I think throughout the time I've been reading (I hardly read when I was younger and my parents thought I was a changeling, then I read LoTR and they figured I was ok after all) there have only been a handful of books that I haven't finished.

The books that spring to mind are Dr Zhivago and The Book of Dave and I fully intend to finish them at some point...I think I just slowed down with them and then stopped while I read something else, and just didn't pick them up again.

So the latest book club book I have is John Niven - Kill Your Friends. It's satire, black comedy, and I thought was going to be an amusing insight into the music industry. Perhaps I'm just more of a prude than I realised though because it just struck me as really rather horrible, an outpouring of bile and an excuse for the author to get in as many racist, sexist and disgusting thoughts as possible in a vaguely acceptable way as it's a character in the book thinking, saying and doing these things.

I got to about page 87 after having laughed only once, and that was at a quote before the start of a chapter, and decided that I didn't really want these things in my head, and that I was forcing myself to read it because it was a book club book, and perhaps it just wasn't for me. It feels a little like I'm giving up so I have to stop myself picking it up again, which is a bit silly as I clearly wasn't enjoying it at all. I'm used to not being terribly fussed about a book and carrying on to the end just to finish it, but this is the first time I've found one I didn't get on with at all.

Have you ever started and stopped reading a book because you disliked it so much? Or do you make yourself finish all books you read? Or maybe you just haven't happened upon a book that you had this kind of reaction to - I don't recommend it.

~Z