DNF means ‘Did not finish’ in the bookish online world, and you’ll often find it used in videos with people saying ‘I DNF’d this book’.
See, I used to be in the camp of stubbornly seeing a book through – there are SO MANY books I read to the end, despite knowing in the first 30 pages that it wasn’t for me.
I think you should read things outside your comfort zone that challenge you a little but there’s challenging…. and then there’s times the book is just bad.
I used to think you can’t know a book is bad until you read at least the majority of it. I used to think that just because a book isn’t your cup of tea, doesn’t mean you should stop reading it, as you might change your mind.
But then…. I got busier.
I had limited free time, limited free mental space, and I’d be getting stalled out on books that I was stubbornly seeing through.
So, I stopped.
Because why am I making my hobby, this thing I do for fun, some moral litmus test? I don’t need to have a reason for putting a book down, I can just not be vibing with the book and that’s a good enough reason to stop. Sometimes I can just read something else and come back to it and sometimes, that book is done – for me.
The only thing I will say is that I don’t then get on the internet and offer opinions on that book – because I do feel it’s disingenuous to do that for a book I haven’t read.
So here is my permission to you, if you are like past me:
DNF the book, it’s okay.
