What makes you not finish (DNF) a book? It’s hard for me to do this. It has to be an extreme the author went to in order for me to DNF it. I mean if it’s dated, then certain terms can be ignored or forgiven, even if they bother me. If it’s something relatively new, then I might have a harder time looking past what was said.
Racist comments, sexist statements, things of that nature really grind my gears, but sometimes I look past them based on the setting of the book. I know that if a book was written in a certain time period or was designed to represent a certain time period, then some of the writing may get a pass.
But if the book is riddled with it, I’ll probably DNF it. It’s not something I want to see loads of. I get easily annoyed by certain things, but it’s not that I have a soft exterior, it’s just everyone has certain things they can only deal with so much of before they nearly lose their mind.
Here’s an example. I was reading a book, I won’t name the title or the author, and they said something along the lines of “Oh just as stupid as a n*gger boy.” I about lost my mind when I saw that. Mind you I’m black. So that word hits us differently than it hits other folks. Then I remembered the story was supposed to be set in a time when that was something an older white sheriff would say. Not sure that’s changed much in certain areas, but I digress. The author only used that one time in the entire book, probably to get the point across about how ignorant that sheriff was, but I did have to let the story rest a while before I picked it up and continued reading.
Another example. I was reading a historical 18th century book. It was a few years ago. I never could finish it because it bothered me how much the women were treated as objects and simply used for sex. The story followed a woman’s journey to have a voice but she was dealing with men treating her like shit. I get it. Women had it tough then, but that story was extreme. Like the author was doing the most with every possible stereotype there was. I just couldn’t deal.Anywho. What I’m curious about is what makes you DNF a book? And is it just a certain book or the author as a whole?