Fity-page Flops and the Inner Bouncer

Not so long ago, there was a time when I'd feel guilty if I didn't finish reading an entire book all the way through, no matter how awful it was. I'd force myself to wade through the most awful, steaming piles of crap ever written because there was some tiny part of my brain that believed every book should be given a chance before passing judgement. As a result of this little inner critic, I've had to endure ridiculous plots, flat, lifeless characters, atrocious dialogue and some truly lazy writing in which the protagonists stand around and explain huge lumps of the plot to each other for the supposed benefit of the reader (Dan Brown, I'm looking at you...).

 

At some undefined point in my life, however, I realised that life was simply too short for crap books. I had that wimpy little inner critic shot for incompetence, then hired a much bigger, burlier critic with a monobrow and far less tolerance for drivel. Kind of like a bouncer, but literate. Since then I've been able to enjoy books guilt-free, secure in the knowledge that I can simply toss the bad ones aside as soon as they started to stink the place up. I decided that if an author wasn't able to maintain my interest past fifty pages, then it was his fault, not mine.