What do you do if the e book you are studying has a superb premise however a horrible execution?
The e book im studying had a very cool premise. It is 60 Postcards by Rachael Chadwick. The principle chacters mom handed away from most cancers withing a pair weeks of being recognized on the age of 59. So to rejoice her mom, for her sixtieth birthday the primary character goes to Paris and leaves 60 put up playing cards round with a message and get in touch with information and its about listening to the replys and whats turns into of this mission.
Effectively, it sounds good however the writing feels actually rushed. Additionally one thing ‘humorous’ ALWAYS occurs, it has very not like different woman vibes with all of the “what are the percentages of THIS taking place to ME?!” or “after all it occurred to ME”.
However I am close to the top. I although it will get higher however no. I am solely 100 pages away and I wish to stop bit I hate the thought of not ending a e book, its not satisfying to go away it!
Do you cease studying books youre not into or do you energy by way of?
Comments ( 22 )
I stop reading.
If you want to quit reading, you should. This is the sunk cost fallacy in action.
If you’re not enjoying it stop. I used to power through, thinking “I’ve made it this far, why not finish?”. Its always a mistake. You’re better off finding something else to read. It took L. Ron Hubbard’s Battlefield Earth to finally teach me that lesson. A terrible, awfull waste of paper book that I read halfway through and finally gave up on. Learned my lesson though.
Look at it this way. Let’s say a book contract calls for a 75,000 word minimum, and you’re already at 70,000 words. Are you going to write another 25,000 words for free to make the last part of the book as good as the first part?
I’d Deus Ex Machina the plot in the last 5,000 words, turn in the manuscript, and move on to writing something else.
(Not saying this happened in the book you mentioned, just a general example.)
If I’ve barely started, I’d quit. If I’m that far in, I’d finish and hope the ending pulls the story together in a satisfying way that makes it feel like it was worth finishing. Which doesn’t always happen, but I remain hopeful if I’ve already read a good chunk of the book!
There’s no single answer. Depends on how strong my motivation is to know the full story. I’m reading (audiobook) Death’s End, the third book in the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy by Cixin Liu (the first book is The Three-Body Problem, a modern-Sci-Fi classic), and it’s a fucking slog. The second book was no great shakes, but the third is just ridiculous. The series went from something pretty close to Hard Sci-Fi to “let’s send a frozen brain into space to spy on an alien fleet”. I’m fully aware of the Sunk Cost Fallacy, but after thirty-whatever hours of listening I’m going to finish it just to see how it all wraps up, and to find out if any of the doze bizarre abandoned storylines come together in any way.
Then there’s the Rendezvous With Rama sequels, which are among the worst books I have ever read, and yet ones I re-read every few years. The writing is awful, most of the characters (including the main protagonist) are insufferable, and some of the main arcs are almost indescribably stupid, but there’s some amazing stuff tucked away in them that I love revisiting.
I’ve definitely stopped reading books partway through, though. If you’re really not digging it and don’t think you’ll get any enjoyment/enlightenment, etc. out of finishing it, feel free to move on.
I’ll usually crank up my reading speed to 11 and skim through large parts and slow it down whenever there’s good stuff. I felt this way with a number of Stephen King books: Lisey’s Story, Dreamcatcher, the Dark Tower books; they all had super interesting premises but I didn’t like how they were done at all.
It really depends how badly it’s written and how interesting the story is.
Example? *The Da Vinci Code* by Dan Brown. The story is intriguing enough and he does a good job of ending every chapter on a cliffhanger, but the language is terrible and the characters are all largely cardboard cutouts. More than happy to have finished it, but really questioned whether it deserved the sales/attention it received.
Also wanted to read the follow-up, *The Lost Symbol*, and tried repeatedly, but the language and poor writing bested me. Couldn’t get further than a chapter or two. If the story had been able to develop, perhaps I’d have stuck with it, but it would have to have been quite a story …
Other factors include a desire to be familiar with the material due to its popularity – this was the case with *The Da Vinci Code*. Put simply, I wanted to be part of the conversation. If it’s been a book’s been recommended to me, I’ll possibly stick with it depending on whom it’s been recommended by. If I’ve bought/been gifted a book, I always read it. This has made me more discerning when I purchase. 🙂
You don’t know how to read above an 8th grade level or you never would have read the book that far, in the first place, as a superficial perusing or inspectional 15 minute systematic glance would have told you this is chaff not wheat.
I’ve learned it’s best to DNF it. I was so excited about The Personal Librarian based on the real life director of the Morgan Library and Museum who passed as white her full adult working life despite her father being a prominent African American. A white author came up with the project, but knew it wasn’t her story to tell, so she recruited a Black author to co-write to lend authenticity. It read like a poorly written YA book written by committee.
My first instinct would be to wonder what I’m missing. WHY I initially thought the book had terrible execution, when that’s pretty unlikely for someone with enough talent and ambition to bother creating a novel-length piece of art.
Without knowing anything about this author or this book, I’d assume the premise and the execution are both about the development of the protagonist in the sense that she spent decades assuming all was well in a familial relationship that she came to believe would just remain reliable forever, but the first new piece of news in half a century or more turned out to be life-altering/ending.
Is she in a place where she’s now living in a personal world where the only news is bad news? Can she reach out to all these unknown characters, receive all these unknown replies, and have some good come of it after all, or will every reply somehow twist the knife even deeper?
Finding one or two connections at the end that offer a rebirth to her sense of interpersonal optimism can complete some kind of character arc and give her a fresh start at a new…*something.* Which might be what she needs to drive her own personal story forward.
The actual novel may have nothing to do with this whatsoever. But I always try to err (as a reader) on the side of giving the author too much credit for having written a story that guides me somewhere, if I’ll allow it.
I stop reading books I’m not into. If they are terrible, I never go back. If they are just missing the mark, I come back later and might finish.
Finish it so I can complain to others about how good the premise is but how shit the writing was.
Stop reading.
Stop reading and write the good version myself 😎
This happens all the time and it’s frustrating. It depends on my mood. Generally, I power through for completeness sake and also sometimes even if it’s badly told the plot can have some interest.
If it’s truly dreadful and I really can’t be bothered though, I stop.
It’s a hobby not an obligation.
I stop reading it. I’d much rather spend my time reading a book with a good premise AND a good execution, of which there are tons.
Still, it indeed blows when that happens.
I don’t recommend them to others. And usually I DNF them.
I put it down.
Stop. Move on.
I’m so picky when I read, so most of the time I just stop reading. I’ll go find another book with the same premise and hope it’s written better.
Most of the time, I stop reading, and explain in my review (amz, goodreads, storygraph) why it didn’t work for me. Sometimes, the author does just enough that I can finish the thing despite their failings. That review will be slightly more positive.