Should I or shouldn't I?

[beelikej]

First addition to my bookpile arrived today; I found a second hand copy of Naked Came The Stranger by Penelope Ashe (1969) - author's name is a pseudonym for a group of -male- journalists who were appalled at the poor writing in the then-current best-sellers, so they decided to have a contest to see who could write the best/worst smut/pulp. Can't wait to read it *grins*

There are more books on the way, but I already updated My readinglist. I now have three books left on the pile (including the one above)

I'm not sure if I want to finish the book I'm currently reading though: Tampa by Alissa Nutting, about a 26 year old woman seducing one of her highschool students.
The main character is such a horrid person. I had hoped for possible unreliable narrator vibe, but she's totally aware of what she's doing yet just doesn't care.
I bought it to prepare for Lolita (on my readlist because of classic status) and I wanted to see a feminine point of view of such a situation. But it's just very crude.
The cover is cool though. So there's that.

What do YOU do when you don't like a book you're reading? Should I continue in the hope it gets better? Or maybe I should consider it a "hateread" -like tanisafan suggested- and just get a kick out of angrily turning the pages in a WTF mode?

Comments

[angelus2hot]

This happened to me with The Serious Game by Hjalmar Söderberg.

It was billed as Sweden's most enduring love story. I was expecting, well not what I got. If I'm to enjoy a book I have to like at least one of the main characters. In this book there was nothing to like, nothing at all in any of the characters to make me want to cheer for them. But I forced myself to continue reading in the hopes it would get better but no such luck. It went from bad to worse.

I did the "hateread" thing with the rest of the Southern Vampire Mysteries(Sookie Stackhouse books) after I read the second one and honestly wished I hadn't. Once you've read it you can't unread.


If you're dying to see how it ends then by all means finish it but honestly if it's that bad already the chances are it's as good as it's going to get.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with disappointing books, I especially needed to be reminded of the "can't be unread" advice.

I don't even have to like a character, but I should at least be fascinated by them or their motivations and I just can't care about this woman, bleech. And typing this I realize that means I also don't care how the story ends. Problem solved!

[tripperfunster.livejournal.com]

Life is too short to read shitty books, watch shitty movies and eat shitty food.

Unless said things are GLORIOUSLY bad, in which case embrace them!

Mediocre shit? Nope. Move on.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Life is too short to read shitty books, watch shitty movies and eat shitty food.

True, so true, thanks for reminding me. This book is definitely not delightfully bad, just frustrating. I'm moving on \o/

[eledhwenlin]

I usually lean towards "life is too short to do things you don't enjoy". I'd just abort it.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Yep, yep, I needed to hear that again. I'll just leave this book to look pretty on my shelf;) Thank you!

[riyku.livejournal.com]

ambling on over from twitter. hi hi hi!!!!

i actually liked Tampa, and interestingly, probably for the same reason that you didn't like it, although i wasn't a huge, huge fan of the style, and perhaps the narrator herself. when i read it, it was (mostly) about the kink for me, and i really dug how the narrator was unapologetic about the kink. she looked it right in the eye, wanted what she wanted and didn't hold back. there weren't any excuses, not even after she was convicted and everything had been exposed. admittedly, much of this is informed by my fic reading preferences, so there's that. i tend to like things that make me squirm a bit, and in those terms the book was pretty effective.

the thing that sorta left a bad taste in my mouth was the style, i suppose, and again, the fic i choose to read and the authors i tend to gravitate toward both have a particular level of grit to them. i like authors to use dirty, grimy language to describe dirty things. this narrator came across as aloof, something of a snob, and there was a formality to the narration and a bend toward purple, flowery prose--particularly in the sex scenes--that kept making me wish that one of my favorite fic writers had written it instead, if that makes sense.

this isn't to say that i didn't get into it. homopink recommended it to me, i downloaded it and read the whole thing over the course of an evening, so it certainly had me in its clutches.

[beelikej.livejournal.com]

Hiiiii! Thanks for commenting, I love to talk about books especially when people challenge me to look at the story from their point of view:)

I absolutely understand what you mean with the comparison to fanfic authors, because I thought the same: imagine what one of those could have done with this subject! This narrator's language just felt so distant and sort of unattached to her (non existant?) feelings. It just made me squirm for the wrong reasons.

Nice to know some people liked the book for more than its cover though *grins* You never know, I might try finishing it again some day...