On DNF’ing Books
I used to be a compulsive finisher. I would grind through the most tedious, inane bullshit just to mark “Read” on Goodreads and get my little dose of accomplishment dopamine.
Something changed this year. I don’t know what, exactly, but I can’t do it anymore. I’m DNF’ing shit left and right. It started with The Iron Garden Sutra by A.D. Sui. On the surface, it sounded right up my alley: a death monk performs funeral rites aboard a plant-covered generation ship where something sinister stalks researchers one by one.
But it quickly fell flat. I don’t want social commentary. I don’t care about token representation. I want skillful prose, good worldbuilding, and a real plot. It shouldn’t be a vehicle for IDPOL or the author’s transparent take on some other social issue. Can those things be part of a great story? Of course! But it seems like so many of today’s authors are just phoning it in.
The wizard dabbled in forces deemed heresy by the empire... oh, and he LOVES dick. C’mon, man, just tell a fucking story.
I try to give everything 100 pages. That’s my arbitrary minimum. Last night, I dropped The Price of Fear before making it there. Derivative as fuck. The dialogue was incredibly cheesy. The main character actually said something like Darling, I AM death, and my eyes rolled back so hard it hurt.
I’m halfway to accepting that it’s perfectly fine to quit a book. Life is too short, free time too hard to come by, to push through shitty writing just to say you did. Am I marking it DNF on Goodreads? Nope. I’m just deleting it from the shelf. But still, I’m giving myself the freedom to move on when it’s time.
Today I’m starting Philip Fracassi’s A Child Alone With Strangers. Here’s hoping the first 100 hook me.