Thus far 2018 has been a pretty good reading year for yours truly. I felt that my numbers were down last year and was disappointed with the number of novels I was able to pump out. Graphic novels, on the other hand, I read plenty of those. Hell, if it wasn’t for graphic novels I probably wouldn’t have met my Reading Challenge.

This year though, what a difference a year makes. I’ve reached a solid balance between novels and graphic novels and with a Reading Challenge of forty-five I’m currently sitting pretty at seventeen. Not too bad considering we’re halfway through April. With that being said though, I still have a goal to reach which means I can’t be wasting time on books that I’m not really enjoying which has lead to my first “quit” of the year.

You guys know that I don’t like quitting on a book. There’s just something defeating about it, but sometimes you just have to move on. I started The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle randomly last week. I was kind of in a spot where I knew what I wanted to read but my mind was like “nah, read something else” so I went searching through Gandalf the Kindle and saw that The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle was just sitting there so I opened it. Next thing I knew I was reading it during the day. Looked like I had found my latest read even though I didn’t feel overly committed to it.

This is my first real experience with Haruki Murakami, having heard a short story of his on season one of Levar Burton Reads (“The Second Bakery Attack”), which I really loved. I think it was that story that kind of triggered me into reading The Wind-Up Bird but it was too much for me. Not in the sense that the book was too long in the sense that I didn’t really see the book going anywhere. Everything about the story was random and existential, which I don’t mind, but around one hundred fifty pages in I didn’t really get the sense that this was going anywhere. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t necisarrily like it either. I’m not the type of person who needs their stories to end with a nice little ribbon on them, I prefer there being some debate or discussion, but this felt just a little too random for me.

I know that this is a trademark of Murakami’s style and I can respect that, and maybe the book has this amazing resolution where things come together and you’re like “oh shit”, but I’m not going to find out now. It seemed like six hundred pages was a bit steep for a story that may or may not have a payoff. So, I ditched it and ended up reading the book I originally intended to read in the first place, Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey. The first book in the Expanse series that came highly recommended to me by a friend. Plus, I hear really, really good things about the television show. I can already feel that this is going to go much, much better.

How about you Geeklings, what books have you quit on because you felt you didn’t have a choice? Do you think you’ll ever get back to them? Sound off in the comments. If you’d like to talk more about The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle or even Leviathan Wakes you can find me on Twitter @iamgeek32. What’s the purpose of reading if you’re not going to talk about them books.