You wanted to read the book, you were excited to crack it open, you came into it with good faith and anticipation… but you ended up dnf-ing it. Which book and why?

Mine was The Maid by Nita Prose. It was for my book club and looked like a fun murder mystery. Instead I got instant manic-pixie-dream-neurodivergent-girl vibes, and I noped out before the crime scene was even found.

  • Fragrant_Tale1428@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    5 minutes: Twilight. I wanted to understand the hype. So I borrowed a friend’s copy, stated reading it, but after the first page, was immediately asking, what is this? So I opened the book around the middle to read a random page to see if the writing continued in that “style.” And it did. So, about 5 minutes of sampling different sections of the book, DNF.

    • Go-Brit@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      This was me too. I was so excited to check it out cause everyone was recommending it. At the bookstore I asked an employee where I could find it and he made a face before pointing it out to me. I was immediately like “uh oh”. I read a page and a half, put it down, and left red-faced past the guy.

    • anclwar@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I literally just finished Twilight over the weekend, maybe on Thanksgiving. I recently, at 37, have watched the movies for the first time and was convinced by my younger millennial coworkers to read the books. I won’t be reading further than the one book.

      I borrowed it from Libby and only got through it because I really allowed myself to lean into the absurdity of it all. Sending screenshots of highlighted passages to one of my best friends and getting his no-context reactions was also very motivating. Otherwise I would have put it down 10 pages in.

    • VagueSoul@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I read the first one when I was a teen and enjoyed it as a “brain off” kind of story. I got the second one and ended up hating it and DNFed it halfway through. The first one had a fun sort of mystery feel to it but the second one was dramatic teens moping around. I have no patience for that in my real life, why would I want to read it?

    • excessive__machine@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      My college roommate was super into Twilight, so I tried reading her copy of it. I rarely DNF books, but I gave up on that one after the first chapter.

    • MaddCricket@alien.topBEnglish
      1·
      10 months ago

      I remember really wanting to read it from seeing the book cover at Borders when it first came out. I opened it and read the first couple of pages there in the store to see if it would hook me and I could never get into it. I don’t mind the movies, I just can’t get the books started.