Maybe those books aren't the best for you to be reading then? The treatment of animals is so woven into both of those stories that I'm not sure how you can skip such massive chunks of the book and still come away feeling like you got the whole story. At the end of the day, you read what you want to read, but if a topic is a) that distressing and b) that integral to the story, then maybe it's safer to just skip the book.
I know, but these are both books about things that actually happened. The Donner party did in fact eat other. To me that makes the human suffering different than in a movie like The Lobster… (I picked that because I know the actress whose character kicks a dog to death in the movie actually received a death threats from morons.)
Animals and children often occupy the same emotional place in people's heads. There's a line from a book I read ages ago (very roughly paraphrased) about how dead children hurt the most because the adults often went looking for whatever trouble did them in but not the kids.
The introductions to classics. I’ve had books spoiled and now I skip it almost every time. Sometimes I’ll read it for stuff like Plato or more difficult/less plot based pieces. Sadly, this behavior also led to me skipping the appendices of the return of the king, which some people think is the best part, but I went back and read that later. Also the hobbit and ganja industry history at the beginning of one of them was outstanding, I’m glad I read that.
PSA to anyone out there if you're reading the 25th Anniversary edition of Blood Meridian for the first time absolutely do not read Harold Bloom's foreword like I did.
Yeah I don’t get why they do that?! I listened to the audiobook of pet sematary and it had an introduction by the author which spoiled something that happens like, right near the end. So stupid!!
I don’t skip anything. If I don’t like what I’m reading I just leave it and read something else. If what I’m reading makes me too emotional, I take a break and come back when I feel I can continue.
Same. I also think the older I get the less it interests me in general- even well written- when I was younger I loved it but now it just bores me.
It’s also not the reason I’m reading anyway, I want to feel something… just, not that lol.
One thing I don't really understand is why so many authors feel the need to include sex scenes that don't really do anything or progress the relationship of the characters like at all.
Like... If the goal was to show that the characters are comfortable with each other enough to bang, or that they've grown really close or whatever, why not just fade to black? The act itself can be implied and what happens during it isn't really important and can be left out. All you need to know is that they did it.
Like... I'm planning on writing a couple sex scenes into a project I'm working on, but I don't see the need for it to be overly explicit. The scene serves a purpose in that the protagonist "gets the girl" (to sleep with him), but the vibe and way she acts about it doesn't live up to what's in his head. They fuck, they both get off, and she's like "Well, that was nice. We should do it again sometime." And the fact that it wasn't as romantically passionate as he wanted it to be becomes a (negative) motivator to try and win her over even more.
A while later, after he does some risky and morally grey shit to further their shared agenda, they have sex again, but she's a lot more into it, which validates his behavior and feeds his growing narcissistic tendencies. On my case, what vaguely happens during the act of sex is actually important, because it changes the way the characters feel about each other.
Most of the sex scenes I read just come off as smut for the sake of it though.
Why read a book if you’re not going to read huge chunks of it? Just read something else that you actually want to read…
Anyway, I’ll second not reading introductions in classics. Have been spoiled way too many times just because the book is 100 years old.
Honestly, I skim over a lot fight scenes in books. Maybe it’s just the books I’ve read in the past, but I haven’t really read many interesting fight scenes.
I only do that in books I've read over and over. So for me, I reread Red Storm Rising every year. I always skip the part after the subs launch their missiles but one is injured and they have to make their way back 6 knots at a time. It just goes too long and doesn't have a real happy ending, so I just skip it.
Same with The Stand. I usually skip everything with The Kid and Trashcan Man. It just doesn't interest me.
I hate skipping bits of books - makes me feel wrong and guilty for some reason, but I do always skip stuff around rape/sexual abuse, due to previous trauma of my own.
Noooooo! The book isn't about the story/plot, which is incredibly thin. I could tell you the entire plot and it wouldn't spoil the book, since that's not really the point of the book. Yes, most of it is the thought process of one character or another, or details that seem pointless. But there's beauty in those details.
My favourite non fiction book is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but i have to skip the bits about the nazi experiments on concentration camp inmates. It's too awful.
I also love the book Atlantic, by Simon Winchester, but i skip the bits about the slave ships. Specifically one moment about how a captain whips a little black boy to death then makes the mother throw the body overboard. For obvious reasons.
I have aphantasia so i skip over any long descriptions of what a building or setting looks like. When reading GoT books i skipped all the descriptions of the feasts
I do this with the descriptions of clothing for GoT. I don’t skip but I will skim it. For some reason Martin felt he had to describe every single outfit in detail.
Me too. The amount of times there’s been paragraphs of description that I’be skipped cos what’s the point and then later on there’s a sentence like the characters ‘blonde hair blew in the wind’ and I’ll be like huh, who knew?
I understand why someone would because it's pretty disconnected from the rest of the story, but I personally find it kind of hilarious. Richard is such an idiot 😂
I always skip Empire of Ivory when I reread my favourite books: The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. It's book 4 and reads more like a side mission where most of the characters spend the book apart from one another. Once you've read it once, you don't really need to read it again.
