When I read, I have a rule that I follow. I give a book 100 pages to grab me. If I don't like it much in 100 pages, I give myself permission to put it down and move on. I think this is a function of getting older and realizing that I don't have to feel guilty if I don't like a book. I have certainly slogged through plenty of books that I hated just because I felt badly for abandoning them. You armchair psychologists out there will have a field day with that one, I can imagine what that might say about me, but I don't care. If reading is for pleasure, then why the pressure to finish something I don't like? I got as far as page 115 in Chango's Beads and Two-Tone Shoes. Probably because I was traveling and didn't have anything else in my carry on. The premise sounded cool - Havana Cuba during the Revolution. Santeria priestesses, beautiful revolutionaries and bold reporters meeting Castro in the Jungle. Gun runners and Hemingway... wow! The story was good, but the author's style left it hard to negotiate. Choppy dialogue, confusing names and places, not much character development so the reader has no idea who is who. It just didn't work for me. When I weighed it next to the ever growing pile of library books on my nightstand, I made the decision to let it go. Someone else will like it, but it won't have to be me.
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