I do occasionally stop reading a book part way through, and feel slightly guilty about it. I stopped reading The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, which started off great but became more and more repetitious. I think when the book was first published, the editor cut it down, and he was right to do so IMO. Later the book became a cherished book among the left and was restored to its original length. I finished the first part of Don Quixote, thought it was terrible and didn't bother with the rest. I only got through the first part of Life of Pi and gave up. My friends said I should have persisted because it got better. I gave up reading 1984 when I was fifteen, after I could see from the thinning number of pages that the protagonist was not going to escape, lead the revolution and bring down Big Brother. However, I finished it last year.
