Skip to content

Not finishing books

why people finish books they don’t enjoy

  • feelings
    • A sense of achievement
      • doing a hard thing gives us a sense of joy when it’s over.
    • we don’t want to tell ourselves we can’t finish it
    • sunk cost, I already read so much, if I stop now it’s wasted.
      • It’s already wasted. just stop
      • wasted money to not read the book you bought
  • It trains your patience & concentration.
    • If we only read what we wanted, we are no different than chasing the latest attention grabbing thing on our phone.
    • grit
  • Reading bad books makes you appreciate and understand good books
  • expecting change
    • curious how much worse it can get
    • what if it get’s better
    • I’ll be missing something if I don’t finish the book
    • wanting to like it, hoping it’ll change so you will
  • social reasons
    • if I don’t understand why this famous book is good, I must be missing something.
    • your opinion on a book carries less weight if you don’t finish it
    • You can’t claim you read a book if it’s not finished.
    • how do I enter it on Goodreads?
    • read a book to explain why it’s trash

With anime, tv and games I tend to stop when I’m bored. Why not with books (unless it’s really bad)? Why do I finish my average books?

Life is “too short for bad books - Schopenhauer

books