Im struggling to finish book as it seems so slow. Should I push forward and read it or stop?? Is it worth it?

What’s everyone’s philosophies about DNFing? I have to admit it’s something I’ve found really difficult. Even if I’m not interested at all in the book and find it a slog or I’m just not connecting to the material, I feel this immense guilt about not ever picking it up again. I’d rather not read at all than not finish. The one time I’ve DNFed a book with almost no intention of ever picking it up again was Passage by Connie Willis, and it still took me half the book to tell myself I’d made enough of an effort to justify stopping.

I saw something today and I’m really curious what other readers think.

Someone commented on an author’s personal Instagram post to say they weren’t a fan of the new book. The author replied with “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” The person who posted the screenshot felt icky about the author’s response.

Personally, I didn’t think the author was out of line. I don’t really see the point of going onto an author’s own page just to drop a negative comment. That isn’t a review, it’s just putting criticism directly in front of the author for no real reason. Review platforms exist for a reason.

I also saw someone comment back to me about this ‘but sometimes authors don’t read reviews and won’t see it’ and I just always felt reviews are for other readers? I don’t know. And also how is ‘I didn’t like this book’ helpful in any way and why does it need to be seen?

That’s just me. What do you all think? Is it fine to leave negative opinions on an author’s page, or should that stuff stay on review sites instead?

Curious to hear everyone’s take.

I recently saw someone say they can’t imagine the setting within the book and they read like they are “watching a movie” which got me intrigued. Personally for me when I read, I might get “flashes” of imagery but I think I’m more focused on interactions and actions! So it’s a bit like I imagine the two characters but the background is blank? I often also don’t really have the full image of the characters so it’s just two mannequin like figures. If there are paragraphs of description about the environment I may take a moment to kind of piece it together but afterwards it’s more of the feeling and atmosphere and doesn’t stick around as an image.

How do you experience stories and does it take effort if you “watch it like a movie?” Do you have a soundtrack playing in the background or is it just environmental noises? Do you even imagine how the character voices sound like? How much detail is there?

I’ve been wanting to switch from brand new books to secondhand books, can anyone give me brief information I should be careful about when looking for one? And do you guys prefer secondhand books??