever, in fact. Because in truth, she hated it. It wasn’t the book’s fault- it just wasn’t her cup of tea, but she was a third of the way through now, so it’s not as though she could just stop reading…
It took her one whole year, yes an ENTIRE YEAR to read that book.
A full year of not reading any other books, of not enjoying her sacred me-time, of wondering if she’d lost her joy of reading and questioning whether she’d ever finish reading a book again.
When she finally turned the final page and set the book down, she made herself a promise: she would never, ever,force herself to finish a book, ever again.
That girl was me, and it’s a promise I still haven’t broken.
I went from someone who couldn’t bear the thought of not finishing a book, to someone who frequently sets books aside after five, ten, fifty, even two hundred pages if I decide it’s not working for me.
I’m now the proud owner of a long DNF (Did Not Finish) list, and here’s why I think you should join me…
You Can’t Read Everything
‘It’s likely that I will die next to a pile of books I was meaning to read.’
~ Lemony Snicket
It’s a scary thought for any of us to contemplate- the fact that our time here on earth is limited. For bookworms, that fear is compounded by the realisation that no matter how fast we read or how much of our spare time we devote to it, we’ll never be able to read every book out there.
Most of us have an endless, ever-growing TBR (To Be Read) list. I once made the mistake of counting every book in my house that I hadn’t yet read and realised that even without a single new purchase or library book crossing the threshold (and what are the chances of that?), I still had enough reading material to keep me going for at least TWO YEARS without ever having to read the same book twice.
The truth is, our time is finite. Whether we’re talking philosophically in terms of our lifespan, or literally in terms of the ninety minutes between getting the kids to bed and falling asleep ourselves.
‘You can’t read everything,’ might sound like a depressing truth but it's actually a blessing in disguise. You can’t read everything, so if a book isn’t working for you PUT IT DOWN.
A UK survey in 2014 found that people read an average of ten books per year. Given that the average life expectancy in the UK is 81 years, and that most children in this country learn to read around the age of 6, that’s a grand total of 750 books in a lifetime.
If the number of books you can read is limited, then it makes sense to be discerning about which books make the cut.
There’s a whole world of books out there, you don’t need to waste your time slogging through something that you’re not enjoying.
‘Not Now’ Doesn’t Have to Mean ‘Never’
This has been an important distinction for me on my own journey to becoming a DNF queen.
Just because you aren’t enjoying this book and don’t want to finish it now doesn’t mean that you never will. If you put the book down, all you’re essentially saying is, ‘Not today, thanks.’ The book will continue to exist on your shelf / e-reader / in the library collection and should you want to, you can always come back to it at a later date.
Timing is key when it comes to certain books, so rather than push through and risk ruining your enjoyment and colouring your perception of the book, why not leave it for another day?
It becomes far easier to give up on a book when you see it as a temporary decision.
(Anecdotally, I’ve found that when I do revisit books that I’ve set aside previously, I often manage to finish and enjoy them at a later date.)
It Doesn’t Make You Any Less of a Reader
Quitting a book part way through doesn’t mean you have to revoke your official bookworm license. It doesn’t mean you’re not a ‘real’ reader or that you’re a bad person. So you didn’t enjoy that very popular book everyone loved or didn’t understand that very clever literary masterpiece? Well, so what?
No one book holds inherently more value than any other. Books have a variety of purposes- to educate, provoke discussion, amuse, scare, entertain. If they’re to be judged at all, their merit should be scored on how well they achieve that purpose according to the individual reader.
The value of some books may not be apparent until the end and in some cases, it might be worth persevering for the ultimate pay-off but if you can’t get to the end that’s okay. Maybe you need more immediate gratification in your reading life right now. There are plenty of books available that can provide that.
To DNF is to Read Joyously
When you give yourself permission to DNF a book, it has the power to radically alter your relationship to reading. Great dusty tomes that have lingered on your shelves for decades no longer evoke a frisson of fear. Yes, it’s long and intimidating, but if you get fed up at any point, you can always put it down.
If you’re not afraid to DNF a book, you become less wary of trying new things. Non-fiction, science fiction, historical fiction, poetry collections; suddenly your reading world becomes a bigger place. You won’t love everything you try and that’s okay because you’re not obliged to keep going with it.
In deliberately choosing to not finish a book (rather than just putting it down and forgetting about it for a few months) you offer yourself an opportunity for self-reflection. In asking yourself why you’re not enjoying the book (especially if you expected to) you may find a whole host of things you hadn’t consciously acknowledged- your tastes have changed, you’re sensitive to certain subject matters right now, your life is hectic and you need an escape rather than a challenge. If you take away the ‘should’ from the equation and start from a place of curiosity, the decision to DNF becomes a positive one.
Finally, one obvious perk of putting books down is that they’ll always be there in the future should you choose to pick them back up.
I do, quite frequently, and it’s a worthwhile exercise in itself. Sometimes a second attempt will confirm that the book absolutely isn’t for me, other times I fall in love and wonder what the issue was in the first place. Either way, it’s a win-win situation and proof that sometimes it really is just a case of timing.
Knowing When to Quit
You may find, after giving yourself permission to quit, that suddenly you can’t stop. You’re quitting books all over the place, in fact, you’re struggling to finish a single book!
This is a natural reaction to your new dizzying freedom and the realisation that you don’t have to see everything through. In time, it should settle as you find books you enjoy and don’t want to put down, but if it’s becoming an issue for you, it’s worth reminding yourself of why it’s sometimes good to keep going. Why did you pick the book up in the first place? Was it a recommendation from someone you trust? Are there parts of it you are enjoying? What benefit will you get from continuing to the end? Keeping these points in mind will help you distinguish between distractibility and genuine dislike.
Why Not Give It a Try?
Next time you get part way through a book and realise that you’re suddenly finding excuses not to read it, remember that you’re not obligated to. Ask yourself, does this book need to be one of my 750 lifetime books? And if the answer is anything other than a definite yes, you know what to do.
