I'm in my early 30s too, and in recent years, I've come to value my time significantly, so I have absolutely zero anxiety over dropping something that I am not finding enjoyable. Books, movies, TV series, whatever. You can literally never obtain more time, so why deliberately waste your most precious resource on garbage?

For a reading system, I have a stack of books I've purchased and not read. I try not to let it go too high. When I'm picking what to read next, I target books that are standalone first, and then books as part of a series, because some of the series books means I actually have to read 3 other books I bought/read years ago and don't remember that well before I can read the 4th book that I purchased and haven't read. I target to finish at least one book a week, so I'll take the total number of pages and make a daily reading goal for myself. If I'm borrowing any books, then those are top of my list so I can return them to their owner and not keep them for 6 months.

I'm not big on clutter, so when I'm done with the books, I filter them into a "to shelf" stack or "to donate/sell" stack. I take care of them once I run out of space in my little stack, so about once a quarter.

I mean, you clearly don't want to. So I would read the dedication, and go "aw, thanks Dad" and leave it at that. You don't really need anyone else's permission to not do a thing you don't want to do.

Agreed! We've had a number of books at my book club where people were divided between "absolute garbage that should not be available for sale" to "5 stars, one of my favorite recent reads, devoured in a day."

A locally owned small business for physical books and libro.fm for audiobooks. The store I shop at will also order in any books I want, even if it's not something they'd choose to stock otherwise.

I've gotten to the point that I'm extremely hesitant if the original source of the hype is booktok. The amount of crap my book club has had me slog through because booktok said...

Please read the link: she is contractually signed for 3 more Murderbot books.

She's confirmed for three more! https://www.tor.com/2021/04/26/tordotcom-publishing-acquires-six-martha-wells-books-including-three-murderbot-diaries/

My favorite series I also discovered recently! I just finished book 6 last week, and I'm itching to re-read the series already.

You're on r/books. We talk about books here.

I personally think it works great for both the meditative nature of Monk and Robot, which isn't telling a traditional story, and to tell a tight, concise story that doesn't have a wimpy middle like in the Murderbot diaries.

I do on Goodreads because, if I read enough of a book to know I didn't like it, I want it in my GR's list so I don't subject myself to it again.

I don't really "count" how many books I've read for any other purpose, though.