I had a strange reading experience this week. I started off on such a high finishing both Blood Red Road and its sequel in one day. The next morning I started Lilith Saintcrow's The Iron Wyrm affair. This had been recommended to me by my mum and I was looking forward to it. Set in an alternative Victorian London with witchcraft and steam punkesque hijinks, it's safe to say that this should have been my type of book.
Then I started reading. I don't know if I'm having an odd head space week, but for the life of me I couldn't connect to the story at all and was thinking about everything else bar the words written on the page. I had to force myself to finish The Iron Wyrm Affair. I knew it was bad when I began page counting. Every time I turned the page I looked to see what number was at the top and how much longer it would take for this to be over and done with.
Normally it takes time for me when I start a new series to absorb everything that's going on but this was madness because there was nothing I hated about Saintcrow's story. I wish that I could remeber something that made my blood boil, or a character that I found fascinating, but I can't. Maybe on a different week I would have loved this book. Maybe if I give it time and come back to the Bannon and Clare series I will grow to love it. Or maybe I should have put The Iron Wyrm Affair down as soon as I started to grow ambivalent about reading it.
However, I feel reluctant to accept that last maybe. A few years ago, I was all ready to put down Stephen King's Bag of Bones after 200 pages of nothingness, but I stuck with it and suddenly I was reading a great story. So while I'm glad I followed through with reading the rest of The Iron Wyrm Affair, I just wish that I had received a similar pay off. Has anyone else had similar troubles?
I'm having the SAME debate with The Map of Time right now. I'm halfway through it, but page-counting and getting bored. Do I cut my losses so I can spend time on a more enjoyable book, or do I just try to stick with it?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, I had this book out from the library but never got around to it before it was due. Now I don't feel quite as bad for not reading it! It's a shame when that happens.
Ha, glad to have eased the guilt! You might have liked it though, and I might have just been in a odd kind of mood...maybe...
DeleteHowever, it's difficult, not to mention a touch frustrating, to decide when to give up on a book, isn't it? I think, with me anyway, there's always the hope that a book will get better...plus if I get halfway or more I feel like I've already wasted enough time, I might as well waste some more and finish the book.
Yet if you've got something better waiting to be read, maybe starting that and taking a break from the one you're struggling to get through would give you some perspective as to whether you'd be willing to finish it or not?