Discussion How much do you read before you drop a story?

So i have come to the conclusion that i judge stories way too fast. Like i start a novel, read 5 pages ,get bored or dislike it and move onto the next one ,then later when i finally couldn't find another novel after binge reading a million , i give the discarded story a chance ,read more of it and start liking it a lot.
But oftentimes the first impressions were absolutely correct.
I also tend to leave novels halfway , either becuz i start finding them boring or horrifyingly absurd.

So i would like to know how much do you read before concluding this novel is for me and do you drop a novel midway like me or do you have an itch to complete what you started?

 

Sometimes, a chapter is enough to form a judgement. While my time is hardly as valuable as, say, a billionaire's, it is still far too precious to spend trudging though a novel I don't enjoy. Note this applies only to novels of the kind to be found here; call me a snob, if you will, but I use a different yardstick for literary fiction and the classics.

 

I try not to even start novels untill they have at least 20 chapters translated. If they can't capture my heart after 20 chapters, I set them aside. If they can, I'll try to read until the end.
Besides that criterion, if the " Mary/Gary Sue-ness" of a novel gets to be too much, I'll drop it. Aka, all the world loves the MC for no reason or very shallow reasons. Every eligible romantic partner for miles falls for them. Every online citizen follows their life religiously. Birds and animals fall from the trees to do their bidding... That sort of stuff.

 

until

which vary from description to mid of story perhaps?
when it feel redundant that kinda early sign of dropping which quite plenty for web novel~ for ligh novel sometimes fast read few vol although it may reignite interest on later vol but for webnovel it next to impossible cuz~

 

I stop reading when I dislike what I read, usually because something really shitty/dumb/absurd happens.

If the novel is overall decent enough I'll come back to my bookmark when long enough has passed for me to forget why I stopped reading

 

After 4 to 5 chapters

 

I measure it in time. The first time that I look at the clock after starting a series. If I have read it for let's say 20 odd minutes without even noticing, I like it

 

Chapters? We can't say that for every novel.

Usually I refer the description of a novel if I want to read it or not & then proceed, anytime a novel can discarded be it when sometimes the plot is getting cringer, absurd beyond understanding or if we left it in the mid to wait for it's translation.
I have dropped many novels in the starting like 2-3 chapters , sometimes when it was in the middle of new arc or even ending~ I have even dropped novels while waiting for its updates resulting me to forgot which chapter was I again T^T
I rarely touch them again to read honestly.

 

When I drop a book entirely depends on the reason I drop it. Usually, I'll read a book until I tire of it and I think it doesn't offer any enjoyment any more. But there are lots of exceptions to this! If it's a Romance novel, I'll often still enjoy the book itself decently enough, but when the main romance in the story gets annoying enough to ruin that enjoyment, I'm often forced to drop it. Other times, I'll spot check a story just to see if it's the kind of thing I'll like, so the first few chapters are usually enough to let me know if it's worth reading the book at all.

And finally, we have the Japanese web novels. A good example is the book I'm reading right now, "The 5000-years-old Herbivorous Dragon". It a terrible book: it has exactly two jokes, the setting is super generic, there is no social interaction, and the characters aren't any good. That said, I expect the book to be terrible exactly like this, and those two jokes still have enough going for them for me to keep reading a bit more.

 

Whatever I read, I try to give it as far of a shot as I can. If a novel's pretty obviously going to stay bad then I'll probably drop it after 10 to 20 chapters, but if the reviews keep saying "It gets better later, trust me" then I'll keep powering on for a lot longer and take their word for it.
Most of the ones I dropped in the mid hundreds occurred not because I stopped liking the story, but because somebody with a machine translator took over and ruined it.

 

I drop novels all the time, actually I start reading with the mindset of "trial and error", so I expect I most likely won't like the novel and move to the next one until I find the one I like. Sometimes I drop from the first page is I meet something particularly annoying (like in one novel the author had a lion purring in one of the first paragraphs). But usually I try to read three chapters. If I don't like it by then, I will definitely not like it later. Of course, there are countless novels I liked after three chapters and still dropped them later. Anyway, I think it's the right thing to drop novels you don't enjoy. Time is the most precious resource, you can't waste it on books you don't like if you read them for pleasure.

 

Yes, that happens a lot with cn novels . There are a lot of good novels i want to read but can't becuz of the stupid botched translations. And it is the most annoying when it happens in the middle of the novel.

 

Can drop a novel even when 1-5 chapters in or even above 300+ it just depends if it can hook me for long enough

 

Depends, I just dropped a novel cuz it didn't grab my attention in 3 chapters while I have also dropped a novel after reading 70+ chapters. It just depends how interested and immersed you are in the novel.

 

maybe around a hundred or so chapters....there comes a time when enough is enough because of rinse and repeat plot, or stupid direction a story that was interesting first goes to....

 

i do the same, but because I don't want to get interested in a story and have only a few chapters before I need to stop. I rarely actually give the 20 chapters a try if I am getting red flags while reading. I lower my standards a lot for these webnovels but even then there are plenty of ones that are far lower than I set the bar.

There are plenty of times I stop after hundreds of chapters as well. Sometimes, I just want to skip a particular story arc, sometimes it's cleqr the author ran out of ideas and is jist milking the audience for the last dregs of interest.

 

If the novel doesn't grab my attention within 3 chapters, it's out. Also, if I get bored reading it despite being 1/3 into the novel, I'll cut my losses.

 

I try to read at least 50 chapters before I make a concrete judgement on the story. I think the only time I decide to drop a story before chapter 50 is if I find some of the content too disturbing or the grammar/format of the novel written bothers me.

 

It depends on the story and characters.

 

Okay you just inspired me to pick up embers ad infinitum which I just dropped after reading 3 chapters Gonna go and try it now!