I gave Butterfly Swords five stars in June. Historical romance set in Tang dynasty China, a runaway bride who can use a sword, teamed up on a reluctant quest with a handsome foreigner; exactly the kind of book I want to stay up way too late reading (and I like my sleep!). I finished it in two days, loved every page, and immediately started book two.
I got a whopping 65% into The Dragon and the Pearl before I admitted I wasn’t going to finish it.
That’s the thing that surprised me, looking back at this summer. Not that I abandoned books I didn’t like - that part’s easy, or at least it sounds easy. It’s that I abandoned a book I wanted to like, by an author I’d just fallen for, in a series I’d been excited about. Six months ago I would have dragged myself through it to chase my yearly book goal, and to force myself to be loyal to the version of the book I wished I was reading.
The old way, and it’s a tough habit to break
I am very much the type of person who pushes through though, especially if obligation is part of the deal. In fifth grade I was forced to read Eclipse of the Crescent Moon (Egri csillagok), a very well known Hungarian classic set in the times of Ottoman occupation. (So the last thing fifth grader me, in 2012, deep in her Twilight craze, wanted to read). But I was already a reader by then and I couldn’t stomach being someone in literature class after the summer who sat guiltily with no idea what the book was about, so I read the 400 page historical fiction monster intermittently hurling it across the room and asking my mom was this really grandpa’s favourite book? Like really?
A present example of this phenomenon (even though no hurling of the book occurred this time, just plenty of eye rolling): Sword Catcher.
Cassandra Clare’s first adult fantasy outside the Shadowhunters universe, intriguing concept, gorgeous cover, and I gave it two stars.
I grew up on Cassandra Clare books. I read City of Bones when it came out (probably the same summer as Eclipse of the Crescent Moon…) and wanted to like this one so bad. On the other hand, I’ve also experienced Cassandra Clare books I didn’t love: Chain of Gold was not my thing, and neither was Lady Midnight. And so Sword Catcher would absolutely be on the DNF list (no guilt) if it hadn’t been a buddy read, and honestly, beats me how I managed to finish it. I read all 600-odd pages of a book I was not enjoying at all because someone else was reading it at the same time and I didn’t want to be the one who bailed. (We ended up debriefing about all the ways we both hated the book for about four hours on facetime, so there you have it).
That was July, more or less. One book. That was the whole month.
I think the old logic went something like: a book unfinished is wasted money (especially if I have the physical copy and boy oh boy, did I buy Sword Catcher… Secondhand, but still!), or wasted time, or evidence that I’m not a serious enough reader (Eclipse of the Crescent oh my God how could grandpa read this??). Finishing was the point. The number at the end of the year was the point. So you grind through the middle of something mediocre, and the grinding makes you so angry you throw the book at the wall (Géza Gárdonyi was spinning in his grave and so was grandpa I bet), all the while being angry and frustrated at an inanimate object.
What changed this summer?
Reading Sword Catcher taught me that I’m not here to hate books. No one is forcing me to finish books I don’t like except myself. Finishing Sword Catcher made me haaaate it. It made me angry and frustrated and everything opposite of how reading is supposed to make you feel.
So somehow, at the end of the summer there was just a pile of books I’d stopped reading.
Archer’s Voice at 58%, which by all accounts should have hit and didn’t. Shot in the Dark at a measly 17%, which I picked up because I heard it was heavily inspired by Supernatural, a show I love, and even though I appreciated the sentiment I couldn’t get over the fact that the two love interests were entirely different sizes (she’s a fairy, he’s a hunter but she’s… like one foot tall?). Dearly Departed at 71%, which started genuinely strong and then just… stopped mattering to me. Nocticadia at 44%, which got the only one-star rating I handed out all summer and would have turned into another i-hate-this-shit if I didn’t stop.
The last one taught me something that took four separate attempts to learn: I want to be a dark romance reader. I really do. The covers are gorgeous, the premises are exactly my kind of unhinged, and every time I try one I bounce off it at around the halfway mark. At some point I need to take that as a sign that the genre might not be for me, but that’s a whole other post (and believe me, I have thoughts).
