graphic: Kerry Ciccaglione-clipartbest.com
In the golden age of Goodreads, it’s a joy and a badge of honor to be able to list the dozens of books we’ve read and, of course, fangirl over them with fellow book junkies. 😀 We LOVE reading novels! However, sometimes a book feels like it takes forever to read. Why? It might happen with short books or long ones, with books we enjoy and (more often) with books we don’t. When it seems to take an eternity to get through a book, what is the #1 reason?
Eve Messenger 
a slow plot toward the middle, I would say. Some books have such lovely writing, but many well-written novels don’t have that plot-driven gusto that keeps you from putting them down for weeks…or months…or years.
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Exactly! As a person who LOVES reading lyrical prose, I hate to admit it, but in a battle between a beautifully written book with a weak plot and a book with non-stellar writing but a great plot, the second book wins.
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High fantasy books always take me forever to read or I end up not finishing them. Just not my cup of tea, I suppose.
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Totally, Tamara. Some books just don’t ring our literary bell. From my experience, high fantasy books also tend to be pretty densely written.
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Dense writing style is probably my biggest issue, because if the book is flat-out boring, then I’m more likely to stop reading than slog through.
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You know what else I thought of Elena? Sometimes the number of pages can be deceiving, as in when the pages are bigger and the font is smaller, which is what happened to me with Six of Crows.
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Daunting books, dense (and hard-to-read) writing, not enough character building and a slow plot. My ultimate one has to be a slow plot, though. If the plot isn’t there…then I don’t want to continue reading.
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Good one, Beth. If lots of juicy things are happening in the story, it’s a much faster read, for sure.
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Sometimes, I think it takes me forever to read a book because I am having trouble soaking up the plot, like the plot isn’t getting to me and I would end up reading the same page over and over.
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I know what you mean, and it’s frustrating when that happens!
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I am not sure if I told you or another blogger but I have the attention span of a cat so I get easily distracted and will put down a book in a heartbeat especially if it is super long or is kind of dragging along a bit. This is probably another reason why, when I do write fiction (which is rare), it is a short story. I am actually reading a long book that a friend of mines recommended and I am moving through it slowly. It’s actually entertaining when I’m reading it but then I get distracted and forget about it. However, I found a good excuse, thanks to fellow book reader Ameriie (I’ll be posting about her and her beauty + book channel in a few weeks btw). Sometimes a book can be like a television series and you read one scene and then you put it down and then you read a few more and then you put it down and eventually you’ll finish it in due time. So that’s my excuse to my friend about his book recommendation. lol
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Yes, that was me you said that to, Tunisia. 🙂 Oo, I like the idea that reading a book can be like watching a television series. Back in the day, I imagine that’s exactly how Charles Dickens’ books were read.
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Why does it take so long? ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’. My goodness! Each book is this series is around 1,000 pages, making it near impossible for a slow reader like myself to finish it in a couple weeks, much less a month.
And then there’s ‘Fahrenheit 451’ that I read recently. That took me forever because I was so baffled and lost by the writing style sometimes that I’d just have to put it down and come back later.
Lastly: lack of time! It wouldn’t take me nearly as long to read a book if I wasn’t out of the house for 13 hours on my work days, but I am. So, alas, those lovely books have to wait until I have time. *sigh*
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Melanie, you crack me up. I totally understand that feeling of when one page feels like a thousand. You make a good point; reading would go faster with a lot of books if we had time to read in longer spurts.
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Definitely! I mean, every time you pick the book up, you have to re-acclimate yourself to the world, the characters, the plot. AND if you’re reading more than one book at a time, it’s that much harder! Goodness. I don’t know how some of these bloggers post reviews so often!
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I normally take forever to read a book if I’m not fully invested in the book and it’s plot. If the plot isn’t that interesting the book is going to drag.
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Hey, Astra, when a book gets to that point where the plot is really dragging, do you start skimming or does it go into the DNR pile?
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I can’t stick with a book if the writer doesn’t grab my attention in the first three chapters, doesn’t give me a reason to care about the main character quickly, and doesn’t have a plot that moves the story along in an interesting and/or exciting way at a good pace — not too fast that I feel like something’s missing, and not too slow that I feel like it will never end.
Maybe I’m too picky, or maybe it’s just because I’ve been a voracious reader for 43 years that I expect a lot from a book.
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What a perfect way to sum up what gets us into a novel, Kelly.
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Good question. Usually if I’m not enjoying a book is when it takes the longest for me to read. I don’t think I’ve ever found a book I LIKED that felt like it took forever? I’ll have to pay better attention I guess!
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For me, it usually takes me forever to read a book if it’s not engaging. It’s interesting because there are some books that I’m not clicking with but my instinct tells me to stick it through and it usually pays off because it picks up in the second half of the book or something but I feel like I do DNF a lot of books.
Apparently, the rule of thumb is to flip to page 60 (?) I think it was of a book and read a paragraph or two and see if you like it and it’s most likely a winner. I think it’s because by page 60, the book is suppose to have established some sort of character and plot..i don’t know how sound that advice is haha
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I suffer from the Shiny Object Syndrome so sometimes it’s not the book that’s at fault but my own inability to stay focused. But if a book bores me, it’s likely to lose me. And it’s likely to lose me also if it’s too didactic and prescriptive.
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When I was in college, I remember there was this book that we had to read for one of my classes and the book was so short but it forced you to read it slowly. That was the whole idea behind the book. It may have even been called slowly. I don’t remember now. Anyway, let me just say that trying to get through that book was tortured. I had no clue what the writer was talking about and I don’t think I ever finished it because I was annoyed with life at that moment. lol
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I’m going to take a wild guess and ask if that book might have been Slowness by Milan Kundera.
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I think so! I have to look up the book to make sure but I believe you’re on the money!
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