So I’ve seen this in a few other discussions/places and it always confused me to some degree. Why do people who rate their dnf’s rate their dnf’s? I’ll get if it’s e.g 90% in, you realize “fudge this book”, dnf it, but still rate it because you read a significant enough amount of said book to say something about it before it was chucked. But to me, most (if not all) dnf’s are usually done in the 20-30% area at the latest, which doesn’t feel like very much of a source for rating. If you’re someone who rates a dnf, why? Is there a rule that you don’t rate books if you’ve only read a certain amount, is it all rated no matter what (whether it’s 1 or 100 pages read), other reasoning?
I get folks have different rating system (even though I don’t always understand why that specific version), but rating a dnf sounds kinda strange to me. Genuinely curious.
by whatinpaperclipchaos
21 Comments
Why do you care? That’s the better question.
I mean, why is that not a source of rating?
If you’re rating for yourself, it’s a good reminder as to WHY you DNF’d it. If someone asks you later on what you thought about it, you can go back and check and go “Oh, yeah, I thought the main character was unbearable to read about and bailed at 20%.”
If you’re rating for other people, you’re warning them about potential reasons why they might not even want to start. Or create a space where someone can reply and say “Hey, I know you gave up at 20% but actually at 40% this gets addressed, maybe give it another shot!”
So long as you’re clear that you DNF’d it early (or late), what’s the issue?
But also… the other commenter is right, why do you care? Ratings mean virtually nothing. Why does it matter how someone else uses their personal scorecards
Have you ever started eating a meal that was so bad you couldn’t finish it, and then when asked how it was you answered “well I can’t really say because I didn’t finish it”?
I don’t rate a DNF if the book just isn’t a good fit for me, but I will if the writing is truly terrible, which you can definitely know having read 20% of the book.
Maybe because they genuinely enjoyed it until it went in a direction that they disliked enough to stop reading it. I know I’ve read a few books that had interesting ideas which went nowhere.
if a book is so bad that i DNF it, then i think that speaks to quality even more so than a finished book, which, at least, must exist on a spectrum of “good”.
I don’t understand why I wouldn’t. I still have experience with the book, and I give that experience a low rating.
I rate books for my own record. I want a record of the reason I decided not to finish a book because sometimes it’s a book I never want to see again and other books it just wasn’t the right time for it.
Considering that people rate books they’ve never even touched, it’s not really a surprise. People use reviews to influence others or bring attention to issues like deceptive marketing or those who steal another author’s book title etc. . I’ve given reviews to books I’ve never read because they are AI books that could be harmful, for example. Or for someone who copied a book and tried to sell it as their own under the author’s real name even (that takes some…guts…)
Anyhow, I will occasionally review a DNF but I don’t always. I’d say fewer than 10% of DNFs I bother to review. But I do specify I DNF’d it, and why. It usually has to be pretty bad or something specific.
Look as long as you give the context that you didn’t finish it, I see it as fine. If you’re nearly a third through the book, and it’s still not good or catching your attention, there may be actual problems that are worth rating and talking about. Again, people should know that you didn’t complete it and take it in consideration, but it’s still valid.
My criteria is I only rate if I read at least 50%
This is the reason I finished reading A Confederacy of Dunces. So many recommendations on the book subs and I was hating it right from the start. If I’d have DNFed it I wouldn’t have starred it, just throw it on the DNF pile. However, I spite read it so I could accurately (in my opinion) shit on it here.
because sometimes i just feel like it lol. with some books, you can tell pretty quick that you aren’t gonna get along.
Because a DNF means you didn’t like the book for whatever reason and you’re still entitled to share your opinion on why
Of the over 700 books I’ve reviewed in the last 15-ish years, I’ve only DNF’d 5 that I recorded. 1 was a 4 star, 2 were 3 stars, and 2 were 1 stars. For the 4 and 3s, I recognized the book was good, but I wasn’t vibing with it for whatever reason. I will often still finish books I hate out of morbid curiosity, so the 1 star ones were so unbearable I couldn’t even do that.
I mainly rate and review books for myself to refresh my memory because I do reread things and often refer back to what I read. It’s helpful for me to know I didn’t finish it but didn’t think it was a bad book in the same way as it is helpful for me to know I didn’t finish because it was such a dumpster fire of a book.
Because goodreads doesn’t have a better system for marking a book as DNF..
Also, that’s how a book gets a 1 rating, otherwise there would be no 1s and the system would be a 4- number system instead of 5. Something has to be rated a 1 and a DNF seems like the best choice.
The bible is probably the most DNF’d book that most people love.
Many people do not believe in “you’re not to the good part yet.” If you want to ignore a dnf rating your welcome to, but there are many people for which that rating is incredibly valuable. If there’s a positive vs negative split in reviews between people who finished and that’s who did not, I’m going to take the latter’s word for it.
I’ve been tricked one too many times by “just keep going, it gets better.” Nah, I ain’t got time for that.
If I’m having to force myself to finish it due to disinterest, it’s extremely likely it’ll get 1 star anyway.
The point of a public rating is to let other people know what the book is like before they try it themselves. It is, in other words, to give them information about your experience with the book.
“This book is such hot garbage I quit reading it 1/4 of the way in” is valuable information to have. Not sure why that’s hard to grasp?
If I start a book and I’m feeling meh or like I’m not in the mood for this book, I don’t review it. If I start the book and it’s awful then I’ll rate it.