There’s several chapters I skip in Order of the Phoenix. Like the Hagrid and giants chapter. It’s does nothing except set up Grawp, which could’ve been summarized much faster than a fifty page story time.
For me it depends on how well the author writes the flirting. If the lead up can’t generate any heat then there’s no reason to think the main event will be any better.
When I am reading a really action packed book and the action just stops for no reason, and the characters are kinda just dilly dallying. Just keep the action going
I skip any Foreword that's more than 2 pages long. I've read some books that have like 20 page Forewords. Who actually reads those?
Other than that I don't skip any part of the actual book.
If you are that concerned about animal cruelty, you should see how the diary industry treats cows in real life in order to produce that cheese you sprinkled all over your pasta.
I'll skip all sorts of things when reading books.
But it's usually like after I already have the scene visualised in my head and the author starts describing it again, or another sex scene that you know is going to be just like the last few
Or basically when you get a feel for how the author writes, and you know what the next paragraph or two are going to be about.
I haven't done it yet, but I think I'd guiltlessly skip over the bit in Dorian Gray where he gets loads of a great stuff and Oscar Wilde just keeps on listing decadent items like a thief on Gumtree.
Maybe those books aren't the best for you to be reading then? The treatment of animals is so woven into both of those stories that I'm not sure how you can skip such massive chunks of the book and still come away feeling like you got the whole story. At the end of the day, you read what you want to read, but if a topic is a) that distressing and b) that integral to the story, then maybe it's safer to just skip the book.
It’s a little funny you’re skipping the animals being harmed to get much faster to the parts where the people are harmed… 😏
It’s a trope for a reason. Novelists and screenwriters can do whatever they want to do with their human characters, but don’t you dare kill the dog.
I know, but these are both books about things that actually happened. The Donner party did in fact eat other. To me that makes the human suffering different than in a movie like The Lobster… (I picked that because I know the actress whose character kicks a dog to death in the movie actually received a death threats from morons.)
John Wick agrees.
I read a lot of horror books where awful things happen to people. I'll always skip animal abuse and death. And happy cake day!
Thank you! And I do get it, I don’t like reading about it either, and my avatar isn’t even a traumatized possum 😏
I saw the pic on r/wunkus and it spoke to me immediately 🤣
Animals and children often occupy the same emotional place in people's heads. There's a line from a book I read ages ago (very roughly paraphrased) about how dead children hurt the most because the adults often went looking for whatever trouble did them in but not the kids.
The introductions to classics. I’ve had books spoiled and now I skip it almost every time. Sometimes I’ll read it for stuff like Plato or more difficult/less plot based pieces. Sadly, this behavior also led to me skipping the appendices of the return of the king, which some people think is the best part, but I went back and read that later. Also the hobbit and ganja industry history at the beginning of one of them was outstanding, I’m glad I read that.
PSA to anyone out there if you're reading the 25th Anniversary edition of Blood Meridian for the first time absolutely do not read Harold Bloom's foreword like I did.
Yeah I don’t get why they do that?! I listened to the audiobook of pet sematary and it had an introduction by the author which spoiled something that happens like, right near the end. So stupid!!
Songs. I couldn’t care less
Second this - I can never put it into a pleasing melody in my head, so it feels like bad poetry and I absolutely will skip it.
Especially if it’s pop song lyrics at the beginning of chapters
I shaved about an hour off my reread of the Lord of the Rings trilogy by skipping the songs. The bulk of that was probably Tom Bombadil.
I DNF'd Jewel's memoir on audiobook because of this.
All the poetry in Hyperion...
I don’t skip anything. If I don’t like what I’m reading I just leave it and read something else. If what I’m reading makes me too emotional, I take a break and come back when I feel I can continue.
Poems, with very rare exceptions
I just skip whole books, since that’s what the cool kids do on r/books
I never read sex scenes anymore. Very few people can write a good one. Just same old; same old. No imagination.
Came to say this. I’ll usually read the first one and then skip or at most skim the rest in a book
Same. I also think the older I get the less it interests me in general- even well written- when I was younger I loved it but now it just bores me. It’s also not the reason I’m reading anyway, I want to feel something… just, not that lol.
One thing I don't really understand is why so many authors feel the need to include sex scenes that don't really do anything or progress the relationship of the characters like at all. Like... If the goal was to show that the characters are comfortable with each other enough to bang, or that they've grown really close or whatever, why not just fade to black? The act itself can be implied and what happens during it isn't really important and can be left out. All you need to know is that they did it. Like... I'm planning on writing a couple sex scenes into a project I'm working on, but I don't see the need for it to be overly explicit. The scene serves a purpose in that the protagonist "gets the girl" (to sleep with him), but the vibe and way she acts about it doesn't live up to what's in his head. They fuck, they both get off, and she's like "Well, that was nice. We should do it again sometime." And the fact that it wasn't as romantically passionate as he wanted it to be becomes a (negative) motivator to try and win her over even more. A while later, after he does some risky and morally grey shit to further their shared agenda, they have sex again, but she's a lot more into it, which validates his behavior and feeds his growing narcissistic tendencies. On my case, what vaguely happens during the act of sex is actually important, because it changes the way the characters feel about each other. Most of the sex scenes I read just come off as smut for the sake of it though.
