A few months back, I made [this](https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/15bgc0j/how_do_i_get_better_at_choosing_books_im_more/) post about the difficulty of picking books I’m likely to enjoy instead of DNF.
It got some good discussion, so thought I’d make an update of my reading experience since.
**Updating my views on my previous 5-star reads:**
*House of the Scorpion, Children of Time, Flowers for Algernon,* and *It*: still 5-stars.
*Cobra book 1*: maybe 4 – 4.5 star for me now. Great as a palette-cleanser book which flies by but not as impactful as my other favorites.
I haven’t re-read *Ender’s Game/Shadow* but I suspect *Shadow* would still be 5 stars while *Game* might be 4 – 4.5.
**More books I’ve rated 5 stars since my last post:**
* Lonesome Dove
* Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
* Demon Copperhead
* Never Let Me Go
* The Sparrow
* The Nature of Fragile Things
**Popular Books I DNF-ed since then (and why):**
**Anna Karenina:** Started well and built up well… but Levin’s sections after >!he and Kitty marry<! got exhausting. Some of his chapters were still good >!e.g. the chap titled Death!< but overall I found his sections to be a slog by 70% in. DNF-ed at 80%.
**The Well of Ascension:** Hated the character work, writing felt repetitive and meandering and the romance arcs were tedious. The lore and the plot (when it progressed) were great though. DNF-ed at 80%.
**If On A Winter’s Night, A Traveler:** Starting amazing even though it was far more difficult to read than I want. But got repetitive by about 40% in and increasingly nonsensical while continuing to be a very difficult read. DNF-ed at 50%.
**Fahrenheit 451:** Despite struggling a bit with the imagery, I still liked the book’s language. But while I could see real-life parallels of the commentary, I was put off by how derisive and heavy-handed it felt. I also found the entire reaction in it to books so absurd that it was hard for me to take seriously. And as the book turned more plot-focused, I got bored since it’s plot didn’t feel special at all. DNF-ed with maybe 50 pages to go.
**The City and the Stars:** The world in it was interesting and unusual but the book was taking too much energy to read, likely because of the visual descriptions. The main character felt generic for how much the book focused on him. Didn’t dislike the book but dropped it about 50% in.
**How I pick books now:**
I feel discussions undervalue a “writing style compatibility”… or maybe I’m unusually narrow in my writing style preferences.
I say that since I’ve picked and dropped more books than I’ve read just 10% of the way in, with my only criticisms being in the vein of “it’s not grabbing me” or “my eyes are passing over the words without processing them.”
Ultimately, whether I’ll enjoy a book seems to depend less on themes or premises and more on the feel of reading it.
So, now I keep it simple: read a few page preview of a book that piques my interest. Then if I want to continue reading, I’ll get it. But if I’m not enjoying how it reads, I drop it without giving it a chance to get better because even if it picks up plot-wise, my experiences tell me my view of the writing style probably won’t change.
**My complaints:**
I get why reviews don’t focus on writing style. It’s easy to explain a premise, while describing a writing style is nigh impossible outside of broad strokes as subtle differences in style can greatly affect readers’ perception.
But I’m very disappointed at how hard finding similar readers is. I searched a lot of Booktubers and users whose Goodreads’ reviews resonated with me… but I’ve yet to find anyone with with similar ratings who has read most of the books I have.
It’s surprising to me too since my 5-star reads are very mainstream, so I expected it to be easy to find similar readers.
Anyway, that was the update. I’m curious, how do you view my experience? Are you as dependent on writing style subjectively “clicking” for you or do you find your reasons to enjoy a book come from other factors?
by sib43