Book Ideas- How Long into a Book Do You Give up If You're Not Enjoying It?

If you're enjoying The Goldfinch, have you read that author's first book, The Secret History? It's even better.

LOL I am struggling right now with my current book, the one for my book club, which is The Rosie Project. I am determined to finish it (even though it's not great) because I'm the one who picked it out, grrr.
Check out Burial Rites by Hannah Kent, one of the most amazing books I've read this year. Wild by Cheryl Strayed is well done and fun too, and coming out as a movie this weekend!
I absolutely LOVED The Goldfinch. Some truly amazing storytelling there, enjoy! You might also like All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (sp?)

I read biographies of people I want to read about. I'm never not interested. My favorite is The Life of Johnny Cash.

I'll dump a book if I just feel like I'm not getting anything from it, sometimes in the first few pages.

Love Haruki Murakami: really liked Wild Sheep Chase and Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Both have that sense of the surreal that I love about his writing. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is always great reading as well. His later books are wonderful, but maybe I have a nostalgia for that feeling of discovery when I first started reading his stuff.

For myself, I'm reading PG Wodehouse's The Girl in Blue. He's an English-born author of some very silly comedies, quite well-written yet with a certain feeling of joviality, if you will. The use of language, esp in his Jeeves and Wooster series, and true subtle irony make Wodehouse a treat to read.

It took me 1/4 of the book "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" before I couldn't put it down. I had a really hard time with the translation...didn't have any problems with the subsequent books.

Never heard of IQ84.

If you haven't read the Dragon series, I would.

Dan Brown is good too!!

i loved goldfinch too! took me a long time to read it because it was on my kindle, and i really prefer paper books. but very worth it.
your question is near and dear to my heart. i'm an old broad now, and have more books that i want to read and re-read than i do time left in my life to read 'em. so i've revised my old edict that i HAD to finish each book i started or i wouldn't really know- now if i'm not into it in the first 50 pages or so, i put it aside. by then even if the plot isn't rolling along, i should be invested in the writer's style and if i'm not, the plot won't be enough to keep me in love.
i find that i'm going back to old favorites more than reading new books any more. the really good ones- dune, tolkien, alice in wonderland, mary stewart, gaiman, richard adams- they keep giving up layers and layers, giving me new nuances and insights with each re-read. some old favorites like anne rice and stephen r. donaldson have lost their charm, and i find that the writing atrocities bug me so much that i can no longer lose myself in the worlds they create.
i'm currently reading an old book for the first time, 'the highland witch' by susan fletcher. beautiful and entrancing. best new book? 'the ocean at the end of the lane' by the reliably awesome gaiman.
:) khairete
S.

When I was working, I would flip to any page in a book. If I didn't love it, I didn't read it. Most of my time was spent on reading for my work, so pleasure reading was so precious to me.

Ah, now, I can read an entire book I do not care for, just because my book club is reading it. Time is a wonderful gift!

I recommend Swallowtail by S. Meshal. Stay with it. It's a very thoughtful book.

I usually stick it out to the end, but that's probably because I'm a little OCD when it comes to books. If there is a book I haven't finished it's because life seriously got in the way.

A lot of these are older titles, but I love:
The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series
Hotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet
A Lesson Before Dying
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Little Bee
Girl with the Pearl Earring
State of Wonder
The Poisonwood Bible
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Address Unknown
Ella Minnow Pea
The Secret Life of Bees
The Kite Runner
In the Shadow of the Banyan
The Light Between Oceans
Any of Anne Lamott's books

Lately because of a state book award committee that I'm on I've been reading a lot of books aimed at 3rd-8th grade. Wow! There are some great books!!

Wonder
Out of My Mind
The Wednesday Wars
Okay for Now
Because of Mr. Terupt
Mr. Terupt Falls Again
The Tragedy Papers
The Matched series
The Hunger Games Series
Frozen by Mary Cassanova
The Lions of Little Rock
Sophia's War
Far Far Away
One Came Home
Mr. Lemoncello's Library

It generally has to grab me right off the bat or I'm done. I don't have time to waste on boring books when there are so many good ones I haven't read yet.
The last time I tried the "give it a chance to get better" tactic was with Jodi Picoult's "My Sister's Keeper," and I wished by the end that I had just put it down after the first chapter. I thought the premise was really intriguing, but should have known that Picoult didn't have the writing chops to pull it off. She's the M. Night Shymalan of literature.

ETA:
B, I love Melville. I couldn't put down Moby Dick or The Confidence Man once I started them.

It depends on the book.
Some take a chapter or two.
Moby Dick I've started 6 times and I've YET to get past page 6.
To me it is THE most BORING grouping of WORDS in PRINT.
And yet it's a classic.
It's just not my genre.
Sci-fi, fantasy, with a bit of humor - I drink those books up.
I love the Disc World books by Terry Pratchett.

Read Unbroken. You won't regret it.

Oh, and it doesn't take me long to decide a book sucks and give up. Usually less than 2 chapters, unless they are really short chapters.

Fortunately, I haven't run into too many of those in recent years, b/c husband screens and recommends (or recommends against) a lot of books, so I have a short list ready to go at all times. I also get recommendations from my Dad who shares the same interest in books that I do.

I do not care for ebooks. I find them very frustrating. If you have the gumption to write it-at least phone a friend to edit it.
I usually stick em out. I read through 50 shades of grey even though it was similar to an ebook IMO. Didn't bother with the series, though.
You've inspired me to make a library trip today as I too haven't been hooked into a book since the girl series.
Prior to that I read Emily and Einsten by Linda Francis Lee. I was surprisingly hooked by that quick read.
I recently had a friend recommend the Game of Thrones DVDs. He loaned me the 1st season DVDs and I was surprised to get hooked as I don't watch a lot of tv. I don't have HBO, and don't plan to purchase all the DVDs, so I may try those books....

If it hasn't grabbed me by then I'm done. As for books I love I'm all over the place here are a few authors I love.

Nora Roberts
J.D. Robb (nora roberts futuristic series)
Elizabeth Lowell
Jayne Anne Krentz contemporary
Jayne Castle (krentz futuristic)
Amanda Quick (krentz historical)
Susan Elizabeth Phillips
Janet Evanavitch Stephanie plum series
Kay Hooper paranormal bishop series
David baldacci legal thrillers
John Grisham legal thrillers