Over the course of the past month, I have tried to read 15 books. I finished around 10 of them, and decided to leave the rest for someone else to enjoy. The stories I didn’t finish weren’t necessarily for me, but every book has an audience, and I’ve made my peace with not always being that audience. It still doesn’t mean I won’t try out the book to see how I like it, but I’m definitely more okay with the fact that a book might not be for me. I think 2020 is going to be quite a liberating reading year.
When I first started book blogging, I promised myself that I would read and review every single book that I received. I made the goal to not ever DNF a book. For those of you that are curious, DNF means “Did Not Finish”. The thought of not finishing a book has always bothered me because it feels disappointing, like something is wrong with me for not getting through a story I saw so many others enjoy. Even if I didn’t always like the story, I always made an effort to finish it and give it a good shake. Until I received a book called Nine Elms by Robert Bryndza.
In the past two years that I’ve been writing for The Nerd Daily, I have had the opportunity to read and review so many different titles, many of which I wouldn’t have normally chosen for myself. When I received this book I fully intended on reading it. It’s this atmospheric thriller about a woman who was making a promising career as a police detective, and it all grinds to a halt when her biggest victory turns into her ultimate nightmare. The story has a serial killer, a copycat killer, and the main character Kate is going through an emotional wringer due to all of the trauma she experienced before. It definitely caught my interest. Unfortunately I soon remembered why I don’t really read thrillers, particularly ones that tend to deal with serial killers.
Reading this book was brutal for me, in a lot of ways. I live for books with lots of imagery, and this one had it in abundance. What I wasn’t counting on, was just how my imagination would run away with the scenes that I was reading in this book. In all honesty, I was having nightmares worse than what I was reading in the book. The realistic aspect of this book was really messing with my brain, because much of this story is as gruesome as actual true crime stories.
I’m sure some of you are thinking: “Well of course Nat, what did you expect when you started reading this book, some fluffy happily ever after?”, and I wasn’t necessarily…but it was more than I could handle. Of course, at this point, I should have put the book down, but I was refusing because of my goal. That is, until I got to the middle of the book. It was horrifying. I closed the book and did my best to put it all out of my mind. I wasn’t going to finish this book.
I sat there, mulling over my feelings of regret and self-loathing for letting this book get to me…until I started telling my husband about it. In the midst of our chat, I handed him the book so he could take a look, and he immediately decided he wanted to read it. Every aspect of the book that had really turned me off, was what was calling him to read it. He loves thrillers and true crimes stories. He loved this book. It made for an interesting discussion, because he asked me why I was wanting to finish a book that was clearly causing me such mental anguish.
On top of disappointing myself, I felt like I was letting down the publicist who sent me the book. He encouraged me to write the publicist of the book and explain why I couldn’t finish, and to my surprise, the publicist understood and was delighted that the book had made it into the hands of someone who truly enjoyed it. Of course it’s okay not to finish something, particularly if you don’t like it or it’s causing you stress.
In the end, I’ve made peace with the idea of DNF’ing a book. I honestly look forward to doing it more often, because in doing so, the book might find the audience where it truly belongs.
