What’s the Shortest Amount You’ve Read Before Deciding You Won’t Finish?

One page. It revealed the kind of plot I don't like. But usually, I try to give a book at least three chapters. If it isn't working for me by then, then it's probably time to give up.

@lynnec, you are a nicer person than me--I once DNFed a book (not a romance) within two paragraps. Recently I DNFed a romance within three pages. Just not worth the time, I could tell.

A page and a half or so. It's one of those things where I said I was in a bad mood and I will go back, but nah, I know I won't. I do try and put in more say 2 -3 chapters. I feel if I get past a certain point even if I don't like it, I'm invested and have to see the thing through. It's a dangerous dance.

About 2 pages in. The character said something off the cuff that involved a racial slur. It wasn't necessary or called for or specific to the character so screw that! I shut the book.

I always try to read an excerpt before I go to the trouble of obtaining the book and yesterday I read one--a recent New York Times bestseller at that--and couldn't stop rolling my eyes after the second paragraph. The accomplished doctor heroine turned into a blithering, insecure, melodramatic idiot right before my very eyes when a coworker she had a crush on walked into the room. Uh, no. NOPE.

A book has to be pretty bad for me to not give it a shot. I tried a YA novel, and the first chapter involved the heroine getting bullied and not standing up for herself. Nope, I can't read that, even if she redeems herself later. Blech.

Twilight I couldn't even get thru the prologue. It was just so bad. So like a page and a half.

4 chapters. Got 50 Shades from the library and Ana was so insecure and clumsy I just couldn't stand it.

One line. It was a Regency in which a pretty young miss at a ball spied a tempting morsel of man-meat across the room and gushed "Oh. My. God." I immediately responded "In Regency England? Don't. Think. So." -and slammed the book shut forever.

It really depends. Usually one chapter is enough for me to decide. But notably with a Discovery of Witches I decided halfway to call it quits. Which was surprising, since I really liked the first half, but after they went to France, the tale turned stale imho.

When book three of the Twilight series was buzzin', I finally caved and told a fellow chick in the office to loan me her copy of book numero uno. Two pages. Yeah, no.

The heroine was Southern and I couldn't stand how the dialogue was written. No true Southerner would speak like that. 2 pages!

Within the first chapter. The names of the characters were horrible and didn't fit the time period of the book (way too modern names for a historical novel), so I quit, figuring it would only get worse.

1 chapter. It was a fantasy, time travel storyline but the first chapter was so boring (mainly set up) that it took me a week to get through it.

Less than 2 pages. I can't remember the title but it was a young adult read. The editing was awful and the character was already bitching. I didn't feel like pushing myself further.

One page. It was Twilight. The writing was so bad, I knew I wouldn't be able to stand reading it.

I normally try to give books a fair shake, but I can generally tell within 4 - 5 pages if I'm going to have to place it in the DNF pile. Awkward dialogue tends to do me in, though, if the dialogue feels "off" from the start, I know that I'll never be able to read the entire book.

When I read Twilight, I knew in the first chapter that I really wanted it to be a DNF. But I had committed myself to a "If I don't read it, I can't criticize it" mindset (mostly in reaction to my cousin's claim that it was soooooo good and soooooo amazing and soooooo much better than the movie that I had just told her I hated). So I forced myself to finish the whole darn thing. And then I was able to trash it with confidence the next time I saw her. Heh.

I recently used the same concept with 50 Shades of Grey (which I had been bashing like crazy for months). I ended up reading the whole trilogy (mostly out of fascination that something so badly written could be beloved by so many people), but by page 6 of book 1, I was mocking the writing by reading particularly terrible lines out loud to my sister.

The shortest amount of pages may have been 10.

I try to give it a chapter.
I wanted to quit in the middle of Wicked Nights but I pushed through to the end, cringing every step of the way. Annabelle? Really??? I'm DNF-ing the upcoming series.

Usually I know within the first page or two.
Interesting comments on Twilight. Once I start reading I'll commit to following through. Still, I just couldn't make it through Twilight and stopped midway through. That's highly unusual for me.