I'm reading a book right now - Lionel Shriver's The Post-Birthday World - and I'm just not sure I like it. I'm about 75 pages in and it's taken me all week to get there. I force myself to read on the bus, to see if the further I get the more interesting it'll become, but it's not happening. The thing is, the reviews are excellent. Entertainment Weekly called it the Novel of the Year (2007), other reviews call it engaging, imaginative, provocative...
I'll give it "imaginative," as it's kind of a dual-plot book. At the end of the first (never-ending) chapter, the main character must decide if she'll cheat on her boyfriend with another man. Then the chapters alternate: the first "Chapter 2" explores what happens if she does cheat, while the second "Chapter 2" explores what happens if she doesn't - and so on. I like the the concept, but the descriptions, the language, the weird humor and the very-little dialogue has me mostly skimming, trying to get to the good parts. Sometimes I find some nuggets that interest me, but most often I'm dreaming of reading something else.
Question (as Dwight would say): When do you give up on a book? I never used to, but as I get older, I realize life's too short to waste time on something uninteresting. Right?