Halfway

Booking Through Thursday is a weekly meme about (mostly) books and reading. This weeks pondering:

So … you’re halfway through a book and you’re hating it. It’s boring. It’s trite. It’s badly written. But … you’ve invested all this time to reading the first half.

What do you do? Read the second half? Just to finish out the story? Find out what happens?

Or, cut your losses and dump the second half?

I recently read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. Halfway through the book, I put it down and didn't think I was going back to it. I didn't hate the book at that point but I didn't love it, either. I was also quite annoyed and disgusted by something I had read in the book just before putting it aside. A week later I was curious about how the mystery would unfold and went back to it. Plus, it was my book club choice and I wanted to finish it for that. I have to say, I'm quite glad I did - as the second half was so much better than the first!

However, there have been times when I have been so utterly bored or annoyed by a poorly written book that I will just walk away from it without feeling guilt or taking a backward glance. There are far too many amazing books waiting to be read to waste time on one that I dislike.