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Some people liken a book to a meal... Take a few bites and if it doesn't agree with you, find something else. There are simply too many good books out there to waste time reading something that doesn't help you. That said however, it has happened a couple of times... The first hundred or so pages didn't impress me as something I'd like to continue with, but I did, mainly because of the person who'd recommended them to me. And I was very glad I had finished, because then I went on to read more of the same author (MacDonald and Kierkegaard come to mind). I remember one of Kierkegaard's books, though, a 600-page tome called "Philosophical Postscript" I didn't understand him after page 2, then again after page 10. But I thought maybe it would click, that the pieces would just come together into a big "A-ha" moment, working retroactively so that eventually I'd understand all he was writing about. Well, 300 pages in and I still didn't understand a bit of it, but I kept going, kept thinking the key might be coming soon. In a word, I finished that book; I hacked my way through it without understanding much of anything. I wouldn't have done that with an author who hadn't already impressed me.
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