One of the delights of being in a book club is reading books you wouldn’t have chosen yourself. This can be super frustrating at times, but usually it’s nice to dive into something totally different than your typical reading fare. Especially when that book is impossible to put down.
My latest book club installment was one of these books. I devoured it in two days flat and experienced actual pain when I had to wait until after my little one’s bedtime to read the last 50 pages. The funny thing is that after finishing the book, I didn’t think it was that great. The writing was mediocre, the plot holes were GAPING, and I didn’t like either of the main characters. And yet I was enthralled with their story in a way I haven’t been in a long time. It was nice to get carried off like that.
Was the book impossible to put down because it was absolutely dripping with drama? Maybe. It was a thriller after all. But even if it wasn’t artfully written, the book did some extremely smart things to keep readers hooked. Which got me thinking: what makes a book truly unputdownable?
7 Strategies that Make a Book Impossible to Put Down
Strategy #1: Precipitous Cliffhangers
This is a writing practice that I fully embrace in my own books (and have improved on so much in the past decade, I assure you). This was also something my latest book club read did flawlessly. Rather than winding down the action at the end of chapters, this book put a chapter break right when things were getting good. Every time. I found myself saying “just one more chapter” over and over again. Before I knew it, I was halfway through the book in one sitting. I credit that to the chapter endings that were impossible to put down.
Strategy #2: Emotional Investment
This one was interesting because usually I get emotionally invested in the characters. This wasn’t quite the case with this book since the characters did all kinds of bizarre things that made them annoying rather than endearing. But I will say that this book had A LOT of emotion in it from the plot choices alone. The whole book immersed the reader in an ongoing feeling of dread. The feeling that something insidious was going on and that the main character (likeable or not) was in very real danger. This unsettling feeling that things were about to get frightening at any moment made me turn pages like my own life depended on it. Because I had to know.
Strategy #3: Relatable Characters
This might sound like a contradiction since I just said I didn’t like the characters in this book. But despite that, I admit that the main character was super relatable in just about every scene. The author made this character down on her luck in a compelling way and put her in situations over and over again that were extremely unfair. And therefore deeply frustrating for her. Frustration is a powerful emotion for a reader. I don’t know about you, but when characters are in scenarios that are clearly unjust, it’s grating to read. And I find myself thinking about what I would do if I were in the same situation. That’s kind of the definition of relating to someone. And just like that, you want to know what happens next.
Strategy #4: Breakneck Pacing
I love me a book with short, to-the-point chapters. Even if the writing itself wasn’t very impressive, this book’s pacing was awesome. It’s interesting that a book with slice-of-life storytelling could be so unputdownable. You would think that normal daily tasks would get boring, but this book was incredibly good at delivering new information in every single chapter—and making those chapters as short as possible. This is a big green flag when making a book impossible to put down. And I can’t help but respect a book that moves faster and faster as the plot unfolds.
Strategy #5: Hair-raising Suspense
I’ve written about suspense before, and boy did this book have SUSPENSE. It didn’t kick into high gear until the second half of the book, but as I mentioned before, the undercurrents of dread were there from the beginning. And they did their job. This book also foreshadowed the inevitability of the main character’s worst fears coming true. It was both horrifying and very correct when Chekov’s gun finally went off. Readers love seeing predictions come true almost as much as we love finding out big secrets as a plot unfolds.
Strategy #6: Unpredictable Twists
Speaking of big secrets, this book had HUGE secrets. To be honest, this was actually the weakest aspect of the book: the big reveals weren’t set up well at all, which left them feeling ridiculous instead of cool and intentional. And yet I was so into the book by the time these problems came to light that it was too late. Even if I was rolling my eyes, I was already hooked. And I was definitely going to finish this book. I guess that’s the point of a book being impossible to put down. If your reader has to know the ending, they’re more likely to forgive mistakes and just keep reading.
Strategy #7: Raising the Stakes
This. THIS was one of the best things about this book. Readers love it when rising action brings rising stakes. And this book set the stakes pretty much perfectly in my opinion. We got to watch as the main character went from being concerned about keeping her job to being concerned about her safety. Then she was concerned about her entire future. And then concerned about losing her life. It kept ramping up until the climax exploded, and it felt so right. I think this was a huge reason why the book was so satisfying to read, even if it disappointed me in the character department. I’m usually not one to forgive that. But hey, this book was unputdownable. And I salute any author who achieves that.
The Big Takeaway: Fast, Fierce, and Fun Makes a Book Impossible to Put Down
We all know the cliché of “keeping readers on the edge of their seats.” It’s a tired old phrase, but I think it applied better to this book than anything I’ve read in a long, long time. The book had plenty wrong with it, but it still got under my skin. And I just had to know how it ended. Not in a flip-to-the-last-page kind of way. I wanted to read all the drama and experience the plot along with the main character. And that’s probably the highest compliment you could pay any writer about a story they created. ❧
