The truth about D.N.F.
Defenestrate that book you hate.
I’ll confess: there’s a traitorous feeling the first time you do it. Breaking the unspoken covenant, wracked with guilt, wondering why you can’t just make it work. But, like most things – other than apologising and getting off to sleep in a Travelodge – it gets easier with time. Have you done it yet? Do you remember what pushed you over the edge, that light nudge into the depraved world of… the people who think it’s okay not to finish a book? Ah yes, the dreaded D.N.F. – ‘Did Not Finish’
I used to be a completist about most things; I would seldom start something I couldn’t finish, be it desserts, gigantic maxi-size beakers of Coke in the cinema, or TV shows once the core cast had been replaced and the jokes began decomposing quietly in a corner. In my early years, my devotion to seeing it through came from a lack of other options. I grew up in a four-channel world and a low-income household where trips to the cinema or out to eat were vanishingly rare. Waste not, want not is a mantra that’s hard to leave behind. No novel would ever go back to the library unfinished, and any book I owned, no matter how terrible I found it, would not only be read to the very last page, it would be re-read and then re-re-read, just to make sure. My small, permanent library had a kind of holiness attached to it; I’d feel affection for a book even if it was a cold turd, because I’d chosen to take it home, or it was selected for me. Loyal to the very end. Well, until about ten years ago, when I decided to call time on my attachment.
I realised I didn’t have to plug away at things I didn't enjoy (unless I was being paid to do them lol). I was aware of the dangers of instant gratification, but I refused to subscribe to ‘it starts wonky but gets going halfway through’ which has plagued so many book and TV show recommendations. The guilt, though. There’s a decadence to not finishing a book that feels unsavoury – lighting cigarettes with ten-pound notes or opening a bottle of champagne and taking only one sip, leaving the rest to go flat and warm on a sunny windowsill. Finishing a book is not just about seeing the story play out, it’s a personal achievement, a compliment to the artwork or the people who made it. You can, I suppose, just about get away with enjoying a meal and not clearing your plate because you’re ‘too full’, but nobody ever stepped away from a book permanently because they were having far too much fun. Readers are embarrassed, sometimes, to admit a book has beaten them. ‘I tried to get on with it,’ they might say, ‘I had to really push through’. To me, this is like couples who claim you have to work hard at a marriage. Might I suggest if being married is akin to a full shift down a salt mine, you’d be better off handing back the ring and spending your alimony on books. Slog through a book you actively hate and you’ll do yourself more harm than good, perhaps triggering a reading slump. Every novel might now be marred by your bad experience, just like a nasty boyfriend leaves his stain on the men you meet as you stumble through the aftershocks of your failed relationship.
It’s sad when a book turns out to be all bluster and no lustre, a poor investment, a firework that goes ‘phut’ rather than ‘BANG’. You might even convince yourself you’re the problem. You blame your intelligence, your attention span, your environment as you read, your previous experiences that either mirror the characters’ too closely or bear no resemblance at all. These feelings are valid, but not necessarily the truth. And none of them mean the book itself is rubbish and to blame; the book can still be enjoyed by others, it is still art that was worth creating.
As for when to give up, listen to your gut. So you’re eighty per cent of the way through (thanks to the Kindle for its unnerving monitoring of my progress) and it sucks – now what? Persevere? For what? To impress whom? Wouldn’t you rather read something you love? You have not signed a contract to read every single page. Quit now, never too late to bail. Alternatively, only three pages in and feel like hoying it out the window and hoping it lands on the author? Bow out. Sure, it might improve, or it may drag you into the swamp with it, the precious seconds of your mayfly existence slipping away into nothing – other, better books still unread.
Don’t feel duty-bound just because it’s a sequel to a favourite, or one of a series you’ve otherwise enjoyed so far, or by an author you adore, or is the buzziest new release, or an old classic adored by millions. Only your experience matters. Reading should not be a competitive sport. I know it feels weird, a kind of defeat, but this is a book, not an aeroplane; you can step off at any point. The creator – or whoever is currently benefiting from royalties – already has your money (even if you borrow it from the library) so you’ve done the part that matters, you’ve contributed to the book’s existence. You own your reading experience, you’re entitled to sling it across the room if you wish (warning: not as satisfying with a Kindle, can be fatal with a hardback, and make sure to move expensive ornaments out of the way first). The author need never know – perhaps best if they don’t – but if they read later on Goodreads that you loathed it, then it’s their fault for looking.
Reading a book you hate won’t make you smarter, or cooler, or more interesting. There are no points, or trophies. Our reverence for books is not unearned – they educate us, entertain us, and influence us – but perhaps we fetishise them a little, elevate them to pedestals when a cool, dark and dusty shelf marked ‘nope’ will do just as nicely. Books are not gods. You possess all the power. You are under no obligation to love everything. The decision to D.N.F. is yours.
If it’s not working for you, don’t wait for The End, just end it. As a wise woman once said, ‘Darling, finish the Beaujolais and walk away from it’.
MORE FROM ME:
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I reviewed the Guardian Blind Date at the weekend. Reader, she did not like him. READ NOW
Akin to a full shift down a salt mine, hahaha!
A recent convert to DNFing (I think it's a 'confidence comes in your 40s' thing), this weekend I DNFed an extremely successful international bestseller. An Instagram connection in a similar position took one for the team and finished it, giving me her brief synopsis of the last few chapters, which she agreed were deeply disappointing. Never have I felt quite so smug about a DNF (indeed, as the saying goes: no one on their deathbed ever says 'i wish I'd finished more books I wasn't enjoying')
I’ve DNF’d on page 1 before now (“peek” for “peak”).