There was no book review yesterday because… 1) The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater failed to keep me hooked, and 2) I have a fear of the unread.

To address the first: I’m not saying it was a bad book. I can definitely see why people loved it. The characters are interesting and vivid, and the writing is totally my style. It’s just that the plot was taking too long for my liking. I could’ve easily picked up another book and made time for a review but I just couldn’t. I didn’t read a thing for three days, which leads me to point number two.

I have a fear of the unread. The Raven Boys sat beside my pillow, as all my current-reads do, and refused to be placed back on my bookshelf. I was crippled by the fear that if I made a definite decision to give up, I would be missing out on something amazing. I have trudged through books just like it and finished on the other side feeling so grateful that I’d given it a shot. I mean, it’s not like I choose novels with a boring-sounding premise. But I am a firm believer in committed relationships, and for some reason, this extends to books. One book at a time. Can’t move on unless I’m done with it. Hence why I didn’t read a thing for three days. I was torn.

But I did it! I conquered my fear! I thought, “I deserve better!” because I do, and picked up a new book. As much as it pains me to say, I have to accept that there aren’t enough days in my lifetime to read all the books in the world. There will be stories I will never read and there will be those that won’t interest me. But there will also be those that will keep me invested, happy, excited, and [insert other emotions here]. Reading should be fun and entertaining. Those are the stories I should stick with.*

Is there anyone out there who has this fear? Is there even an actual word for it?

This is me trying to convince myself it’s okay to not like a book and not finish it because I’m still in kind-of-shock that I gave up on one. I’m working on it. 😛