How to Break Up with a Book

Learn to feel like a baller, only reading what you love

Life is too short to spend it reading books you hate

My longest love affair has been with books. They’re fun to buy and you can never have enough. But like all relationships, sometimes we stick with one longer than we should. I’m talking about the type of book we force ourselves to to read until the bitter end, one miserable page after another. This is about the books that suck and how to dump them.

I started to realize this is a real problem recently when public proclamations were popping up, asking for support, often in the form of New Year’s resolutions:

“Help me, as I give myself permission to stop reading a book I hate!”

All from women. These cries stick in my mind like that bad ‘80s ballad you hear and can’t shake from your brain. I keep wondering why it’s so hard for us to break up with a book we don’t love? FOMO? We’ve heard how ah-maze-ing it is? And self-doubt, for sure.

Oprah Said I Should

“Jenna, Reese and Mindy can’t all be wrong. They’re way more sophisticated and successful than me, just look at them,” we beat ourselves up, in cruel comparison. “Or look at Oprah. She hangs out with the Dalai Lama. Of course she should tell me what to read. Who am I not to listen?”

We give strangers more credit than we give ourselves. So of course it’s impossible to go with our instincts. We’re too busy berating ourselves.

But we can change! Here’s how I went from being a dedicated reader, forcing myself to finish every book, to being someone who actually feels empowered breaking up with a book. Now, I feel like a baller. I break up with books all the time. There is so much to read. There is no reason to force yourself to stick with something that sucks for you. I don’t care if I’ve read five or 50 pages. If I’m bored, I let myself swipe left:

“Nah, I’m not doing you.”

Here’s how I changed.