Every once in a while, I stumble upon a book that I have a hard time finishing. This month's book was one of them. Shift by Ethan Kross had some insightful lessons that I genuinely enjoyed. Learning about emotional regulation and how it can be directly linked to our five senses was something I'll probably always remember. However, I found myself not wanting to read the book and avoiding it. This surprised me. I thought this would be a topic that would keep me hooked. Even though I found the content interesting, the way it was written didn't keep me engaged. I liked the stories that were used to introduce the concepts, but once those stories were told, it felt as if the book became a lecture. This month, I listened to this book every week as I drove to class (1-hour commute). Normally, when something is good, the time flies by and I think about the book deeply. I even record little voice notes to myself instead of highlighting so I remember what I'm learning. With this book, my mind ended up wandering a lot. I just couldn't focus on the material being read. After a few months of 5-star books, it's actually nice to give a book 3 stars. I'm sharing this because it's important to talk about the books that we don't finish. Whenever I come across a book that's boring, I usually feel some pressure to finish it. But what ends up actually happening is I avoid the book, and I end up not reading anything at all. My entire reading habit suffers because of one book. This month, I gave myself permission to let go of that pressure. You may have noticed that last week I didn't send a weekly email. That's because I honestly did not read any more of this book, and I decided to put it down. Even though I can't say that I completed this month's book, I can happily say that I focused on reading other things instead and ended up finishing another book that I enjoyed a lot more. I'd love to hear from you. How do you handle books that you don't enjoy reading? --- Related Notes: - [[The Eye of the Tiger]] - [[2026 Book Club Emails]] This note was originally created on **March 28, 2026**.