Top 5 Wednesday: Reasons I Will DNF a Book

Top 5 Wednesday is a group on Goodreads hosted by Sam from Thoughts on Tomes on Youtube.

This week's topic is a freebie, so I thought I would roll it into the Blog Discussion Challenge hosted on Feed Your Addiction and It Starts at Midnight.  I am really bad at posting discussions and mostly focus on reviews but not many people like seeing reviews all the time, so it is time crack down on myself and get a few of my discussion ideas down. 

So today I thought I would talk about the top 5 reasons I decide to DNF (did not finish) a book. It has taken me many years of reading to become more okay with DNFing books but in the past 2 years I have decided to put down nearly 20 books that I was not enjoying.  I have to say while it is a constant struggle to give myself that okay, it is also very freeing once I choose to put a book down in favor of something I would enjoy more. This month alone I have DNFed 2 books, so here are the top 5 reasons I finally decide (usually after 75-100 pages or 30% for bigger books) to put a book down. . . 

1. Didn't Connect with the Characters: Sometimes we just don't like or connect with the MC, but can find a side character to care about, other times we just don't connect with any of them. As a result of this, as a readers we really don't care what happens to them throughout the story.  This happened to me most recently with Words We Don't Say, I was originally intrigued by the writing style but unfortunately it wasn't enough to get me to continue the story where I just didn't care what happened.

2. Humor that I don't find funny: I really struggle with books that have humor in them, often it doesn't come across the page well, so I often prefer to listen to them on audio book and preferably narrated by the author. But often even then the humor just doesn't work for me, I really am not a fan of satire. One that I recently DNFed was Kill the Farm Boy which was meant to be over the top, but it was just too over the top for me, with constant references to bodily functions and boogers. 

3. Re-Tellings without enough of a twist: I am a fan of re-tellings but it better present something completely new; a new perspective from a side character, new outcome, etc. I am sure this can be difficult for authors but why write a book unless it is something people will enjoy.  I recently had this happen with Dragon of Ash and Stars which was clearly a re-telling of Black Beauty but even though it is told from a dragon's perspective instead of a horse's, there wasn't a whole lot new presented which led to a poor copy of the original. 

4.  More Backstory Needed or Branch Off without knowing: I really struggle with a book that doesn't give you enough backstory (especially with fantasy) and you are just launched into a new world and expected to swim.  Sometimes this is a result of poor world building, other times it can be because of being a next book in a series or a branch off series. When that happens it needs to be really clear that you should read the previous books first. This recently happened with Tess of the Road, I was so hyped for this book but had never read the Seraphina books, it became apparent while reading that most of the world building happened in the previous series which left me, a new reader floundering.

5. Nothing is Happening: As a reader of fantasy, I have a high tolerance for slow moving stories, there is often a lot of build up that needs to happen but sometimes it is just too much. Sometimes this is because the story includes day to day stuff that I don't care to hear about or maybe because it is overly descriptive of everything, or sometimes things are continuously repeated. I couldn't get past all the rambling descriptions in We Have Always Lived in a Castle even though other readers loved it.

While there are many other reasons for me to DNF a book, these are the most common ones.  What are some of the reasons you will DNF a book? What was your most recent DNF?