Have you ever stopped reading a book because you find content too distasteful ?
I’m reading the immortalists for book club. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that I’m in a section that is so crude that I just don’t want to read it. Have you ever stopped reading a book because you find content too distasteful ?
Yes. Or I skim over the section. If it’s too much, I’ll stop reading?
I also will just skim through stuff I don’t like
It depends on whether I think it had overall value to the storyline or if it’s just thrown in for shock value.
I loved The Immortalists so I’m curious as to which section you’re in
Probably towards the beginning with Simon I’m guessing. I’m reading about Klara now and it has gotten tamer.
Yes. Too much cruelty does it for me. Particularly toward a child or an animal. Graphic sex usually just bores me so I skip that too. 🙂
Yes. I felt that way about J.K. Rowling’s A Casual Vacancy
I do this sometimes with things that are too violent. I skip paragraphs, several at a time, and pick the odd paragraph to glance at. When I don’t see any gross words anymore, I pick up the story. (I perfected this with Stephen King. I love horror, but extended graphic violence not so much.)
Yeah, I’ve skipped some of the grosser scenes of murder mysteries. Never could read Patricia Cornwall. Too gross, the murderer and the main character.
Yes. I make myself read it, however bad it gets because I know that the world is capable of the worst, so I have to make myself see that, in order to know to not let it get that bad. I think it’s easier to let bad things happen in your life of in front of you if you decide to not deal with difficult stuff even in books. Books are supposed to open our eyes / mind, and that applies to difficult things as well – violence, gore, abuse, embarassment, shame. Everything. I might need to stop and then continue and stop again, but I never skip…
+1 Ma’am
Though there are some things i will not start to read.
“True Crime” for example.
@Aaron It is rather hard to see what some people are really capable of..
I guess I feel like real life is bad enough. I don’t also need to subject myself to the worst of humanity in fiction.
When i was in East Timor i did a lot of ongoing clinics with people who’d had limbs or parts of limbs chopped off by the retreating Indonesian forces.
Entire villages lay empty, the former occupants rotting in freshly dug mass graves.
True Crime is, to me, just pornographic wank material and i want no part of it.
But well written fiction i can stomach.
Or clinical reports on atrocities.
But not stuff that’s written just for titillation (sp?)
I will skip or stop altogether.
Yes. Haven’t stopped but skimmed over.
Yes and will just skip it.
Yes. And I found the first part of this book distasteful. But on the whole, I thought the book was interesting.
Yes. Even threw it away instead of donate it.
I’ve skipped overly graphic paragraphs of violence, but the only book that I put down because of it was The Alienist. The constant abuse and murder of children was too much.
Whose section are you on?
Though I believe Cormac McCarthy is an American genius and treasure and that his prose is flawless, I can’t bear to read his work other than in bits and pieces.
He is the most depressing author I have ever read.
@Lori I know!
I’ve only quit 3 books in my whole reading life. 1 was because it was entirely too sexually explicit, grotesquely explicit. It was like the author was merely going for shock value because the scenes had nothing to do with the overall premise of story
I skip over stuff but if there’s a lot that I want to skip yes I do chuck the book.
Lolita
Yes
Helter Skelter about Charles Manson. Sick person.
Yep.
I read the book, trying to remember what was offensive?
Simon’s part maybe?
Not yet
I’ve never stopped for that reason but I have felt very uncomfortable and thanked God no one was reading over my shoulder.
Oh yes, maybe you can skip a chunk of it? Haven’t read it and now I probably won’t.
I’m sure the whole book isn’t this way
It isn’t.
Yes. The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski. I was assigned it in college but it upset me and grossed me out. Fifty years later I might now be able to read it.
I don’t think exposing my mind to garbage makes me or the world a better place and I have thrown books in the garbage.
That sounds like I’m a big prude, I’m not, what I don’t want to read is violence, torture, I skipped a big part of Unbroken when he was in the Japanese prison camp. I read about three chapters of it and it went on way too long, so just moved ahead in the book until he was out of there. Otherwise it is a great book.
Two. “Absurdistan” and “The Small Backs of Children”.
