I like to go in as blind as possible. This way, expectations are not a factor, and I can judge it based on what I think, not what others have said.
One of the things I’ve found is that first chapters, by their very need to hook a reader, are often not representative of the overall quality of a novel (barring classics, of course). The opening usually gets much more authorial and editorial attention than the sagging middle. So I open a book to the middle somewhere. Is the prose badly written? Is the dialogue ridiculous? That’s often a deciding factor for me.
I like to go in as blind as possible. This way, expectations are not a factor, and I can judge it based on what I think, not what others have said.
One of the things I’ve found is that first chapters, by their very need to hook a reader, are often not representative of the overall quality of a novel (barring classics, of course). The opening usually gets much more authorial and editorial attention than the sagging middle. So I open a book to the middle somewhere. Is the prose badly written? Is the dialogue ridiculous? That’s often a deciding factor for me.