Aside | A book abandoned… temporarily!
By Mrs S • Apr 28th, 2008 • Category: Asides, tl;dr
I started reading Then We Came to the End last week and at first I really enjoyed it - it’s about an office and the things that happen on a daily basis - I could relate to some of the tales, and at one point was laughing out loud with tears running down my cheeks in the break out area at work.
Then it just wasn’t working for me anymore…
This weekend I haven’t read at all - which is weird since I’ve had my nose in a book at any opportunity this year. Saturday was the warmest day of the year so far - and instead of dragging a chair and a book into the garden, I found myself on the sofa catching up on all the TV I’ve missed these past few weeks when a book has tempted me instead.
I gave the book another shot at lunch today but I just can’t see where it’s going… so I’ve decided that I am going to have to abandon it *eek* I’m going to try something else and then come back to it - just so I can be sure I gave it a good chance!
So I’m moving onto my tl;dr challenge - and picking up March by Geraldine Brooks. I’ve read some great reviews so I’m hoping this will dig me out of my rut!
Natural breaks
As I was reading Then We Came to the End today I noticed that it has no natural breaks, it just seems to be endless pages of sentences - which got me thinking…I like books with natural breaks. By that I mean short chapters, or sections within chapters.
Take Nineteen Minutes for example - Picoult covers the thoughts of several characters in each chapter and you can clearly see by the use of a double line break where a natural break in the story is. So if you have just five minutes left at the end of your lunch break you think “I have time to read more, I can get through one or two of these sections and not have to leave in the middle of something”. Other books, like the one I just abandoned, have endless pages of solid text, so you think “well I might as well go back to my desk early as I’ve reached the end of a chapter and I don’t want to start another or I’ll have to stop in the middle”.
Does that make any kind of sense? Books with natural breaks get read much more quickly as I don’t have to put them down at the end of a chapter! What about you? Do you like to stop mid-chapter, or do natural breaks not bother you as you like to read whole chapters at once?
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Mrs S is is a lover of books! These are my thoughts on the books I've read. Have a different view? Leave me a comment below :)
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from Amazon in time for the August 2 release date
Oh my gosh, I’ve never thought about this, but you are soooo right! Most readers can’t read a book from start to finish. We need a stopping place. This is such a good point!
Yep, I do like a book with breaks. Especially as I’m usually reading a couple of books - I want to be able to put one down and be able to come right back to it without feeling lost.
I have this book in the stacks. I’ve heard such mixed reviews on it but I’ll give it a go one of these days.
iliana’s last blog post..Moving Forward
If it makes you feel any better… I, too, abandoned Then We Came to the End. Initially I thought I would enjoy it, but I thought it was predictable and not nearly as funny as it thought it was! Sigh…
But breaks sure would have been nice, too!
Most of the time I do like short breaks, but not too short. I recently read Salem Falls by Picoult where the breaks were every other page–it seemed too disjointed at times. I don’t like long chapters, though. The book I’m reading now has 4 chapters (200 pages long…so about 50 pages each) and I wish it was broken up a little more.
Trish’s last blog post..Snow Flower and the Secret Fan - Lisa See
Come on writers - give us some breaks in your books
@Kristen - It’s good to hear I’m not the only one who gave up on the book - although the worst thing about it is that at the beginning I was raving about it to a friend - and she went and bought a copy! Luckily it was only from a thrift store so it didn’t cost too much *eek*
I really struggle with books if they don’t have chapter breaks because I always try to put the book down at the end of a chapter, or the end of a section within a chapter, so that when I pick it up again I know exactly where I am up to on a page.
Marg’s last blog post..Which Twilight character are you?
I also really like breaks. The only time I don’t is when I’m sitting in bed and my husband wants me to turn the light off and I say, “I just want to read to the end of this section.”
Linda Jacobs’s last blog post..The Fortunes of Indigo Skye by Deb Caletti
Hi Marg and Linda - glad to find some other readers who like breaks - although Linda you are right - they do sometimes have their downsides
Mrs S’s last blog post..The Simpsons Ride - attraction photos
I love chapters every five to ten pages or so, since I hate to put down a book mid-chapter. Drives the obsessive compulsive part of my crazy!
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