DNF scale

January 1, 2012

When I was younger I always finished books. Required reading doesn’t count in that statement because who really *wants* to read all of The Portrait of Dorian Gray when you can get the gist of it from class discussion? And ok I am a little bit curious to actually read it now.

Anyway, when I was younger and I chose to read a book I always finished it. It helped that I didn’t ever really choose books I didn’t like. I was a voracious reader but now I realize not an especially broad reader. And by that I mean I probably only read 50 some odd books through all 8 years of high school and college. But I read several of them 3, 6 even 12 times (or maybe more). There weren’t a lot of new books in my world and when I did read a new book I had a pretty good idea I was going to like it.

Then I stopped reading for a while. And then I started again. I joined goodreads and started a book club and went back to my voracious reading habits but this time with a stream of new books (and the occasional repeat of old favorites and new delights because I do still love rereading a good book). Naturally with the introduction of new books my percentage of liking pretty much every book I read plummeted. And then it happened… I started a book and didn’t like it at all and wondered why I was wasting my time reading it… so I stopped. Put it down unfinished. I was a little bit shocked I could do such a thing.

At first it was only books I really disliked that I stopped reading. Then it was books that were just ok but really long. Because I had over 100 books I was interested in reading, if I wasn’t enjoying a book there is no reason to spend days reading it. A couple of hours sure, but not anything that required an actual dedication of time.

Admittedly, I still felt a little guilty about walking away from books that were decent enough, which is probably why I feel the need to explain myself; even if it is in the most boring post you’ve ever read. But then something mildly interesting happened.

I read a book this weekend that I knew was going to be mediocre. I knew I wouldn’t love it; knew it wasn’t really worth my time. But it was only 275 pages which I knew I could read in 2-3 hours and I was mildly curious because it was the sequel to a mediocre book.

So, really I have two thresholds.

HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER How I Met Everyone Else 3x05 Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson (20th Century Fox TV)
HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER How I Met Everyone Else 3×05 Neil Patrick Harris as Barney Stinson (20th Century Fox TV)

One is how much I really dislike a book, I mean how bad is it really?
The other is how long is it?

I feel like I need some sort of hot/crazy scale.

Only, my DNF scale has hate/length axes.

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2 responses to “DNF Scale

  1. I have a similar axis but for movies. It’s price and enjoyment. This does not work for all movies. Movies that I loved or loathed wouldn’t count, if the movie was so horrible it wouldnt matter if the movie was free because it wasted 2hours of my life that I’ll never get back. And if the movie was fantastic I have no negative feelings towards the $14 Arclight price.

    I saw the new Spiderman movie for the AMC early matinee price of $6 and for $6 it was fine. When my husband asked what I thought of the film, I said for $6 it was alright but I wouldn’t have liked it as much if we had paid $12.

    I think everyone has an axis for likability

    • Annie

      that makes sense that everyone would have their own version of likability axis. A movie axis would totally could be very useful and also a very dangerous prospect for movie studios, because I’m sure more often than not movies don’t live up to the $14 Arclight price. Though I rarely watch a movie not worth the $6 AMC matinee. Either it’s worth that $6 or it’s probably not worth seeing at all 🙂
      In this internet age, everyone should have catchy names and cool graphics for their axis 🙂