I’ve always had this self-imposed vow that I would always finish a book I start.

Optimist or fool?

I’m an optimist. If a book has started out badly or is just not holding my interest, I’ll keep reading even though that can be very painful! Why do I put myself through it? I hope that somewhere in the book, some how there will be a complete turnaround and get better. And sometimes that has happened. Books that were boring or just weren’t doing it for me ended up picking up the pace and finally coming together almost to the point where the book was completely different to the way it started. I could swear the book was written by another person.

But lately I’ve been losing patience. Maybe it’s because I look at all the books in my library and panic. Will I read them all before I die? I don’t have time to spend reading a book that is just so-so. I no longer have the desire to persevere to the end.

I’ve always thought my choice of reading material has been good, but maybe I’m having a bad run. Three books read in the last three months have fitted the categories of ‘boring, silly, repetitive, nonsensical’.

The blurb is a lie

One of the reasons that this might be happening is that two out of the three books story didn’t match the blurb. How can a book be classed as an historical romance when the hero and heroine don’t meet until three-quarters of the way into the book? One blurb promised so much, but I was bitterly disappointed in the end. I waited for deliverance and what had been promised, but it fell flat.

I have 150 pages left of my current supposedly historical romance. Apart from one fleeting moment that lasted ten pages the hero and heroine have not crossed paths again. Where is the romance? Where has the love gone? Frustrating!

Should I give up?

So do you finish every book you read? And at what stage do you give up? Half-way through? After the first page, first chapter?

I go in search of a book that is true to its blurb, genre and where the author is an excellent storyteller.