I eagerly read the first 3 books without ever considering abandoning any of them and I subscribe to the yank-the-bandage approach to dropping books if not inter

I eagerly read the first 3 books without ever considering abandoning any of them and I subscribe to the yank-the-bandage approach to dropping books if not interesting within 20 pages or, towards the end, abandoning if I find myself skimming or skipping pages. With these, it never happened. When I read the 4th book, however, A Dance with Dragons, I kept reading far longer than I would any other book, hoping that it would get better and start getting somewhere. It never did. It was a slow motion train wreck. Finally, I threw in the towel and dropped it with no desire to ever go back and finish it or the 5th book. It did strengthen my resolve to drop bad books early even if prior books by the author were great reads.