Says who? Well, the quotations above consists of the title plus subtitle of a new novel by Gilly Macmillan, all squished into one short sentence. This novel is supposedly “an unsettling and atmospheric thriller that’s almost impossible to put down,” according to Amazon, quoting a reviewer from Buzzfeed.

They’re wrong; I found it perfectly possible to put it down.

And I did so — right there on page 25, thereby violating the rule.

“What rule?” you ask. But now I seem to be getting ahead of myself.

You’ll probably want to know what’s wrong with this book. I could go into plot, setting, characters, writing style, and so forth, but let’s just say that I found it both boring and irritating — a lethal combination.

Now let’s return to the aforementioned rule. How far into a novel do you have to read before you conclude it’s not for you and you can give up on it? Was there any special reason I stopped after 25 pages of To Tell You the Truth? Some people may just arbitrarily say that they will give a novel 25 pages; then they quit if it’s not working for them. Others say 100 pages! And there are a few people who claim that it’s immoral not to finish reading a book that you have started. But from my experience I agree with those who have the correct answer: the rule is that you can quit after n pages, where n is 100 minus your age. So the older you get, the sooner you can quit.

I should have stopped three pages ago.

Categories: Books