Definitely past the Point of No Return | Image credit: unknown.
Picture me in a cheap hotel in Aberdeen, South Dakota. I’m there to recruit the following day.
But right now it’s a little after midnight, and I’m nearing the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the very first time. I’m counting horcruxes on my fingers every ten minutes, turning pages like a speedster, heart pounding.
I’d passed the Point of No Return. I knew that book would be finished before I went to bed, no matter how long it took. (I think I managed to fall asleep around 2 or 2:30 am.)
I try to be smart about reading at bedtime, but sometimes you just have to MAKE. IT. HAPPEN. That night. No matter what. No matter how few hours of sleep you’ll get or how much it will suck to get up, no matter how much you’ll have to struggle through work or school the next day.
I’ve thought about what constitutes my reading Point of No Return: fewer than 100 pages left (usually), nearing the climax of the book, characters I’m invested in, and probably some kind of fear. 🙂
What’s your Point of No Return in reading?
On nights when I start a book later in the evening and it captures me right away… Usually around 12:00/12:30am, I say, “Just one more page…” Which takes me to 1:00, where I say “May as well finish.”
For some books the point of no return is immediate, but for most books I would say once I’m within 50 pages it is pretty impossible for me to put it down without finishing it.