I Quit--Does That Make Me a Bad Person?

[Peg Herring]

I gave up on the second of the GIRL WITH/WHO series.
Yup.
I just don't care.
It's hard for me to like a protagonist who is so weird, so amoral, so flat.
It's irritating to me that someone did not edit out the thousands of details that (I guess) are supposed to add to the story but instead draw it out. I don't care how many T-shirts, cups, chairs, and bedsheets the woman bought.
I seldom like the "I'll get that person if it's the last thing I ever do" plotline.
I will admit that by halfway through the first book, I got caught up in the story and wanted to know what happened, but I only got that far because friends told me to keep slogging through the ridiculously drawn-out beginning. Even when I got into the story, I was disgusted by the characters' disregard for any sort of moral code but their personal desires. It could be that I'm too sheltered, that life is that way, but I'm just sayin'.
So this morning I read another chapter and then thought, "There are lots of books I would like better than this one, so why am I reading it?" The answer, I suppose, is the hoopla that the world has raised about the series, but I decided that isn't enough reason for me. I don't mind being in the minority, reading books that I choose rather than ones someone else says are must-reads.
After all, I have no idea what a Kardashian looks like, and it hasn't done me a bit of harm so far.

[Peg Herring]

I sometimes wonder if everyone who buys these "blockbusters" actually reads them or if they just want to be part of the wave of popularity they generate. I'm not sure how the wave gets started. In this case, the story of an author who delivers three MS to a publisher and then dies might have caught the attention of the masses. I agree with Jack; I liked Lisbeth in the first book, which is what made me buy the second. It wasn't enough. She just got weirder and weirder.

[Ronald S. Barrios]

I understand. Kind of going through the same thing myself with an author I actually like in the sense that the story is taking too long to get to the plot. The start of the story is dragging on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on (get the picture?) But this is what makes us readers and as readers we choose who we read and it's the responsibility of the writer to keep us entertained.

RSB

[Eric Christopherson]

Haven't read any, but I wonder what you think the appeal of these books are?

[Jack Getze]

I read one, skipping lots of dull paragraphs and even pages. Wouldn't try another. Unlike you, I get the appeal. I liked Lisbeth. But the books are too difficult a read. For me, kinda like Dan Brown.

[Dana King]

I slogged through the first one and decided I'd suffered enough, for all the reasons you raised, and more.