Blog post by Huffington Post's Fleur Morrison
And that is the problem for an obsessive reader -- in one short lifetime there is a finite number of books that can possibly be read and to have wasted time on a lousy one is galling. Yet, for the very same reason, that book needs to be put back on the bookshelf half-finished -- why waste more precious reading time on a book that is failing to entertain or inspire you?
And that is one of the problems with leaving a book unfinished -- when you put it down, you realise you are never going to know what happened. Will there be a twist at the end? Will everything be miraculously and beautifully tied up? Or it reach the dead end where you had an inkling it was headed, confirming all your doubts? Some of this information can be gleaned by skipping straight to the last page, although it is highly unlikely that you will be able to do justice to the story by doing that. And in a way, doesn't this feel like cheating? Like you've started the race, skipped the middle, and sprinted over the finishing line. It is unsatisfying and almost meaningless.
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