The youngest brother?
Yes… I don’t consider myself a prude but I couldn’t wait to be done his section
I’m reading Klara now and its gotten tamer. I think Simon’s part was necessary to the story. Maybe it didn’t have to be so graphic, but it needed to be in there.
I’ll do that if I come across unneccessary violence against an animal. I stopped reading the memoir A Three Dog Life when the author described in graphic detail of her cousin purposefully killing a kitten. Nope, nope, nope!
I quit reading the GoT books because I got bored and tired out by all the violence. Normally I don’t mind but it seemed like the further I read the less the plot mattered until it was all just GRRM’s weird fantasies and that’s not my bag man.
No. I have stopped because I’m bored, though.
I would just skim that part, the book is worth reading.
I just finished this book. The section you are reading, Simon’s part, is the only graphic/crude one. If you decide to keep reading, you will get past that type of description.
Skip it but read on..
Yes.
If it’s unnecessary to the storyline and repeats itself in that line of writing, I stop reading. There are too many good books out there.
I never finished Dracula because of the gore and grusome descriptions.
Yes!
Definitely. Priorities.
you bet. life’s too short, my mind is too valuable to fill it with stuff that pointlessly wastes space, and my tbr pile is in danger of toppling.
Absolutely!
No – but in retrospect, I wish I had and will definitely do so in the future. There was one book in particular that danced around the psychological horror I enjoy reading every so often – then took a nose dive into torture porn/shock over quality. I kept reading even though my gut told me not to. Lesson learned, will never, ever, entertain my “must finish every book I start obsession” again.
Pillars of the Earth, I loved the history of learning the construction of the cathedrals and some of the history of the Catholic Church. But it was a book I would have enjoyed talking with people about but I didn’t want to recommend it out of fear they might think the hard core abuse was part of the reason I liked the book. I still shudder at the thought
I thought Pillars was disgusting, and outlandish.
@Bonnie did you read the other books in the series.
@Jennifer no, i didn’t even finish Pillars.
I enjoyed that series. His research was/is incredible. @Bonnie, what is a book you have enjoyed?
So many, the thirteenth tale, life after life, a gentleman in Moscow, I’m reading the Princess Bride right now and loving it. Just finished Prairie Fires, My Antonia, East of Eden, autobiography of a yogi.
Right? Hard to name just one. I never really “got” The Princess Bride. Sometimes I think I’m the only one who didn’t. Loved A Gentleman in Moscow too. Life After Life, so good!
And winds of war and war and remembrance. Wonderful, I wish they’d rerun the mini series on TV.
@Bonnie Mini series are great. Lonesome Dove is my favorite. I felt like they got the book just right.
I tried to rewatch Centennial…but the production was tooooo dated.
Yes
I skip over done sex and snakes.
Snakes are ok. But in-your-face, explicit depictions of sex is unacceptable. In my opinion, indirection & implication, in the hands of a skilled writer, trump any explicit writing style when presenting sex in fiction.
The rest of the book is much better. Keep pushing past or through it.
Yes! Often. Without apologies either.
Don’t stop reading this book. It’s a great book. That section has a graphic sex scene but it is part of that characters self discovery. The rest of the book is tamer.
Agreed! It is such a great book. My book club read it last month and we had a great discussion! Good luck
I thought it was just OK, sometimes I wonder if people feel like they have to like it after it gets a lot of hype?
American Psycho. Wish I had never read it.
Same!
@Trasi : I ❤ the spelling of your name! Bet you can’t find a keychain, either? Lol
Lol NOPE. Thanks; my mom made it up.
@Trasi : my mom named me after a character in a soap opera in 1967?
Absolutely. You have every right to choose what you allow into your head, what you voluntarily expose yourself to. That’s discernment ??
Yup
There are so so many good books to read and never enough time to read them all, so why waste your reading time with something you’re not that into? ☺
I really liked that book
Absolutely
Yeah it was a book assigned in college. Just winged the paper ?
Which one?
Yes. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I don’t think of myself as a prude, but there seemed to be no point at all to the first three chapters, so I gave up.