So, I thought I would give a little update regarding DNFs. I have always been a staunch believer in DNFing books. DNFing anything. Growing up I was always the kid that would quit a hobby if I stopped enjoying it or if it wasn’t how I imagined. I was the first person to give up and walk away and that it something that has stayed with me into my adult years. And never more clearly than in my reading!

But I have always questioned how to truly include my DNFs in my stats and end of year posts. I started not including them and feeling really bummed out when my DNFs meant I didn’t reach my goal. (I was not the fast and accomplished reader than I am now) so I started including them in my overall numbers but making a note on how many DNFs I did that year. I always felt guilty including them, like I cheated some how, despite this literally being a hobby. Then last year I decided to not care. I wouldn’t include very quick DNFs like 10 page/20 page decisions but anything longer (my ball park is 100 pages or 25% of the book) I would just count towards my goal.

But my friend Morgan, when I told them my way of thinking, was horrified about me including DNFs. And it got me thinking again for the first time in ages about DNFing. Like how do I truly want to log those. DNFing is essential to me and my way of reading. You will never see me force myself through a book. I would rather put it down and pick up a better book. But how do I include all the books I read this year? Even the quick 10-50 page DNFs? Then I remembered a TikTok about how you could create an exclusive shelf on Goodreads to just your DNFs. So recently I officially decided to change my way of rating and logging DNFs.

On my own personal reading log I will count every book read whether that be partially, halfway through or the entirety. On Goodreads, if I read under half I will place it on my official DNF shelf and not count it towards my overall reading goal. But, if I read 50% or over or a substantial about of pages i.e. 200 then I will count it as read on Goodreads but flag it as a DNF later! I will only count the books though that are marked as read on Goodreads but I do like to keep note of all the books I have read/attempted to read over the year.

I don’t know why I am sharing this as it’s not super ground breaking but I wanted to write down and talk about my thought process! 🙂