It is okay not to finish a book

 As a child, I always struggled with not finishing a book. For years, it bothered me that I couldn’t finish "Anna Karenina".

I have always felt compelled by some force to finish this book I started.A few years ago, I realized it was okay not to complete it. I was no longer in school, so reading was not required, and there would be no pop quiz or research paper.

My free time is sacred to me because I have so little. I will not waste time reading something I do not enjoy. I have been a Dean Koontz fan since high school, over 30 years ago. I have read most of his 140 books.

I was excited to see that Koontz had released a new book. I tried to wait until my vacation at the end of May to start reading it but started it a week early. I am so glad I did because the half of the book I forced myself to read was awful.

“The Bad Weather Friend” is about a guy named Benny Catspaw who is so nice that someone feels compelled to destroy him. Benny’s perpetually sunny disposition is tested when he loses his job, his reputation, his fiancée and his favorite chair. He’s not paranoid. Someone is out to get him. He just doesn’t know who or why. Then Benny receives an inheritance from an uncle he’s never heard of: a giant crate and a video message. All will be well in time.

How strange―although it’s a blessing, his uncle promises. Stranger yet is what’s inside the crate. He’s a seven-foot-tall self-described “bad weather friend” named Spike whose mission is to help people who are just too good for this world. Spike will take care of it. He’ll find Benny’s enemies. He’ll deal with them. This might be satisfying if Spike weren’t such a menacing presence with terrifying techniques of intimidation.

In the company of Spike and a fascinated young waitress who is also a PI-in-training named Harper, Benny plunges into a perilous high-speed adventure, the likes of which never would have crossed the mind of a decent guy like him.

When I read the above on the book jacket and read an article where Koontz said this was one of his favorite books he had written, I was excited when I started it, but this book was not good. Usually, I start a Dean Koontz book and have to tear myself away from it to do other things. I lost interest after a few chapters and couldn’t read it. The book felt as if Koontz had taken several stories he had written and combined them into one.

Now, I am not washing my hands of Koontz’s book, but I will take a short break from him.

I read “She’s Not Sorry” by Mary Kubica as my vacation read. I thoroughly enjoyed it.