Abandoning Books

The Book Chat - hosted by the wonderful Jessica from Sweet Green Tangerine - has posed a very interesting question for this week's discussion: Do you abandon books?

I know for a lot of people, abandoning a book is taboo. I understand the appeal of finishing a book  - even a bad one - through to the end. However, I don't share that opinion. There are so many wonderfully written books out there. Why should I spend my time reading something that isn't holding my interest?

Still, there aren't many books that I have abandoned. I'm quite selective with books to begin with and I'm willing to read a decent amount of pages before I judge whether I can get "in" to a story or not. Most of the books I've abandoned remain nameless to me. I would have taken them out of the library, given them a shot, and then completely forgot them, the memories of their poor pages replaced by something more dear to my heart.

There are currently three books on my bookshelf that have been abandoned, although I would like to read them eventually and so they will be sticking around.

Evidently, I'm not a big fan of fantasy series. As much as I want to love The Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire, I can't seem to enjoy the books (even though I'm a fan of the screen adaptations). I attempted to read The Casual Vacancy when it was released last year, but quickly abandoned it. The plot was moving along far too slowly and at the time I was anxious for a good read and wasn't willing to give it the chance it deserved.

How about you? Have there been any books you've tried to read, but quickly abandoned? If you're interested in joining The Book Chat, next Thursday we'll be talking about our favourite settings. You have plenty of time to get a blog post ready!