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When a Mystery isn't the Right Fit
237 Plays1 year ago
Have you ever not finished reading a mystery? Brook and Sarah discuss the reasons why they have put a book down before finishing it and share ideas on what to do when a book just isn't right for you (right now).
Discussed
"Guilt Complex: Why Leaving a Book Half-Read Is So Hard" Wall Street Journal (June 5, 2013) Matthew Willhelm
"You Really Don’t Have to Finish Every Book You Start" Tor.com (October 28, 2021) Molly Templeton
The Alienist (1994) Caleb Carr
For more information
Website: https://cluedinmystery.com/
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Transcript
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Transcript
Introduction and Book Guilt
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke. And we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah. How are you doing today? I'm doing well. How about you? Wonderful. It's good to talk to you again, but I have a question for you.
Personality Types and Reading Habits
00:00:28
Speaker
Do you ever feel guilty for not finishing a book? I do. Yes. There was a time when I finished every book I started.
00:00:40
Speaker
But now I will put down a book if it's not working for me. What about you? Yeah, I definitely have that angst as well if I'm not going to finish a book. And in a Wall Street Journal article, clinical psychologist, Matthew Wilhelm, suggests that it has to do with our personalities. And certain types of people are more likely to push through a book
00:01:03
Speaker
than others and it's that type A personality we probably aren't very surprised that might be more likely to just stick with it and get it done because they have that achievement or not wanting to have negative consequences.
00:01:18
Speaker
so that they'll have that follow through. And conversely, I thought this was interesting. A Type B personality may never even start a book they know they won't finish. I would never get through that. I'm not even going to pick it up. So different from me, I have to say.
Social Pressure and Book Clubs
00:01:35
Speaker
But the more important motivator of finishing a book, he says, is social pressure, which is why book clubs are so good at getting people to get through clear to the epilogue. Interesting.
00:01:51
Speaker
Well, I will admit there are some books that I have read because, you know, you see a lot of coverage of them on social media. And so, you know, I'll pick it up because I feel like, oh, everybody is reading this. And I have been, I typically do finish the books, but I have not enjoyed them as much as others seem to have.
Challenges with Classics
00:02:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's that fear of missing out like, Oh, everyone loves this. So I should, I should do that too. And sometimes I get that feeling with classics as well. Like, Oh, I should read that. And I should like that because it's a quote unquote classic. So then if you get into it and you're not digging it, then it's really hard to be a quitter and, um, and give up halfway through.
00:02:49
Speaker
Well, and sometimes I've found with reading some of the classics is the writing style is very different than what we see in books that are published now with either, you know, a lot more description or a much slower pace. And I can, yeah, you know, I can see why someone
00:03:17
Speaker
Wouldn't finish a classic or would feel obliged to finish one and kind of really slog through because They're just some of them can be very Yeah, very challenging to read
00:03:31
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I definitely have that feeling and I mean I was a Lit major so I was Given lots of lists of books that are hard to read and you you do get a different brain set if you're doing a lot of it I think that you can sort of train yourself to get into those but I think after having done that
Evolution of Personal Taste in Reading
00:03:55
Speaker
I
00:03:55
Speaker
I got better about, heck, now I don't have a teacher telling me what to read. So if I'm not enjoying this, then I'm not going to continue reading it.
00:04:08
Speaker
It also doesn't mean that it's a bad story or a bad book because it might be someone else's favorite, right? There's taste. There's also timing. Like I know sometimes I've picked up a book and like, oh, I'm just not into this at all. And then for whatever reason, I'll go back to it and really like it.
00:04:30
Speaker
Yeah, I've had a similar experience where I started reading a book and was like, you know, this is not my jam. And then and then returned to it and and ended up finishing it. But I find if there's a book that I'm reading and, you know, maybe it's my attention span is really short. But if I'm not into it,
00:04:55
Speaker
and I'm at page 50 or page 100, that's kind of where I'll be like, well, is it worth me finishing this? I think since writing my own books, I try to be a little bit more forgiving.
00:05:11
Speaker
of authors and willing to, okay, I've reached page 50, I'm still not quite into it. I'll give it another 50 pages. And that's typically how I end up finishing the book, right? Okay, I'll just give it, now I've only got 50 pages left, I might as well finish it.
00:05:29
Speaker
I think that's a good point that we have to give it enough of a chance because sometimes you start a book and a good example surprisingly enough was Richard Osman's Thursday Murder Club.
