How should I treat the bible? I know it is a great piece of literature, but ...

My source of confusion is this: if I could love a great 19^th century novel in the sense that I feel a living and existential connection to it, and I know that the most important fountain of its thoughts and feelings and moral seriousness are Old and New Testaments, and yet I don’t feel the same connection to the scripture, could my love for the novel still be authentic? In other words, if you feel you love a girl with heart and soul, and yet you are repulsed by her parents, and yet you saw great physical and moral resemblance between them, is your love still a piece of good faith? Should I first repair my relation to the scripture before I pursue my study of the 19^th century literature?