Readers stop reading a book they enjoy when they put it down and forget to come back. Readers finish books they hate when they are assigned it for book clubs or else they want to hate-read and laugh about [it] with their friends . . . Just as a half-read book isn’t necessarily a failure, a completed book is not necessarily a success.

In a world where e-reading companies can track how many books (and what books) readers aren’t finishing and release the stats so panicky writers can scramble to make meaning of them, Lincoln Michel at Electric Literature defends the half-finished book.