My book club buddy told me to skip the first 100 pages of 'Infinite Jest'

He said the start was too dense and I should jump to the famous tennis academy parts. I did it, but then I was totally lost for the whole meeting last week. Everyone was talking about characters and plot points I had zero clue about. Has anyone else tried skipping parts of a book and regretted it big time?

4 comments

4 Comments

lily573mo ago

My cousin tried that with a different book and had the same problem. The start is usually there for a reason.

mianelson3mo ago

Exactly. Sometimes the slow start is building a world or a character's normal life so the later chaos hits harder. It can feel like a slog, but the payoff makes sense of it all.

angelaw781mo agoMost Upvoted

Pile on to what mianelson said, because that's exactly right. Some of the best books I've read start with a whole bunch of everyday stuff, like what the character has for breakfast or how they walk to school. It feels boring until you realize that normal breakfast is the last peaceful meal they'll ever have. Then when the twist comes, you actually care because you know what they lost. It's like the author is tricking you into building a relationship with the character before they break your heart. Without that slow start, the big moment would just be noise.

phoenix_bailey3mo ago

Wait, so what kind of reason are we talking about? Like, are there books where the slow start is actually setting up a huge twist later that makes it all worth it? I'm trying to think of an example where I pushed through and was glad I did.