Giving Books a Fair Chance
00:05:43
Speaker
I had for some reason, maybe it was what I had just read previously or maybe what I was working on personally, I had a hard time
00:05:51
Speaker
Getting into the fact that he was it was it's third person multiple POV and for whatever reason I Couldn't get into these characters heads. But then once I did it was smooth sailing and it's one of my favorite series now, but it was for Whether it was that day or that experience. I had a hard time just getting into it So you're right. You have to give it a chance. You can't just be like three pages and like I'm out
00:06:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's, I mean, three pages, I don't think is enough. You might fall in love with a book within the first three pages, but I don't want to fall out of love with one that early. Often, if there's a book that I've been disappointed by, I'll finish it, but then I won't read anything else by that author.
00:06:46
Speaker
Um, or I might read a second, like the second in the series kind of give the first. Okay. It's the first in the series has to be a lot of, you know, setting the stage or whatever. Um, and then I'll, I'll read the second one. And if I've read the second one and that hasn't swayed me, then that's probably, it's probably not an author I'm going to read anymore of.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with that. I was kind of doing a little research for this and I found a Reddit forum with comments from other readers about why they feel torn, whether or not they're going to finish a book or not. And I thought these were really great and I could relate to them. They worry that it's just about to get good. So if they quit, it's like, well, what if I'm going to turn the page and it gets to the good part?
00:07:32
Speaker
Um, and we said this, it's a classic, so I'm supposed to read it or like it. I want to know the ending, but I'm stuck in the middle. And I felt that way a lot. Like, well, I want to know who the, who the murderer is, but this muddy middle is kind of sticking me down. Um, and this one I've spent the money on it.
00:07:55
Speaker
You know, you go and you spend, you might drop 20 bucks, right? On a traditionally published book. And it's like, well, heck now I'm in it because I've spent the money.
00:08:05
Speaker
Yeah,
Audiobooks as a Solution?
00:08:06
Speaker
I think I agree with all of those. I think I've probably felt all of those feelings. I have found some success where I've started, say, reading the e-book and really not been able to get into it and then found an audio version
00:08:27
Speaker
at the library and that just makes a world of difference. And I don't know what it is if it's just having the voices
00:08:39
Speaker
in my ears rather than me trying to keep the voices straight from the page or what. But there have been several books that I was a little bit, okay, I don't know how I'm gonna like this, but once I listened to the audio version, I was hooked, yeah.
00:09:04
Speaker
Absolutely. I have found the exact thing and I love audiobooks for that. Um, I've also found I had a particular book that I was, it was just simply long. It wasn't that I wasn't enjoying it, but it was long. And, um, I found that I had the physical version and I also had the audio version. And so that helped me get through it more quickly because you know, when I had a few minutes in the evening to sit down and read,
00:09:33
Speaker
you know, some pages that was great. But then when I was driving around town doing my errands or whatnot, then I could play it in the car. Um, and it was tricky for me because those weren't synced, but it still wasn't too bad. You could like, okay, I'm on chapter 30, you know, and, and find my place in the audio book.
00:09:49
Speaker
But I know that, for instance, if you're somebody who reads and listens with the Amazon world, those two things sync. And so you could have your e-book and your audio book in the same place at all times. I think that could really help get through one that you really want to finish, but you're just having difficulty getting either the time or the, like you say, like the vibe of it that it helps with the voices.
00:10:16
Speaker
That's a really great suggestion, Brooke. When I think about why is it that I haven't liked a book or I've struggled to finish a book, I think it's often because, so like I said in the beginning, it hasn't lived up to its hype or it's been billed as being this really great mystery and
Frustrations with Book Marketing
00:10:37
Speaker
then it's actually not.
00:10:38
Speaker
There were a couple of books I think I read in the fall of last year. I think there was three of them in a row that I read that were billed as being, I get the Christi-like, mysteries. And there was a mystery element in all of those books, but it wasn't the driver of the story.
00:11:00
Speaker
And so I really was like, our publishers just trying to capture the moment that mystery is having and trying to squeeze these books into the mystery space. And they're probably disappointing everyone, right? Because if I'm looking for a mystery book and there's, you know, 10% of the book is mystery and 90% of it is like women's fiction or romance, then
00:11:29
Speaker
I'm not going to be satisfied with that. And someone who really is looking for something in one of those genres is probably not going to pick it up if it's billed as a mystery.
00:11:42
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree. You're right. Mystery is having a moment. And so I do think that some of these book blurbs or book descriptions are leaning heavily on mystery. And let's face it, every single piece of fiction has an element of mystery because that's, it's pushing us through an element of mystery, meaning what's going, what could possibly happen next? What's going to happen in that relationship? What did that note mean?
00:12:12
Speaker
But that is not a murder mystery. No. And those books are frustrating when they have, you know, the next Agatha Christie in the tagline. And in fact, that's not at all what type of book it is. I would agree, Sarah. And I think in those circumstances, that's certainly an example of I'm not going to pick up another book by this author because, you know, it's fool me once.
