The Better Sister: Did the Show Fix What the Book Couldn't?

Two estranged sisters. A dead husband they both have history with. A teenage boy who may or may not have killed him. The Better Sister by Alafair Burke is a psychological thriller about what women hide to survive and how far they'll go to protect the people they love. The Prime Video adaptation dropped in May 2025 with Jessica Biel and Elizabeth Banks, and we had a lot of thoughts, not all of them the same.

The book is mostly Chloe's perspective. She's a New York magazine editor with a controlled exterior and a life that looks perfect until her husband turns up dead. There are a handful of chapters from the detective on the case, but you're mostly in Chloe's head, working with whatever she decides to tell you. It also means you never really get Nikki, the older sister, the one in recovery, the one who shows up and ignores the hotel Chloe already booked and just starts putting her stuff down. Nikki is who all three of us actually liked, which is a problem because the book barely gives her room to be anything other than Chloe's version of her.

The Show

The show fixes that. Getting out of Chloe's head is the biggest structural change, and it pays off. There's a backstory reveal about what Adam actually did to Nikki that the book implies but the show puts on screen. Michelle said it made her feel gutted for Nikki in a way the book never got to.

What wasn't unanimous: Elizabeth Banks. Laura could not buy her as someone who had struggled with addiction. "She's too good at all of life." Michelle thought she nailed it.

The show adds a full storyline for Nikki that isn't in the book, and we disagreed on whether it worked. Katya defended it. Michelle and Laura weren't sold. The show also has characters literally seeing and talking to people who are dead. Katya and Laura found it unnecessary. Michelle thought it was the only way to show how haunted Nikki actually was. And Laura got bored somewhere in episodes four through six, which with eight episodes is a problem.

Book vs. Show

Two votes for the show, one for the book, and the book vote made a real argument. The mystery hits differently when you're stuck in Chloe's head and can't fully trust what she's telling you. The show gives you more. Whether more is better depends on what you wanted.

Ratings landed between three and four and a half. Laura described it as possibly a good nap show and we're choosing to take that as a compliment to the pacing.

Full episode, spoilers and all, wherever you get your podcasts or at linktr.ee/chapteronesceneone.

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Do You Finish a Series If It Goes Bad?

This week's Reader Habits mini episode asked a question every book lover has faced: if a series starts to lose you, do you push through or cut your losses?

What "going bad" actually means to us

• A series that turns repetitive
• Page counts that keep creeping up with each installment
• When too much time passes between books

The sunk cost trap If you own all six books and book seven is getting bad reviews, do you read it anyway? Michelle says yes, you're already in. Laura says it depends, mostly because she owns series she hasn't started yet, which creates its own problem. The practical takeaway: don't let BookTok pressure you into buying a full series before you've read book one. Buy it. Read it. Then decide.

When a bad adaptation kills the book for you Laura stopped reading Vampire Academy after the movie came out and never went back. She knows the author had nothing to do with it. The feeling stuck anyway. A bad adaptation can leave enough of a residue that the books stop feeling like yours.

Listen to the full episode Catch the Reader Habits mini episode wherever you get your podcasts and tell us: are you a completionist or a cutter? https://linktr.ee/chapteronesceneone

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FAQ

Do you have to finish a series? No. There is no rule. If you're not enjoying it, stop.

What if you already bought all the books? You still don't have to finish. Goodwill takes books. You will also get 28 cents on Sell Your Books, apparently.

What's the easiest way to stay in a series long-term? Audio helps. Listening in the car lowers the friction on long books and keeps you moving between installments.

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Was His & Hers actually better on screen?

We didn’t agree. One of us has been ranting since episode one. And somehow, the show might have fixed what didn’t work in the book.

A small English village. A murder. Three narrators, his, hers, and one voice that keeps its secrets longer than the others. His & Hers by Alice Feeney is built on the idea that everyone is lying, including the structure itself, and by the time you figure out who to trust, it’s already too late.

Now it’s a Netflix show. Tessa Thompson stars. Jon Bernthal is a detective who is… not great at being a detective. We have opinions. This post is spoiler light. Full breakdown is on the podcast.

The Book

His & Hers (2020) follows Anna Andrews, a BBC journalist sent back to Blackdown, the English village where she grew up, to cover a murder.

