To Finish or Not to Finish...

Saturday afternoon began with me cracking open a new historical fiction novel, one which has only recently been released and seems to be garnering great reviews on the historical fiction blogs I enjoy reading, as well as from my trusted reading friends.   As a result,  I eagerly stuck my nose in the book and set out to read it.    Almost immediately I realized that this would not be a great read for me, but I kept going knowing others found it well worth reading.   My thinking was that it simply had to get better. Needless to say, it didn't.    By around page 150 I realized that not only did I think the novel wasn't great, but that I thought it was just plain bad.    I'm not the type of reader who usually bothers finishing books that hold little to no interest for me - my philosophy being that life is too short to read bad books - but for some reason I found it hard to put this one down simply because everyone else seems to think it's so great.   While I was reading there were several points in the novel where I asked myself if I should bother to continue, and it took me close to 200 pages to decide that my time would be better spent on something I would like.   Life is indeed too short to read bad books!   

What about you?  Do you finish everything you read?  Do you have a harder time setting aside novels that you think you are 'supposed' to like?