The Confession of an Impatient Reader

In the most recent episode of "Doctor Who," the Doctor turns the back of the book he is reading and tears out the final page, setting it aside. He hates endings, you see, and, this way, the story never has to end. I, on the other hand, need to know what's going to happen. I am an impatient reader.

I have often paused in my reading of a book to flip ahead randomly and see if a current conflict resolves happily, if a flirting couple get together, if a plot point that is boring me comes to an end anytime soon. It's dangerous when I do this while reading a mystery book, because I can inadvertantly find out whodunit before I want to. But, more often than not, I just don't care because I need to know.

Last night I was reading "Silence," the third book in Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush, hush series. I liked the first two books, but was also frustrated by them. I wanted more of the main characters together. They were supposed to be the star couple of the series and they spent more time apart than together. In the beginning of "Silence," Nora, the female lead character, has no memory of Patch, the male lead character. I nearly screamed in frustration. Enter my impatient reader habit. I flipped ahead thirty, then forty pages. "Just show me when they get back together," I muttered to myself. Once I found sufficient evidence that they would reunite sooner rather than later, I turned back to the current page and continued reading. (And, I'm pleased to report that this book was easily my favorite book in the series thus far!)

So, what's your reading secret? Do you flip ahead like me? Do you read the last page first? Do you only read the first sentence of every paragraph until you get to dialogue?