Scoop by Evelyn Waugh was a book that came up on my Instagram feed as I was trying to find reading recommendations, and it sounded like something right up my alley. It’s a critically-acclaimed book about a nature columnist who gets mistaken for a young novelist and gets hired to cover an impending civil war in a fictional East African republic, satirizing sensationalist journalism and foreign correspondence in the 1930s. I had just watched a satirical black comedy film, Network, and was in the mood for similar satires, so I figured I was going to devour this book in a couple of days.

Fifty pages in, and I knew it was going to be a struggle to get through the entire book, so I did something I don’t usually do, and I just stopped reading it. Normally, when I’m not into a book, I try and power through by speed-reading (basically reading every other sentence and using whatever summary I can find on Google to supplement whatever I missed), but I just didn’t have the motivation to do it this time, and decided to drop the book back off at the library.

I know you can’t always judge a book by the first several pages, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who has read a book and has regretted pushing through page after page that you just don’t care for, hoping that there will be a redeeming moment, only to be disappointed as you flip through the last pages. On the flip side, I have FOMO, and I always need to see how something ends to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Also, as a writer, I would never want anyone to judge my work by the first several paragraphs and say “I’m done with this”, even though I understand the need to “hook” an audience early on, so I feel like I guilt myself into trying to finish a book.

It’s not a big deal to just, not read a book, but I felt like I was disappointing myself for doing it, which is utterly lame and boring, I know. There are much bigger problems in the world than my ego feeling a little bit bruised because I didn’t think I was the type of person not to finish a book I started.

Oh well. I’m going to watch a movie and get over it.