Do you finish books if they don't immerse you early enough?

[Meripen]

I ran across an article today with an interesting question. Do you finish a book if it doest fully pull you in in the first few chapters? It seemed like a great Sword and Laser Board topic so I thought I'd post it below:
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/...

[Warren]

Nope.
I've got fifty good books waiting so "Its gets better"
doesn't cut mustard. I give it three chapters tops.

[Mike]

I give books 10-15%. If they don't grab me by then I pick the next one up.

[Keith]

I almost always stick it through to the end, purely out of stubbornness. It takes a lot -- Spook Country -- to get me to give up on a book.

[Random]

I tend to stick with books as well, except when they are just oozing badness. Even then I've stuck with a few of those just to try to see what everyone else saw in them. :D

There are a few where I'm glad I did stick with it as they turned out to be excellent books.

[Stuart]

I'm the opposite of the author of the article. I will abandon a book if I'm not actually enjoying it, but if it's any good I will carry on to know how the plot ends.

It's more common for me to abandon a series, and not pick up the next book. If plots aren't being resolved within a couple of books then I start to lose interest, even if the writing is very good.

[John]

I'm a bit of a completionist, but not to the extreme. The same part of me that will sit and play a game for hours after I've finished it in order to the get the achievements has pushed through to the end of some truly un-inspired novels (Twilight, for example... all of them), but there are some that I've given up on.

That said, I think it's often more to do with my mood. For example, reading a good fantasy novel when I'm more in the mood for a sci-fi has seen me give up on the fantasy, just as I've finished crappy sci-fi because I was in the mood for sci-fi.

[terpkristin]

I usually give books the 100 page test. If I'm completely uninterested in the book or otherwise turned off by it and I've read more than 100 pages, I will usually Lem it. That said, I'm sure there have been some books I didn't even make it to page 100. And I know that there are some that I've kept reading even when I was pretty on-the-fence. Actually, the current pick, The Lies of Locke Lamora is like that for me right now. Half of me wants to give up (I'm 81% through according to Kindle, by my math I have fewer than 100 pages remaining). The other half of me wants to see what happens in the next book. It's kind of odd, actually.

[aldenoneil]

terpkristin wrote: "It's kind of odd, actually. "

I know what you mean, though I did finish. I felt the same way about The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and The Hunger Games. They were quick enough reads that I might've gone on to the next books just to see where the stories went, but I didn't enjoy either of them well enough. I'll be lemming all of the serieses.

[Diego]

I used to be able to say: "I always finish the books I start" that was until recently when I am number four became the first book I've lemmed and I was 82% into it.

[Micah]

Diego wrote: "I used to be able to say: "I always finish the books I start" that was until recently when I am number four became the first book I've lemmed and I was 82% into it."

I lemmed that but as a movie. And I very RARELY lemm movies.

[Elie]

I used to always finish. As I get busier as an adult, I find I can't take that kind of time. If I get completely lost from the story, the book goes away.

[Procrastinador]

I try too but it usually depends if I feel there's still a chance that it might get better.

I found the start of the book I'm currently reading, a bit slow and confusing but now I'm really enjoying it and I'm glad I didn't give up.

André