Do you give bad books a second chance?

I must confess, the inspiration for this post came from Sarah at The YA Book Traveler. She had a guest blogger, Alyssa Carlier, that wrote a post, “Do Book Series Deserve a Second Chance?”  After reading the post, I started thinking about giving books a second chance.  As a reader, should I give a book I’m really not into a second chance?  

My motto as a reader is, Life is too short for bad books.  But I have to ask myself, is a book bad or am I simply not in the mood to read it?

I look back at a time when I gave a book I was not into a second chance.  I was reading Scythe by Neal Shusterman.  I was about 3 chapters in and thinking to myself, “I don’t like this book.” I’m not sure what I didn’t like about it, but it just wasn’t setting right with me. I thought about my motto, and I decided to set the book aside; I had about 2 weeks left on my library ebook loan. I read another book and then decided to give Scythe another chance.

Boy, am I glad I did! I started Scythe over and couldn’t put it down. I think I read it in two days, which is really good for me since I teach full-time and have an active homelife.  The book didn’t change, but I did.  Maybe things were distracting me from really getting into the book.  Maybe I was in a “fighty” attitude and nothing was going to make me happy.  Who knows.  All I know is I can’t wait until Thunderhead, Arch of the Scythe #2, come out on March 6, 2018!

So this poses a couple of questions, How long do you give a book before you decide it is bad?  Should you set a “bad” book aside and try it at another time?  I wish I knew the answers.  What is your opinion?