As I’ve written before, for me, the hallmark of a good book is the fact that I can’t possibly put it down. For the most part, these books fit into the thriller and suspense genre. Although there have been novels in the past, l’d classify as literary fiction, which moved me to my core that fit the bill. Thought provoking and deep.

From childhood, I have also had the tendency to plow through books that left quite bit to be desired. The story didn’t grab me. The characters weren’t relatable. Something, somewhere was off. But I still turned the pages until I was done.

Over the past 18 years or so, there were a couple of exceptions to this practice. And till this day, it still perplexes me because they are novels by authors who I adore. And authors who I have devoured almost every selection in their complete library of work. The culprits were “A Prayer for Owen Meaney” by John Irving and “The Poisonwood Bible” by Barbara Kingsolver.

There actually was another book that I actually read to exactly page 183 and gave up, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” but friends convinced me to try again…I actually only needed to get another 20 pages further and then I couldn’t put it down. Subsequently, I read the other “Girl” books in the series, one right after another.

Given the result of changing my mind about “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” about a year and a half ago, I picked up both “A Prayer for Owen Meaney” and “The Poisonwood Bible.” Unfortunately, nope, reading both books till their end didn’t happen. Which brings me to today. In the last year or so, I have read books by Mary Kubica (“The Good Girl” and “Don’t You Cry” that I have loved. Both novels definitely fell into the ‘can’t put it down’ and pretty much reading all in one sitting category. However, I picked up and started reading “Every Last Lie” and am just not feeling it. I have tried to cleanse my palate with some other books, to just rotate the reading around. Not sure if it is just the storyline or because it is so close to the theme of “The Marriage Lie,” which I finished reading a short time ago.

So I’m at the “should I abandon or not’ point in time? The bookmark is still housed within,  and it isn’t due back to the library for a couple of weeks. So I am thankful I can stew and ponder and not make a decision today.