When I was in sixth grade, my teacher impressed on me that once you started reading a book, you had a “moral obligation” to finish it. One evening, after I was married, I was struggling to finish a 500 page book I was definitely not enjoying. My Better Half advised me to “Go ahead and quit!” When I told him I had to finish it, he said,” There are too many good books ‘out there’ to waste your time on one you don’t like.” Those words of wisdom led to my fifty page rule: If an author doesn’t capture my attention in the first fifty pages, I can categorize it a DNF (did not finish) and toss it aside.
This year (2020) I began the 2020 Alphabet Challenge, Author Edition
I had successfully completed (in a year) the same challenge, only the Titles Edition in 2019, that I thought this one would be a piece of cake. Sadly, I have completed “M” and am so “done.” Perhaps I shall resurrect the rest of this challenge in 2021, but for now, I am bidding it farewell. It was a lot of fun, but for now, I’ll take a break. The thing that encouraged me to take this step is that more than one of you mentioned on your blog or a reply to one of our posts that sometimes you didn’t finish a challenge, that reading the books you chose for the challenge was enough, that the challenge had “served its purpose.” Thank you, sweet blogging friends, for letting me off the hook. Knowing me, I will finish the challenge at a later date, but for now I am set free to adopt another challenge if I feel like it.
Keep on reading!
powerfulwomenreaders 
I think that is wonderful. Sometimes we try things and we see that something is not for us. Life’s too short to continue to do things that do not satisfy us, I think. And perhaps we have accomplished all we can. I remember learning to play guitar. Day after day, I got better and better. And then I didn’t. I flatlined. I still enjoy playing guitar now and then, but I see that I will always be the sort (not-very-good-but-that’s-okay-too) of guitar player I am.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Why oh why have I learned this lesson so late in life?
LikeLike
To those who haven’t changed their minds on anything recently, are you sure you can? Good for your husband. A friend challenged me to read a book and I dreaded the first hundred pages, would you belive shortly after that I couldn’t put it down and read the other seven hundred rather quickly. There is always the exception to the rule. 😉
LikeLike
I love your first sentence. May I use it?
LikeLike
I’m with you! I have a teetering TBR pile FULL of exciting-looking books that need my attention and not enough years to complete it, so I’m absolutely not wasting time on anything I don’t enjoy:)).
LikeLike
Amen!
LikeLiked by 1 person