Know When to Say When

When I was a kid if I started a book, I finished a book.  I’m not sure why but it felt like quitting if you didn’t finish the whole thing, a failure.  The problem of course is that you’ll spend a lot of time reading stuff you don’t like or stuff that’s simply crap. 

It took me a long time to be able to give up on a book and I still have some problems.  Like when is it too soon to give up?  Or when is it too late to give up?  Recently I started reading a book called Serpent in the Thorns by Jeri Westerson.  The cover claims it was a medieval noir (both things I like) but I didn’t find it to really be either.  The main character, in his second novel here, is a dispossessed knight who now works as The Tracker.  I guess he’s called The Tracker because there were no PI’s in the 1300’s. 

I kept giving it one more chapter for things to heat up until I was halfway through the book.  I’m not going to finish it.  If you like J.A. Jance and Patricia Cornwell type books this one might be right up your alley. But that’s not my bag, baby!  I stopped reading it and I’m okay with that.