And here’s what nobody tells you about the DNF pile: most of these I was well past halfway. Not twenty pages in, not “couldn’t get past the prologue.” (I have that plenty of times but I don’t count those books for anything. If chapter one hasn’t pulled me in I’m out). Shot in the Dark is the exception, but in my defence a love interest who is one foot tall is its own kind of dealbreaker, and no amount of pages was going to fix it. The rest of them I was deep enough to know most of the plot, near enough to the finish line that quitting felt almost rude. That’s the part that used to be impossible.
It’s not always forever
I want to complicate this before it starts sounding too tidy, because the neatest story would be “I learned to quit and never looked back,” and that’s not what happened this summer (surprisingly!).
When the Moon Hatched is a book I DNF’d in February. Couldn’t get into it, put it down, shelved it, moved on. I was about 20% into that one, but it’s a chunky book so 20% was quite a lot already.
I picked it back up this summer and it ate my entire July. Four stars, tore my heart into several pieces, and I knew exactly what I was signing up for when I started again. It was also enormous, which is the other half of why July produced one book.
So: a DNF isn’t a verdict on a book. It’s a verdict on a book and a particular time of your life and what you happen to have the stomach for. Who knows, maybe Eclipse of the Crescent Moon is due for a reread: I do read historical fiction and classics now (War and Peace is one of my current reads). Sometimes the book was fine and you were the problem. Sometimes you come back in six months and it’s close to the best thing you read all year.
The part that makes it worth it
By the middle of August I badly needed a win, and Tea & Alchemy delivered one. Dracula-inspired, a vampire and a tea leaf reader teaming up to solve a murder in nineteenth century England: I don’t think I need to say more than that. Five stars.
Then Brigitte Knightley happened. I read The Irresistible Urge to Fall For Your Enemy in a single day. Enemies to lovers, Dramione vibes, witty, and set in a fantasy world that’s far more original than it has any business being. I read the sequel walking to the office and nearly got taken out by several electric bikes in the process. Book two was just as good as book one, which essentially never happens.
Then A.K. Caggiano’s Villains & Virtues, which I am still in the middle of and actively rationing, because I don’t want to be finished with this world yet.
Look at my ratings from this summer and you’d be forgiven for thinking I’m an easy grader. Nine books finished, and seven of them got five stars. That looks suspicious. It looks like someone who likes everything.
But it’s backwards. The five stars are not the reason the DNFs happened: the DNFs are the reason there are so many five stars. Every book that was merely fine, merely pleasant, merely not-quite got put down partway through so that the time could go to something that actually made me feel like this. The scoreboard isn’t flat because my standards dropped. It’s flat because everything that didn’t clear the bar stopped counting.
The books I’m still grinding through, because I am not a saint
I’m about four hundred pages into War and Peace, which I started in May and am in no hurry with whatsoever. It’s one of those challenge-to-myself books, I pick it up every couple of weeks and feel like I’m the smartest person in the cafe when the barista looks at me and says Whoah, you’re reading that? Anything to motivate me I guess :). But all jokes aside, I read Anna Karenina two years ago, really enjoyed it, and I have had my eye on War and Peace ever since.
And I am beating myself, chapter by chapter, through House of Flame and Shadow, purely because ACOTAR six and seven are coming and I refuse to be locked out. If that weren’t true I’d have shelved it weeks ago. So the lesson clearly hasn’t fully taken, and I’m fine with that.
Nine finished, five abandoned. A year ago that second number would have felt like failure: five books I wasn’t good enough to get through. (And not gonna lie, editing my Instagram post and putting five covers on the DNF slides didn’t feel particularly amazing). But what does feel amazing is the fact that I’m not hating any of those books, they’re unfinished, partially forgotten, and right up there for people to enjoy if they wish. And I’m not harbouring any irrational ill will towards them, because I managed to “thank you, next” myself away this summer. Now it reads more like a list of five decisions, each one a small, slightly guilty little act of saying: this is nice, but it isn’t it, and I’d rather go find the thing that is.
Turns out that’s how you end up with a summer of five stars.
Finished · 9
Did not finish · 5
Still going
Hi! Thanks for reading! I’m Zsófi, 24, from Budapest, Hungary. I currently live in Amsterdam where I work my big girl job, blog about books, and dream of one day writing my own. Let’s chat about books, cats, or anything at all :)