Have you ever gotten part way through an interesting story, and found yourself too impatient and curious to wait to find out what happens in the end? Perhaps you peeked at the last few pages. ‘Cheating’ in this manner can produce one of two effects: If the story could break the spell, in which case reading the rest of the book might seem a pointless exercise. But if the story was not a cliffhanger, knowing the outcome might allow you to look at the rest of the story in a different, more enlightened manner. You would know which points in the story to concentrate on and which were irrelevant to the outcome. It would be easy to skim through the chapters that didn’t have a direct bearing on the final outcome. The time you saved could be spent reading another book.