The detective on the case is Jack Harper. Her ex-husband.

The book alternates between:

• Anna’s perspective
• Jack’s perspective
• A third narrator in italics

That third voice is the entire game.It’s the reason the structure does most of the heavy lifting, and what separates this from a standard thriller.

The atmosphere works. The English countryside, the return-to-hometown tension, the slow reveal of who these people actually are.

The pacing mostly works too. Perspective shifts land where they should. And there’s a crime scene detail that had Laura wanting to Google, “is this even feasible.”

She did not Google it. Yet.

Where it loses momentum

The middle drags. The procedural beats slow down right when the personal stakes should be picking up, and you feel it.

And the twist…For two of us, it didn’t fully hold up.

Hot take: Feeney is too twisty. Not every story needs one more turn of the knife.

There’s also a section involving animal cruelty that bothered all three of us. Worth flagging if that’s a hard line.

Overall

• Laura: 2.5
• Michelle: 3
• Katya: 3

Same landing spot. Very different reasons.

The Show

Six episodes on Netflix. Tessa Thompson plays Anna. Jon Bernthal plays Jack.

The biggest change comes immediately. The story moves from a small English village…to a small town in Georgia. That shift sets the tone for everything that follows.

What works

Tessa Thompson carries this. She makes Anna someone you can root for, even when the journalist choices get questionable.

Jon Bernthal commits. Fully.

Hot take: He is not great at being a detective.

The writing makes Jack frustrating in a way that feels… unintentional. His partner Priya ends up doing a lot of the actual competence.

The tone

The Southern Gothic vibe does some work. But not always the right kind.

The lake house feels like a vacation rental instead of something with history and weight.
That matters. It flattens the tension.

Anna’s mother’s house lands closer to what the story needs.

The relationship

Anna and Jack have tension. But not warmth. Which makes sense for estranged exes…but also makes it harder to feel the emotional core.

Overall

As an adaptation:

• Laura: 2
• Katya: 3
• Michelle: 3.5

As a standalone show:

• Laura: 2.5
• Katya: 3
• Michelle: 3.5

More watchable than faithful.
Not binge-worthy.

Book vs Show: What Changed

The biggest loss

The third narrator is gone. That voice is what makes the book feel manipulative in a good way. Without it, the show becomes more straightforward. You could argue for a voiceover approach, like Bridgerton or Gossip Girl. The show doesn’t do it. Whether that works depends on what you wanted from the story.

Anna’s character

The book leans hard into her alcoholism.

The show softens it.

• Katya: glad it’s toned down
• Michelle: that edge was doing important work

The result:

TV Anna is easier to root for. Book Anna is harder… and more interesting.

What the show adds

Some additions actually work. The network executive subplot gives Anna more agency and pays off late. There’s a photograph reveal scene at the lake house that’s the best visual moment in the show.

What didn’t work

• Jack’s competence
• The lake house aesthetic
• Timing of certain reveals
• And for one of us, the location change entirely

Who Is This For

You’ll like this if:

• You enjoy unreliable narrators and don’t need to trust anyone
• You like messy characters more than likable ones
• You’re okay with a slower middle if the ending delivers

Skip if:

• You need tight plotting that holds up on re-read
• You want competent detective work
• You’re sensitive to animal cruelty (especially in the book)

If You Liked the Book, Try

• Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
• Rock Paper Scissors by Alice Feeney
• The Housemaid by Freida McFadden
• Behind Closed Doors by B.A. Paris
• The Last Mrs. Parrish by Liv Constantine

If You Liked the Show, Watch

• Broadchurch (2013)
• The Stranger (2020)
• Mare of Easttown (2021)
• Big Little Lies (2017)
• Anatomy of a Scandal (2022)

FAQ

Is His & Hers better as a book or a show?

We didn’t agree. The book has the structure. The show has the cleaner execution.

• Laura: book
• Michelle: show (by a hair)
• Katya: leaned show

Do you need to read the book first?

No. The show works on its own. You’ll miss the third narrator and a sharper version of Anna, but you won’t be lost.

Should you read the book after watching?

Yes, if you liked the show. You’ll know the ending, but the structure is the point.

Content warnings

• Animal cruelty (book, toned down in show)
• Murder
• Bullying
• Alcoholism (heavier in the book)

Podcast Episode

We break this down in full, spoilers and all.

