Roger Sutton has a post here about giving up on a book that's just not clicking with you as a reader. I have to say that I fully support this. Life is finite, you know? I'm not going to stick with a book or a movie or a television show that I feel is a waste of my time.* Of course, there are some things that are worth the time--David Foster Wallace for me, Faulkner for my friend Anonymous, we all have our little ballywicks--and I believe in giving a book a fair chance. A book under 200 pages gets at least 50 to get moving for me, and a book over 200 pages gets at least a 100, but if I'm not interested by then?* Forget it. I'm not going to be interested. Another factor that sometimes comes into play is how long it takes me to read the pages. I'm normally a very fast reader. Fifty pages of your average level adult fiction won't take me a half hour, even if (or especially if) I like it.** If it takes me an hour, or two, or three, I don't like the book.
Jay Montville's Blog