Yes, the title is telling the truth; I lost my "Did Not Finish" virginity. After pushing through an entire month of forcing myself to sit down, pick up this book, and read it, I'm barely, if at all, halfway through it.
Logging on a while ago, to do the usually blogging, commenting and checking out what the blogging world is up to, I stumbled across Christine from Buckling Bookshelves post "No Longer a DNF Virgin". Curious to see what DNF stood for, I clicked the linked to her blog, to realize that she was going through the exact same problem I was; reading through force, instead of enjoyment. This post (by the way, thank you so much for this Christine!) made me reflect on myself, and the entire reason why I started blogging in the first place.
About two years ago I created this blog, simply for my love of reading and sharing my thoughts on those reads. That's it, nothing else. Turning Pages has become an escape from reality for me, something fun that I can do in between going to school, and spending time with my family and friends. And Christine's post reminded me of that; blogging isn't my job, blogging for me is my love, my entertainment, something I enjoy doing. Not something I feel like I HAVE to do, but WANT to do.
Forcing myself to read a book isn't enjoyable, instead it actually makes me want to do less reading, since I know that, that book needs to be finished.
I've finally decided to lay the book to rest, and move on to an audio book I've been dying to listen to. In case you were wondering which book it is, it's Chime by Franny Billingsley, love the cover and the summary, but it's just not for me.
Thank you for stopping by and taking the time to read my rant...maybe I'll start posting more of these types of post. Feel free to leave a comment below, letting me know if you've ever experienced something like this!
I have not yet lost my DNF virginity! I can understand why others do it, but I am so easily overcome with feelings of guilt or unease at the mere thought of abandoning a book. I always feel like it has to get better eventually, right? (The answer is wrong, in case you didn't know ;P)
ReplyDeleteI think it's a good thing to do though if it's making you not want to read. You're right, we do this for pleasure not because we have to. If we don't want to continue on, that's our own decision. Hope the audiobook you're going to next will make up for it!
Thanks so much for the shout-out! I'm glad I'm not the only reluctant DNF-er to take the plunge :)
ReplyDeleteAw, thank you for sharing this sweetie :) I have had a few books that I just didn't finish :\ But most of the time I read less than 100 pages before I quit it. These days I just don't read a lot of a book once I see that I won't like it (A) I just can't read a book that I don't like. That sucks a bit, but I do read for myself, and I need to enjoy what I read :) Thank you for sharing. <3
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