The third narrator.
The ending.
The location change.
And which one of us yelled “burn” at the others.

Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at:
linktr.ee/chapteronesceneone

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Do You Read Multiple Books at Once? Pros, Cons, and Reader Habits

Do You Read Multiple Books at a Time? We Have Systems. They Are Very Different.

This week's Reader Habits mini episode tackled a question that sounds simple and isn't: can you read multiple books at once, and if so, how?

Short answer: Laura and Michelle do. Katya does not. Nobody is wrong.

Where everyone lands

Michelle is the most aggressive multireader of the three. At any given time she has multiple audio books going, segmented by location: one for the car, one for work. Laura keeps a Kindle book, a physical book, and an audio book running at once, occasionally adding a fourth if she's in something heavy nonfiction. Katya reads one book at a time and is fully committed to that position.

Why we do it

For Laura it's mood reading. Having options means she's never forcing a thriller on a romcom brain. For Michelle, ADHD is a factor: variety keeps her engaged when one book isn't hitting in a given moment. Katya wants to be fully inside one story before she opens another. All of these are self-aware reading habits, not commitment issues.

The rules that make it work

Genre separation matters. Two thrillers running at the same time is a trap. You will get the murders confused. Format helps enforce this naturally: a car audio book signals a different mode than a Kindle before bed. Most readers doing this successfully are already splitting across formats without thinking of it as a strategy.

The Goodreads problem

Goodreads does not reward you for juggling. What it does do is track start dates, which means if you set a book down for three weeks, you might look like you've been "currently reading" it for fourteen months. The date doesn't reset.

Listen to the full episode

Catch the Reader Habits mini episode wherever you get your podcasts and let us know: one book at a time, or fully feral with four audio books going at once?

https://linktr.ee/chapteronesceneone

FAQ

Is it okay to read multiple books at once?
Yes. Many readers juggle formats or genres to match mood and attention.

Does reading multiple books slow you down?
It can, but it can also keep you engaged if one book stalls.

How many books should you read at once?
Most readers stick to 2 to 3 across different formats or genres.

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If You Loved Project Hail Mary, Read These Next

If you finished Project Hail Mary and immediately needed something to fill the hole it left, you are not alone. We talked about it on the podcast and the response was the same across the board: readers want more of that specific feeling. The isolation. The problem-solving that actually makes you feel smart for following along. The moment where something shows up and nobody knows what to do about it. The friendships that form because there is literally no other option.

The bad news is nothing is exactly Project Hail Mary. The good news is several books come close, and most of them fly under the radar compared to the titles that usually get recommended. These are the ones we keep coming back to.

The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi

The interstellar network that connects human civilization is failing, and almost nobody in power believes it yet. Scalzi writes space opera the way it should be written: fast, funny, and propulsive, with characters who are too smart and too stubborn to do the easy thing. If you liked the way Weir lets his protagonist think out loud through a crisis, Scalzi does something similar but with more political chaos and significantly more profanity. Laura has read almost everything Scalzi has written and this series is a good entry point if you haven't tried him yet. The snark is load-bearing.

The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal

An extinction-level event forces a space race nobody was ready for. The protagonist is a mathematician and pilot who understands exactly how bad the situation is before anyone else does, and spends most of the book trying to make people listen. The problem-solving is grounded and specific in the same way Project Hail Mary is, and the stakes feel real because Kowal does the work of making you understand them. This one wins the Nebula, the Hugo, and the Locus Award, which is not nothing.

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing by Hank Green

Something shows up overnight in cities around the world. Nobody knows why. The protagonist films herself with one of them, posts it, and wakes up famous in a way she did not plan for and cannot control. The mystery at the center of this book is genuinely interesting and the way Green structures the puzzle is satisfying without being tidy. It hits the first contact energy of Project Hail Mary from a completely different angle, which is part of what makes it worth reading.

Sphere by Michael Crichton

A science team gets sent to the bottom of the ocean to investigate something they weren't supposed to find. This is classic Crichton, which means the setup is efficient, the tension is real, and trust starts breaking down at exactly the wrong moment. If you want that Project Hail Mary feeling of a small group of people dealing with something genuinely unknown and trying not to get each other killed in the process, this is the one.

