Do I finish reading a book that doesn’t meet genre expectations?
As with so many of these questions … it depends.
I often buy books based on their genre and description, but they then get downloaded to my Kindle … and they sit there. As a result, I may not always remember what genre a book is supposed to be when I start reading.
Some books make the genre clear from the title: A Match Made at Christmas is likely to be a romance, while Fatal Illusions is likely to be a thriller or suspense novel. Others are less obvious: Going South or Bridges could be anything from lighthearted fiction (romance or rom-com) to serious nonfiction (travel and architecture, perhaps). It doesn’t matter.
If I’m enjoying the book, I’ll keep reading.
But I will occasionally not finish reading a book because it doesn’t meet genre expectations. For example, if a book is supposed to be a romance and I’m halfway through before boy meets girl … well, I probably won’t get that far.
What if the romance doesn’t have a happy ever after ending? I’ll finish the book (how else do I find out about the off-genre ending?), but I’ll be wary about buying or reading anything else from that author.
I mostly buy Christian fiction, so do expect the books on my Kindle to be either Christian or “sweet and wholesome”.
I may therefore give up on a book that has bad language, drunkenness, excessive violence, or sexual situations if I bought it expecting it to be Christian or sweet.
But that doesn’t mean I’ll abandon every book at the first bad word. I recently read Wanderers by Chuck Wendig. It’s a brilliant book, but does have a lot of colourful language. However, I’ve read Chuck’s blog so the language didn’t surprise me. If I saw the same language in a Christian novel, I would be unlikely to keep reading because that’s not what I expect in Christian fiction.