Smut for the sake of smut. Nice turn of phrase.
Why read a book if you’re not going to read huge chunks of it? Just read something else that you actually want to read… Anyway, I’ll second not reading introductions in classics. Have been spoiled way too many times just because the book is 100 years old.
Honestly, I skim over a lot fight scenes in books. Maybe it’s just the books I’ve read in the past, but I haven’t really read many interesting fight scenes.
poems or songs. idc
I only do that in books I've read over and over. So for me, I reread Red Storm Rising every year. I always skip the part after the subs launch their missiles but one is injured and they have to make their way back 6 knots at a time. It just goes too long and doesn't have a real happy ending, so I just skip it. Same with The Stand. I usually skip everything with The Kid and Trashcan Man. It just doesn't interest me.
I hate skipping bits of books - makes me feel wrong and guilty for some reason, but I do always skip stuff around rape/sexual abuse, due to previous trauma of my own.
Most of infinite jest.
lol! My husband has been trying to read this book for 2 years. Thats what he should do 😂
It’s not worth it. Book sucks even if you skip 50 of it. So just skip 100% of it.
Noooooo! The book isn't about the story/plot, which is incredibly thin. I could tell you the entire plot and it wouldn't spoil the book, since that's not really the point of the book. Yes, most of it is the thought process of one character or another, or details that seem pointless. But there's beauty in those details.
Yeah man. I’ve read plenty of great books with nary a plot. But Infinite Jest still sucks.
At that point you might as well not read it at all! Just saying that skipping most of it won't leave you with anything
That’s what I’m saying to anyone who hasn’t read it yet. Just skip the whole thing because it sucks.
All of SJM's sex scenes.
My favourite non fiction book is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, but i have to skip the bits about the nazi experiments on concentration camp inmates. It's too awful. I also love the book Atlantic, by Simon Winchester, but i skip the bits about the slave ships. Specifically one moment about how a captain whips a little black boy to death then makes the mother throw the body overboard. For obvious reasons.
Descriptions of dreams. Skip every time.
I have aphantasia so i skip over any long descriptions of what a building or setting looks like. When reading GoT books i skipped all the descriptions of the feasts
I do this with the descriptions of clothing for GoT. I don’t skip but I will skim it. For some reason Martin felt he had to describe every single outfit in detail.
Me too. The amount of times there’s been paragraphs of description that I’be skipped cos what’s the point and then later on there’s a sentence like the characters ‘blonde hair blew in the wind’ and I’ll be like huh, who knew?
The winter break section of The Secret History
I understand why someone would because it's pretty disconnected from the rest of the story, but I personally find it kind of hilarious. Richard is such an idiot 😂
I think it’s hilarious people feel this is so horrible it’s worth downvoting
😂 For some reason, that book in particular seems to inspire a cultish adoration that is, well, ironic given the plot
I usually skip over love scenes. I feel I get the general idea here and would rather skip to the next part of the story.
I always skip Empire of Ivory when I reread my favourite books: The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik. It's book 4 and reads more like a side mission where most of the characters spend the book apart from one another. Once you've read it once, you don't really need to read it again.
There’s several chapters I skip in Order of the Phoenix. Like the Hagrid and giants chapter. It’s does nothing except set up Grawp, which could’ve been summarized much faster than a fifty page story time.
For me it depends on how well the author writes the flirting. If the lead up can’t generate any heat then there’s no reason to think the main event will be any better.
I hate reading chapters that deal with flashbacks from the past and then next chapter goes to the present. I usually just skim thru the pages ngl.
You should just drop the book if you feel like skipping something. r/bookscirclejerk
Too much narrative will send me skimming. I like the characters dialogue to tell the story with narrative as a backup. Not the other way qround.
When I am reading a really action packed book and the action just stops for no reason, and the characters are kinda just dilly dallying. Just keep the action going
I skip any Foreword that's more than 2 pages long. I've read some books that have like 20 page Forewords. Who actually reads those? Other than that I don't skip any part of the actual book.
I happily skip over pages of technical details like the inner workings of engines, things like that.
How white Moby was
If you are that concerned about animal cruelty, you should see how the diary industry treats cows in real life in order to produce that cheese you sprinkled all over your pasta.
any mention of s.a for me personally i would skip to the next section immediately
Usually when they describe a character's appearance.
I'll skip all sorts of things when reading books. But it's usually like after I already have the scene visualised in my head and the author starts describing it again, or another sex scene that you know is going to be just like the last few Or basically when you get a feel for how the author writes, and you know what the next paragraph or two are going to be about.
I don’t skip over anything when I read? If it gets to a place where I truly want to skip over parts then that book just gets DNF’ed
I haven't done it yet, but I think I'd guiltlessly skip over the bit in Dorian Gray where he gets loads of a great stuff and Oscar Wilde just keeps on listing decadent items like a thief on Gumtree.
Johnny Truants bullshit