00:12:40
Speaker
And sadly, those decisions were probably made by the publisher, right? And not the author at all. Yeah. And that's why I feel a bit bad for those authors, right? I know how hard they would have worked on their stories. And then if they're not being positioned in the right way, they're never going to find their audience because there are probably people who really would have enjoyed those books. Like I said, if the book is billed as a mystery and that's not your thing, you're not going to pick that up.
00:13:10
Speaker
So, mis-positioning is definitely a big reason why we find that we don't finish a book. Some of my other reasons are oddly enough quite complicated.
00:13:26
Speaker
there's not enough mystery tropes for me. And sometimes it's too tropey. Right? A lot of times for me, it comes down
Setting Personal Boundaries in Reading
00:13:38
Speaker
to like gore and violence because I don't need that in my mysteries. Yes, a little bit of spooky and scary is fine, but I actually had a did not finish this week.
00:13:50
Speaker
I'll go ahead and drop the name because I can do this series absolutely no harm. I could not finish The Alienist. This is an older book. I think it actually came out in the mid-90s, but there's now television adaptations and huge success. It simply came down to the fact that
00:14:12
Speaker
It was too dark for me, especially surrounding kids. And I also think it could be one of those we mentioned that at another season of my life, I may have been okay with it, or the timing, because it was a great story and I loved the characters and the concepts were great, but I just can't do darkness in hurting kids.
00:14:37
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right, Brooke. There's just some things that I don't need to read about. And yeah, if a book is particularly violent, I'm either going to just skim through those scenes so that I can get to the next scene that isn't so violent. But if that is pervasive throughout the whole book, then I'm probably not going to finish that.
00:15:08
Speaker
And probably the other thing that really will make me put a book down is if everything is too coincidental. Like if it's just too contrived and like, oh, that's convenient. Like, yes, I realize I'm saying that as someone who writes cozy mystery and we do get some coincidences in cozy mystery.
00:15:31
Speaker
bakers tend to find dead bodies all the time. But I think you know what I mean? Like the storyline is just too convenient and too coincidental that that sleuth just happens upon the solution. That usually bothers me. Yeah. I mean, there's a difference between suspending your disbelief and abandoning your disbelief. Thank you.
00:15:54
Speaker
When i flip this around and i think about okay why do i continue reading a book right it's because the characters are compelling or because the pacing is like you just you can't put it down right you have to know what's going to happen next.
00:16:12
Speaker
Um, and when you find a book like that, that you, like, you just have to, I don't know, put your life on hold so that you can finish reading this, like that's such a wonderful experience. And obviously we're not going to get that with every book that we read, but, um,
00:16:34
Speaker
Yeah, I want to hold on to those to those books.
Books You Can't Put Down
00:16:38
Speaker
And, you know, those are the ones that you recommend to people and kind of like, I can't wait for you to read this because it was just so good.
00:16:45
Speaker
Yeah, the book that you think about all day that you know, it's waiting for you at home when you're, when your workday is done, you get that little jolt of excitement because your books they're waiting for you. Yeah. Those are the special ones. And, um, and you're right. You don't get that every time, but man, when you find one, you just want to shout it from the rooftops. Absolutely. Yeah.
The 'Did Not Finish' List
00:17:09
Speaker
So what do we do with those books that we weren't able to finish? Molly Templeton is an author. She wrote an article called, you really don't have to finish every book you start. And she suggests making a did not finish list of books right alongside the list of books you read each year.
00:17:29
Speaker
Um, and I really like this because they still count like for those other type A's out there like me who don't want to be a quitter. Um, and it's a record of things you might want to come back to when the time is right. Or as we say, try a different format. Um, and then just play around with it and see if there's another time in your life when you want to bring that back.
00:17:50
Speaker
But I liked that suggestion a lot. And then for those who feel badly about purchasing a book and then just having it sit on your shelf, consider gifting it to a friend or putting it in a little lending library around town. Someone else will enjoy it.
00:18:07
Speaker
Those are fantastic ideas, Brooke. And I do like the idea of keeping track of the books that we just don't get into because, as you say, there may become a time when you want to revisit that or, you know, you might want to use that and just say, this particular sub-genre just really doesn't work for me. So I'm going to make sure that my next book is in one of those.
00:18:35
Speaker
Yeah, you're curating your tastes. And again, it's not a, um, criticism on the author or the sub genre or the book because someone else, it could be their favorite, but for you personally, you're, you're finding out what's important to you and your precious reading time.
00:18:54
Speaker
Great. Well, thanks for the suggestions, Brooke. Absolutely. This was so fun, Sarah. Yeah, I think this was a bit of a different conversation than we typically have, but I think a good one to have. And thank you all for joining us today on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:19:18
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers at Silvermansound.com. Visit us online at CluedInMystery.com or social media at Clued In Mystery. If you liked what you heard, please consider subscribing, leaving a review, or telling your friends.