Let's Talk About... Do You DNF?

DNFing is something I think just about everyone has a kind of opinion on. It may not be especially strong, but we all do something when we're just not feeling a book.

Before I started blogging, I had no idea there was even a kind of term for not finishing a book, but it was actually something I did a lot more back then--though in a very different spirit. Before blogging, I would get kind of uninterested in books if they took me too long to read and sometimes I would just never finish them, but I also had no incentive to finish a book other than having finished.

I never DNFed something with the idea that I hated it, only that I'd lost interest at the moment. Even now any of those books are books I'd like to come back to and try again. No ill will, just bad timing, not what I was in the mood for.

Now, however, I get through so many more books than I used to, and oftentimes I'm not reading a book long enough to ever truly get bored of it. Before it was annoying that it was taking me so long to read something, but now, if I ever consider putting down a book it's because I'm so bored and/or uncaring that I can't be bothered to continue with the story. This can happen at any point in the book, five pages in or fifty.

And yet, in my time blogging, I've only truly DNFed one book. I seriously considered quitting Searching for Sky last week, though, and that's what got me thinking. For whatever reason, stopping reading a book makes me feel like a quitter. I still somehow want to know what's going to happen in the end, but don't want to miss what happens in the interim either. I feel like, with ever page turn, there's the possibility the story is going to get interesting--and I don't want to miss that! So I make myself continue, even though I'm secretly banging my head against things in frustration and boredom.


I told myself I'd DNF more this year, but it's not happened, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm just not someone who DNFs, if it's just not me. As desperately as I'd like to move on to the next book, I need some kind of resolution and that means I finish the book, even if I'm suffering. 
And I think that's okay, even if I throw the book out the window at the end.

So what about you? Do you DNF? Or you do continue on in pain and suffering? If you DNF, what makes you stop reading a book? If you don't, why not?