One of her online friends reminded her there's even an abandonment rule: The "Deduct Your Age From 100 and Read That Many Pages Before Giving Up on a Book" rule. The older you get, the less inclined you are to waste your time on something that doesn't grab you.
So I can give up at page 64.
I have to admit, I'm trying to apply more of my speed-reading techniques learned in Poli Sci, to fiction. Speed reading isn't reading fast, it's just judicious skipping. Lately I've been taking teen books out from the library and skip-reading, just to get a feel for them and increase my product knowledge. Until I hit something wonderful like Angus, Thongs and Full-frontal Snogging, and then I read the whole thing.
Right now I've got a French book I half-abandoned. It was recommended by a bookseller in another store, but I'm having trouble getting into it. There are 4 characters, and each one is separately introduced, which always creates the problem of having to get into a book 4 times. I know from past experience that this can pay off--A Fine Balance starts with separate storylines, but it's worth the wait to see them all come together. (Lurved this book.) But Nikolski? ...I don't know. I'm on page 94 and I still don't feel sucked-in-a-fied. (Which is why I wandered into the Angus books. And now I've sidelined from that into Connie Willis, while I wait for my next Angus book from the library.)
I'm still not sure, however, if we should treat books like TV (as someone in the article says) and flip away as soon as we lose interest. I've read books that took awhile to get into, but by about 1/3 of the way through finally hooked me in, and I loved them. So maybe I should have a One Third rule. That would mean Nikolski has to get me in 10 more pages.
