Bounce your book thoughts off of others who like you enough to be truthful.

Sometimes it pays to listen to criticism
Before I wrote my book, The Second Virgin Birth, I was sharing my thoughts about how I thought the character, Mary, should be with a friend of mine, I noticed that she seemed disinterested. Asking her what she was thinking, she looked me in the eye and said,” she is boring. She is like every Mary in every book that I have ever read.” Then she continued, “If you want me to read the book, then you need to make her different than all of the others.”
“Crap,” I thought. If I do that then months of ideas will go down the drain. But I began to fool around with different scenarios and finally came up with having her go completely insane at the age of six, futher she was committed to a state hospital where she becomes involved in child pornography. Showing my friend my new thoughts, she smiled and said, “Now this is a character that I can get interested in and will make me want to finish the book.”
So, sometimes it pays to listen to those who are brave enough to tell you the truth.