a reader's trust

I recently read a book where the author lost my trust in the first few pages. It has happened before, and I am sure it will happen again. I knew the moment it happened, and I felt a little bad. I wanted to like the book. I really really did. And the moment I lost trust, I wasn't mad. I didn't think the author had made a terrible mistake. I didn't even think that other readers would notice. It was just me. There was a turn that didn't work for me, or that I guessed, or a bit of information left out that I wanted to know. And then I felt a strange distance from the rest of the novel. I kept reading, but I wasn't as engaged as I wanted to be. And I was left wondering why.

I have read novels where there were problems and I just waited for them to be resolved. I assumed that the writer knew what s/he was doing and that the niggling things would be dealt with. Or books where I guessed something and it turned out I was wrong, or I was right, but the author meant me to guess, or I was right and the author made me feel like I was smart for guessing ahead of time instead of making me feel like I had glanced behind the curtain. So I don't know why this time it didn't work. It might have had nothing to do with the writer, and everything to do with me. Maybe I was just distracted and thinking too much about other things and I was reading while the kids were home and the house was noisy.

But I feel a little disappointed now. I finished the book. It was a good book. I am left still wishing that I still had absolute trust in the author and I don't. I wonder how I can avoid doing this myself to a reader. I probably can't. There are plenty of readers who have guessed things in my books when I didn't intend them to, and they didn't like it. Maybe I just shrug and say that sometimes the magic doesn't work. But maybe I can be a better magician?