The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Two astronauts on a rescue mission. They do not trust each other. They have to anyway. This one is quieter than the others on this list but the claustrophobia is intense and the relationship at the center of it earns every page. The mission is not what either of them thinks it is, and figuring that out alongside them is most of the experience. Project Hail Mary readers who responded most to the Ryland and Rocky dynamic will probably respond to this one.

Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

Alien tech nobody understands turns up in pieces across the globe and a team gets assembled to figure out what it is. Laura read this one and remembers liking it, which for a book that came out several years ago and stuck around in memory anyway says something. It's structured as documents and interviews rather than traditional narrative, which sounds gimmicky but works. The sense of discovery is the whole point and it delivers.

Binti by Nnedi Okofor

The shortest entry on this list and the most purely about what happens when two civilizations that have no framework for understanding each other are forced into contact. Binti leaves home, something goes wrong, and connection becomes the only way through. It's a novella, which means it does what it needs to do without overstaying. If you want the Project Hail Mary first contact feeling in about two hours of reading, this is it.

If you read Project Hail Mary and immediately wanted more of that specific ache, start here. And if you've already read any of these, come tell us which one hit hardest.

FAQs

What makes a book feel like Project Hail Mary?

Usually a combination of things: isolation, high stakes problem-solving, first contact or unknown phenomena, and a relationship that forms out of necessity. Books that hit all of those notes at once are rarer than you'd think.

Is The Collapsing Empire a standalone?

No, it's the first book in the Interdependency trilogy. All three books are out so you can read straight through without waiting.

Do I need to read Sleeping Giants in order?

Sleeping Giants is the first in the Themis Files trilogy. Starting from the beginning is the right call.

Which of these is most similar to Project Hail Mary?

The Calculating Stars probably comes closest in terms of scientific grounding and stakes. The Collapsing Empire is closest in tone and voice.

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Project Hail Mary Book vs Movie. Two Friends, Two Worlds, One Very Good Puppet.

Project Hail Mary sounds like a science novel until you realize it isn't. Andy Weir's 2021 book follows Ryland Grace, a man who wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory, no crew, and no idea why he's there. What follows is part survival thriller, part science class, and one of the most unexpectedly emotional friendships in recent fiction.

Now it's a film. Ryan Gosling stars. Rocky is a very good puppet. We have opinions.

The Book

The flashback structure does real work here. Every time Grace remembers something, you get exactly the piece you need at exactly the right moment. It never feels like a trick. Two timelines feed each other: one is him trying to stay alive, the other is him slowly understanding what he signed up for.

The science is real and sometimes a lot. If math with letters in it traumatized you in high school, the audiobook is a solid option.

Rocky is the thing people mention in reviews and they're right to. He's an alien who eats iron and communicates through music, and somehow he becomes the emotional center of the book. Cuddly and adorable for what is essentially a giant tarantula.

The weakest part is Grace himself, pre-journey. The shift in who he becomes can feel abrupt depending on how closely you're reading, and the circumstances that put him on the ship are a genuine sticking point for some readers.

The Film

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, who also did 21 Jump Street, which actually explains a lot. The film leans into buddy comedy harder than the book does, and Ryan Gosling commits completely. He's funny, he has emotional range, and he's essentially acting alone for a huge chunk of the runtime. That's hard to carry and he carries it.

The movie runs about two and a half hours. Patience required upfront. Once the central friendship kicks in, it earns it.

Book vs Movie. What Changed?

The science takes a significant cut. The global scope of the project and the full picture of just how much power certain characters wield compress down or disappear. The film trusts the audience to follow without over-explaining, which is the right call for the runtime, but you lose something.

Supporting characters who matter in the book barely register in the film. When the story asks you to feel something for them, the movie hasn't given you enough to work with.

The flashback transition uses a spinning visual effect. It caused motion sickness for at least one of us and should come with a warning if you're sensitive to that.

The ending is where we split. The book leaves things in a place that sits with you. The film makes a different choice. Whether that's a fair trade depends on what you value in an ending, and we debated it at length.

The first contact scene between Grace and Rocky translates well to screen. There's also a visual addition that isn't in the book at all, and it's one of the things that actually works better on film.

