Life’s too short for boring books

Let me get one thing straight. There’s really no such thing as a bad book. Ok there is … but there’s usually (not always) something interesting hiding underneath the surface if time were spent on it.

There are badly written books (which could have been put right by a fabulous developmental editor or copyeditor, and a bit of education on the author’s part), badly put together books (which could have been saved by a fabulous copyeditor, designer and proofreader), and badly thought out books (which probably just needed more care and attention in the first place). But there’s really no such thing as a bad book.

A book is a labour of love for everyone involved – unless they’re just in it for the money (what money?) or have decided to get in bed with the AI overlords to ‘create’ a book.

But a book should not be a labour to read.

Yawning is infectious… don’t let it infect your reading time!

Now, I obviously won’t review a book I’ve worked on (that would just be plain wrong), I review books that I’ve been offered for review or books that I’ve bought that I think others should know about. I try not to give bad reviews as such, because sometimes a book just doesn’t work for one reason or another; I’ll give a constructive review if I think the book doesn’t work.

However, what one person thinks is unbearable will be another person’s award-winning, all-singing, all-dancing, title-in-neon-lights book.

But if a book just doesn’t ring any bells for you, should you still read it through to the bitter end?

HELL NO!

I’ve had this dilemma myself.

boy in gray t shirt lying on bed reading books — Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

A book that many other people think is amazing, and yes it’s won awards, has left me cold.

It’s been fabulously researched (I do like my historical fiction) and there is a flavour of the life and times of the characters … but the writing and the characters leave me cold. I have absolutely no relationship with them, there is no connection and the writing style makes it difficult to create that bond. And this is an area of history I am very familiar with, so there’s no surprising factual interest either. Half way through this massive tome I had the stinging realisation that life is just too short*. Why, just because “people” think a book is amazing, should we persevere and carry on reading it?

There are very few books I have left by the wayside, painfully abandoning them after trying with every fibre of my being to like them – I’m not asking for love, just a like. One was an Anne Rice book. I love her vampires, but one of the books was just too tedious (no I’m not saying which one), another was by Terry Pratchett. I LOVE his books with every fibre of my being, but I just couldn’t finish one of his early books. However, I did go back and read it later… as a much older and wiser reader. Another was a story about the Edinburgh body-snatchers, and, oh boy was it bad! It had promise but never delivered and curled in on itself after about 50 pages – there was no story, no characterisation, and even though I did try to persevere there was no plot progression (how the hell that one was published by a reputable publisher I will never know).

I have read so-called highbrow books (I love Balzac and much of my teenage years were spent reading Yukio Mishima) and I have read some utterly trashy ones – there’s a place for them all.

But when that tedious, try as hard as you can to like it, book comes along do yourself a favour. Realise that you may love it later, or you may never go back to it, but put it down and move on to the next one. There is always a pile of books to read, and it’s not compulsory to finish every book you buy.