this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
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Why would you read a book you don't want to?
Personally, because I’ve spent long enough reading it and I want to just finish it if I’m like two thirds of the way through.
In reality, I spend a week thinking “I need to finish that” and then forget about it completely.
If I'm in that situation where I really hate the book but also really want to finish, then it's usually because there's that nagging mental thread of something left undone.
But I don't want to read it. I just want to be done with it.
What I need is closure, which means knowing how the key points wrap up and what happens at the end.
And so knowing that, I commit a crime against literature - I skim.
Normally I'd never skim, but it's far preferable to never finishing at all, and it ties off that unpleasant dangling thread, letting me be free and move on to something I might actually enjoy.