Forget the Hype — 7 Red Flags That Trigger a DNF
The Rubric: A breakdown of why I walked away from one of the most hyped books of the year (less than) halfway through. A somewhat harsh but honest look at specific "red flags" that could trigger any discerning reader's exit strategy.
The DNF Rule
So … I usually pride myself on being a good book selector. Not because I am infallible, it’s just that I’ve read enough books to be able to gauge where (my) taste merges with quality—usually.
In any case, I am not Romantic about finishing a book. I have a 50 to 100-page Rule, depending on the book's length. Some books, I am just curious to see how an author writes or how they started that particular book. But if a book doesn’t do it for me in fifty or a hundred pages, I will DNF without hesitation or remorse.
Recently, though, I hit a stretch of clunkers that culminated in a novel so poorly executed that I felt myself getting dumber by the page. (I’m sorry, I know this is extreme, teetering on melodrama and bordering on malicious, but I promise it's true.) Now I won't name the title—I have too much respect for authors and the creative process to trash a book publicly—but I will share the reasons it failed.
Whether it’s a craft issue or something beyond the book, here are 7 Red Flags that tell me a book is not worth finishing. (Note: one or two alone might be fine, but when they start to stack up, something is off.)
1. The Hype-to-Quality Gap
When a book is championed by “reputable” legacy media outlets and lands on every "Best of" list, it sets a baseline of expected quality. When a book misses that mark by a mile, it’s not just a letdown, it’s a signal that the curators have become unreliable. This might be more of a statement on media, why I started (Better) Books, but either way, the book is caught in the crossfire. And a bullet is a bullet.
2. Transgression Without Precision
I love transgressive fiction, but it demands a level of craftsmanship that "safe" books don't. If you’re going to swing for the fences with provocative themes, your execution must be flawless. Without precision, transgression just becomes hacky. Subjective, certainly, but maybe the next five will help with what I mean.
3. The "Who Cares?" Character Trap
This is a huge problem. I don’t need characters to be likable—at all, for that matter—but I do need them to be redeeming or, at the very least, interesting. If every person on the page is so repulsive (and uninteresting) that I’m hoping the next page is blank just to stop spending time with them, the author has lost not just me, but the story completely.
4. The 100-Page Delay
If a book is "sold" on a specific premise, it needs to deliver on that premise before page 100. You cannot bury the story under an avalanche of exposition and expect the reader to wait until the second act for the story actually to begin. I know this is a novel, things can be slower, take their time to a degree, and there are an infinite number of ways to write a novel—still, the best don’t wait on the real story, however obscure or overt it may be.
5. Overwrought Prose
There is a specific kind of writing that tries way too hard to be impressive. When every sentence is cluttered with unnecessary similes and metaphors, the prose becomes the antithesis of high quality. At least under my definition of great writing. Sure, there are legendary counterexamples to this, of course, but they usually have other things going for them. In short, it’s a sentence-level struggle that pulls the reader out of the story and kills the narrative drive.
6. Unearned Decisions
A character’s actions must be earned. Full stop. Bottom line. When characters make massive, transgressive pivots without proper setup or psychological indication, the story logic collapses. It becomes unbelievable—a death sentence for any storyteller. You’re left asking "Why?" for all the wrong reasons. And if you’re writing a story heavy on subtext, leaving things off the page intentionally—something I love, by the way—the necessity of craft and execution is put under even higher demand.
7. The Tired Story
In literary fiction, the "Who Cares?" factor applies to the plot, too. If we’ve seen these kinds of people doing these kinds of things a thousand times before, and there is no new lens, and again, absent a true mastery of craft to justify the repetition, then it’s just a tired story.
“Artistry involves cruelty. You have to be cruel to be an artist.” — Martin Scorsese
The Ultimate DNF Lesson
You have to trust that the author will pull the story together. If you lose that belief for whatever reason, the thing to do is go. It’s not worth pressing on.
Protecting your time is not a lofty or "sh*tty" thing to do—it's a requirement for anyone who wants to read better books. There are too many great books to read. And there is too little time to read them. Just stop. Move on. A better book awaits.
Douglas Vigliotti, 2026
*Listen to the “7 Reasons to DNF” podcast episode: Apple / Spotify.
Don't Just Read. Read (Better) Books. 🫠
Once a month, I send out a lean digest of the "definitive" and "essential" reads I’ve found, so you don't have to waste time on the clunkers. No fluff, no filler, just the good stuff.