What Do You Do When Someone Recommends a Book to You and You're Afraid it Will Be Terrible?

I find myself facing a dilemma at the moment: I made use of Goodreads' recommendation request feature (excellent tool, by the way, right up there with LibraryThing's tagmash), asking, admittedly, for something rather obscure and specific. The one point upon which I insisted was this: please, please, no YA romances. I thought that specifying that would keep me out of this situation, but, apparently, it hasn't, and I now find myself struggling to decide whether or not I actually want to read a book.


Now, let me just make something clear, before anyone thinks that I'm being a book snob and unfairly judging YA romances just because they're something of a rejected genre in any circle except that of the young adults for whom they were written: I have read YA romances. I gave them what I consider a fair shot. I read Ally Condie's Matched; I read 2/3 books of the Pure trilogy, and I really did try when it came to Twilight (I almost made it through three books before I simply could not stand Bella's unhealthy dependence on her boyfriend any longer). I actually liked Matched quite a lot, and the Pure books were pretty good, with the first being better than the second. The one thing about them that made me grit my teeth, though, was the "romance." Insta-love. Guy-does-single-nice-thing-for-girl-and-girl-falls-head-over-heels love. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but insta-love is not and has never been my thing, even when I was a teenager. I do not believe in love at first sight. I believe in building a relationship slowly, enjoying a modern version of courting while you learn more about the person... heck, I really don't mind if two characters have a drunken roll in the hay three days after meeting each other, as long as said roll in the hay doesn't lead to sudden deep eye-gazing and declarations of undying love. Think Eve and Roarke in the In Death series (okay, granted, there might have been a little insta-love on Roarke's side, but Eve took plenty of convincing to go beyond hay-rolling, and Roarke himself seemed rather appalled when he realized that he was in some version of insta-love--also, I don't count that as a spoiler because it happens pretty early on in the first book, and every book after that takes it for granted that they're together). The Japanese, apparently, call it koi no yokan, which translates into "premonition of love," or the feeling that, even though it isn't love at first sight, love will happen between two people in time. For me, lust is one thing, but falling in love and deciding that a person is really "the one" ought to be a process, and it really shouldn't be based on the quality of that person's abs.

With that out of the way, let's move on to the fact that, as you've probably guessed, the one recommendation I got in response to my request is, in fact, a YA romance (Coexist by Julia Crane). At first, I rejected it out of hand, but, as I continue to go back to it and read descriptions and reviews, I feel conflicted. The concept seems interesting to me. I like urban fantasy. I like fairies and elves and other magical folk, with elves holding a place of honour above the rest. Yet, I do put some trust in reviewers, and some of the reviews slam the book hard, accusing it of the worst sort of insta-love, a simpering, shallow heroine, and (oh no) a love triangle, the sort of thing that would tempt me to intentionally damage the printed word by throwing the book across the room. On the other hand, some of the reviews are very good, and they seem to be from intelligent, well-spoken, not-thirteen-year-old people. Plus, with this particular book, insta-love should sort of be taken as a given, considering that the heroine and her love interest are predetermined mates. Still, though, there are ways of handling the "predetermined lovers" thing without turning it into a sappy, tearful, oh-god-his-eyes-they-are-like-the-sky-and-the-ocean-at-the-same-time-and-his-abs-oh-his-abs teenage romance, and I fear that, if the heroine is really as shallow and spoiled as the reviews suggest, I'll just hate her right out of the gate, subsequently not be able to look past any YA love--or, worse, love triangle--nonsense, and just be upset that I wasted my time on the book.

So, the question I put out there is, what do you do when someone recommends a book to you and you're fairly sure that you're not going to like it? Do you just not read it at all? Do you skim the first chapter to get a feel for it and make a decision then? Do you actually take the time to procure it and read through it before finally deciding that it isn't for you? I really don't know if this book is worth the time and effort, but, at the same time, it's only 150 pages... very conflicted.