Where's Your Breaking Point?

So it's getting closer and closer to Mardi Gras day and the city is charged, electric. Add in the fact that Louisianians from outside Orleans parish and football fans from everywhere else are coming in to watch the Superbowl this weekend, and it's getting a bit congested in my little city.

The party atmosphere is pervasive-- everywhere but the roads, where tensions run as high as they always do, only there are twice as many of us. And I'd need to get on the streetcar at 7:45 to get to Canal St. before the Griswolds* slow everything down. The closer it gets to Fat Tuesday, the harder it gets to cross Bourbon, and if I want to get home quickly, I have to. It's enough to make you want to scream.

So I understand the people who decide that staying in town through Mardi Gras isn't worth it. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who live in the French Quarter, and frankly, if I did, I'd seriously think of leaving town, too. A lot of Griswolds treat the Quarter like it's their own personal toilet, or whore-house, or sleazy motel-room--during carnival and the rest of the year--which would definitely drive me crazy if I had to come out of my house to find someone passed out in their own vomit on my sidewalk. That would be the straw that broke the camel's back.

This and my recent post about Hush, Hush got me thinking about a topic that's been pretty popular on writing blogs lately--

Where is your breaking point? As in, what makes you quit reading a book? How much will you put up with just to find out how a book ends? Will lackluster plot/characters/style keep you from even caring how it ends at all?

I don't care if the reasons are shallow or profound, because there are plenty of shallow reasons that I've left books unfinished. I used to hate to read the classics because my dad had old versions with very small print that very close together. Honestly, typeface is one of the biggest detractors. Second is wimpy heroines, and third would be that nothing of interest is going on. I've never actually thrown a book across the room, but I've definitely wanted to.

So tell me, my dear bloggers. Where's your breaking point?

Tune in tomorrow for my Fight Scene Blogfest Offering!


*slang for tourists, alternatively called "tourons" by some, as in Clark W. Griswold, the most famous touron of them all