Our Ratings

We had one person who didn't finish the book, one who read it twice, and one who finished it after watching the movie. The ratings reflect that chaos.

Book: 4.5 out of 5. Concept, execution, friendship, and it holds up on reread.

Film as adaptation: 4 out of 5. Faithful where it counts, compressed where it had to be.

Film as standalone: splits the room. If you love Ryan Gosling and friendship stories, you will have a great time. If you need the science and the isolation to land fully, the middle may lose you.

Who Is This For

You love hard science fiction with real emotional stakes. You want a friendship story that sneaks up on you. You're willing to cry and then cheer within thirty seconds of each other. You enjoy Ryan Gosling being funny while also being a scientist.

Maybe Skip If:

You need fast pacing throughout. You want action. You require your aliens to be humanoid. You were traumatized by high school physics.

Podcast Episode

We break down the book and the film in full, including the flashback structure, what the film lost, what it gained, and which of us was on their phone during the slow middle section. No names. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or at linktr.ee/chapteronesceneone.

If You Liked the Book, Try:

• The Martian by Andy Weir
• Old Man's War by John Scalzi
• Recursion by Blake Crouch
• The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
• Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

If You Liked the Movie, Watch:

• The Martian (2015)
• Arrival (2016)
• Interstellar (2014)
• Gravity (2013)
• Apollo 13 (1995)

FAQ

Is Project Hail Mary better as a book or movie? One of us said film. One said book. One said the film was better but she also hadn't finished the book, so take that for what it's worth.

Do you need to read the book before watching the movie? No. The film works as a standalone. But the book gives you the science, the isolation, and the full weight of what Grace signed up for, and it makes everything land differently.

Is it actually hard sci-fi? Yes. People sell it as a soft entry point to sci-fi and it is not that. The audiobook helps.

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Most DNF’d Books Explained, It’s Not the Book, It’s the Expectations

This week on Chapter One Scene One, we discuss DNFing, why readers do it, and why you absolutely should not feel guilty about it. Life is too short and your TBR is too long. Put the book down. It's fine.

Michelle found a Goodreads list of the most DNF'd books on the internet and it sent us down a rabbit hole. Because when you look at the titles on that list, a pattern emerges. Most of these books didn't fail their readers. The expectations around them did.

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

Nobody framed this one correctly when it came out. Rowling wrote a book about small-town political scandal, class resentment, and the quiet cruelties people inflict on each other in a village. It's dark and it's good. The small community dynamics are exactly as suffocating and fascinating as they should be, and Laura liked it.

But every person who picked it up in 2012 was carrying ten years of Harry Potter expectations into it. "From the author of Harry Potter" is not a neutral piece of information. It primes you for something magical and propulsive, and The Casual Vacancy is neither of those things. The DNFs make complete sense when you understand what readers thought they were getting. That's not a failure of the book. That's a failure of expectation management.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

This book is excellent and almost impossible to describe accurately, which is part of why it ends up on this list. It's historical fiction set in 18th century Scotland with a romance at the center, some time travel involved, and magical elements woven throughout. Gabaldon's first editor said the books are too weird to describe to anybody. That's not a sales pitch. That's just the truth.

The other thing nobody tells you upfront: there are nine main novels published so far, with a tenth planned as the final installment. Every single one of them is a doorstopper. You are not picking up a book. You are signing a long-term lease. Readers who DNF Outlander often do so not because it's bad but because they didn't understand the scale of what they were committing to. That's an expectation problem, not a quality problem. Laura has read it and if you go in knowing what it is, it's an amazing read.

A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

The family tree complaints are real but they're covering for the actual issue, which is pure volume. Each book runs close to a thousand pages. That's not dense worldbuilding you can't follow. That's a time commitment a lot of readers didn't realize they were agreeing to when they picked up what looked like a fantasy novel. The detail is rewarding if you stay with it, and Laura did, but a lot of people just didn't know how long staying with it was actually going to take.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

All three of us love the musical. Katya did not love this book, and honestly the gap between those two things tells you everything you need to know about why it's on this list.

The musical gives you a misunderstood villain, a friendship, and some great songs. The book gives you a lonely, complicated woman trying to find where she fits in a world that never made room for her, wrapped in political allegory and moral ambiguity that the musical did not warn you about. Laura finished it and describes it as a story about a sad girl trying to find her place. It's not a bad story. It's just not the story most people thought they were reading, and Katya's reaction is not unusual. If the musical is your whole frame of reference going in, the book is going to feel like a completely different thing. Because it is.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Honest answer: none of us have fully gotten through this one. It keeps landing on the to-read pile and then not happening. Laura has never made it past the first chapter and isn't entirely sure it's a mood problem. It might just not be her book. What we can say is that the readers who love it tend to be people who came in with no particular expectations and let it do whatever it wanted. The readers who bounced usually wanted something more structured. Gaiman at his most sprawling is not a controlled reading experience, and that's either a feature or a bug depending entirely on what you came for.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Laura finished this one and also had to have someone explain the allegory afterward to understand what she had actually read. The book operates on two levels simultaneously and Martel is not interested in walking you through which one is the real one. Readers who come in expecting a survival story get a survival story, and then the ending makes no sense to them. Readers who understand it's a philosophical novel about the nature of storytelling have a completely different experience. The expectation mismatch here feels almost intentional. It's a book that rewards knowing what kind of book it is before you start, which is a strange thing to say but genuinely true.

The through line across all of these is the same. Someone picked up a book expecting one thing and got another. Sometimes the marketing is responsible. Sometimes word of mouth flattened a complicated book into something more shareable than accurate. Sometimes the cultural moment around a title creates a reputation the book itself can't live up to.

DNFing doesn't make you a bad reader. It usually means the book didn't meet you where you were, or it wasn't what anyone told you it was going to be. We'd love to know where you land on it. Have you DNF'd any of these?

Come tell us.

Listen to the episode and find us everywhere here.

FAQs

What does DNF mean in reading?

DNF stands for "did not finish". It means a reader chose to stop reading a book before finishing it.

Is it okay to DNF a book?

Yes. If a book isn’t working for you, stopping is a valid reading choice. Time matters more than finishing something you’re not enjoying.

Why do people DNF popular books?

Most DNFs come down to mismatched expectations. Readers go in expecting one type of story and get something completely different.

What are the most commonly DNF’d books?

Books like The Casual Vacancy, Outlander, A Game of Thrones, Wicked, American Gods, and Life of Pi are often DNF’d, usually because readers expected a different kind of story.

Should you finish a book you’re not enjoying?

Not necessarily. Some readers have rules like 50 pages or 100 pages, but there’s no requirement to finish something that isn’t working.

Does DNFing make you a bad reader?

No. It usually means the book didn’t match your mood, expectations, or interests at that time.

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Reader Habits: Do You DNF Books? When to Quit Reading and When to Push Through

 

Do You DNF? We Have Opinions. They Are Not the Same.

In the first mini episode of our Reader Habits series, we’re tackling one of the most divisive reading questions: when do you quit a book, what counts as a DNF, and is it ever worth pushing through?

Short answer: we don’t agree.

 

Where We Landed (Sort Of)

One of us has a DNF shelf that predates Goodreads even offering one. One of us has six total DNFs across years of reading and feels genuine guilt about each one. One of us is somewhere in the middle, putting books "on pause" and calling it a day.

The guilt thing is real and we get into it. There's a difference between saying a book is bad and saying a book isn't for you, and that distinction matters more than you'd think.

 

What Actually Makes Us DNF a Book

Slow pacing is the biggest one. Bad writing is up there. Graphic content that hits too close to home. Being in the wrong mood for a genre you've burned yourself out on (not that anyone here would know anything about that).

Unlikeable characters, though? Not a dealbreaker. We'll read a whole book hoping someone gets murdered. That's just the thriller reader experience.

 

The Goodreads problem

We spent more time than we probably should have on whether a DNF counts toward your reading challenge. The answer is now yes, kind of, and we have feelings about it.

 

Listen to the full episode

This one is a quick one, bite-sized by design. Catch the DNF mini episode wherever you get your podcasts, and let us know where you fall: hard DNF, never DNF, or the pause-and-pretend method.

 

FAQ

What does DNF mean in reading?

DNF means “did not finish” and refers to stopping a book before completing it.

Is it okay to DNF a book?

Yes. Many readers regularly DNF books that don’t hold their interest.

Should you finish every book you start?

Not necessarily. It depends on your reading goals and preferences.

 

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