Top Ten Tuesday: The Last Ten Books I Abandoned

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl!

There are plenty of reasons to set down a book. Offensive or uncomfortable subject matter, frustrating style and diction, or just a general boredom with its contents. A bad author, or a bad time of year (I can't be the only one who's been suffering from a general Covid-related slump). It's no wonder that not only is this habit widely-practiced, but also highly recommended by those who hope to up their Goodreads challenge goals. If you aren't having fun, you don't have to keep on reading!

And you know what? To put a book to the side for a while doesn't even have to mean that you're really DNF'ing it, either... just last year, I started Charlotte Gordon's Romantic Outlaws at the top of the year, in February, and didn't get around to finishing it until November. And I still ranked it pretty darn high, because I thought it was a really well researched and interesting study! I made it to the finish line in the end, and that's what matters.

Still, there are some books that should be abandoned for a reason. Take a gander at my last few put-down-able books, and let me know if there are any worth picking up again!

the ones I'm definitely not picking up again, for sure, ever

1. Beartown, Frederik Backman
I originally perused this highly-hyped, highly-recommended novel during a bout of speed-dating my extensive TBR shelves, and was pretty interested by the time the timer went off about nine pages in. Unfortunately, the blurb on the back is coy with its actual subject matter, which I only realized during a conversation with a friend: while the description states "a violent act that leaves a young girl traumatized and a town in turmoil" is the major action, it is more specifically - spoiler alert AND trigger warning - her rape at the age of 15, by one of the players on the hockey team at the center of the novel. There are better ways to spend my time.

2. The Color Master: Stories, Aimee Bender
Wouldn't you know it? Violence and other weird relationships with women are also the reason I put this book immediately into the "donate" pile, too, after another round of speed-dating my shelves. Of the first two stories, the first describes an assault, and the second has to do with a woman who finds herself unable to have sex with her husband unless he treats her like a prostitute. No thanks.

the ones I'll end up rereading eventually, regardless

3. Lair of Dreams (The Diviners #2), Libba Bray
To be very clear, this series by Bray - a favorite of my teenage years - is, in my opinion, one of the best YA Supernatural books on offer in any bookstore. Not only is it a personal favorite, but it's one I loved so much, I passed it along to my younger brother. So you can imagine his immense frustration at the fact that I am stuck somewhere around the middle of this thick installment, while he waits for me to catch up on my rereads before we get to the fourth book in the series, King of Crows.

4. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Harry Potter #5), J. K. Rowling 
Another example of failure in a readalong-gone-wrong with my little brother. Originally, I had started reading this book two years ago (!!!), when he and I were trying to get through reading and rewatching all of the Harry Potter books and movies over the course of a calendar year. I picked it up around July... and promptly put it back down, 11 pages in. I'd rather just reread the first four over and over again - the second is my favorite - but I'm sure I'll pick up the fifth again sometime.

the ones I was enjoying, but were just... a lot to commit to at the time

5. The Hours, Michael Cunningham
Okay, so here's the thing: I was so, SO excited to read this one. I actually got a little over 50 pages in! But then I considered how the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel was a reflection on Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway, and carried some of its themes, and contained more than a few Easter eggs, and I haven't read Dalloway since college, which was about five years ago, and I thought, "Hey, maybe I should reread Mrs. Dalloway again first..."

6. Mrs Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
So then I picked up Mrs. Dalloway! But here's the other thing: I don't know which copy of this novel you have, but the one I have is typeset in a very small font. And its style - stream of consciousness, with winding, drawn-out descriptions and flighty, spirited deviations in time and focus - isn't exactly conducive to those with short attention spans. Which I kind of have right now, you know, now that the world is essentially a pit of chaos. I'm sure I'll pick this up again when everything goes back to normal... whenever that is.

7. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
So, you know how that one movie adaptation of this book came out a little while ago? And how everyone in both the Book Community At Large and the Period Film Community At Large absolutely loved it? And they couldn't stop talking about Saorsie Ronan or Florence Pugh or etc.? It kind of made me confront the fact that I had never read it. (There's a story there. I'll tell you some other time.) And, you know, now I still haven't read it. I will at some point. Maybe.

8. Jane Austen: A Life, Claire Tomalin
Holy cow, was I loving this book. Absolute painstaking detail, comprehensive and far-spread focus on not just Jane herself, but the backgrounds and motivations of literally all of her wide-reaching family, as well as descriptions of the sociocultural setting of the time, just really, really well done. But then, you know, the world fell apart. And suddenly, all that detail and background and information just was a little too much to handle. I absolutely look forward to picking this one up again... just not right now!

I mean, it's a risk of the genre

9+. And so many more: various Romance Novels 
I'm just going to leave numbers 9 and 10 under the general header for this one. Romance novels, guys. It's a mixed bag. And when you take a chance on Romance - especially the self-published kind - sometimes, you might end up with something you'd rather just... not. But it's okay, because it's just so easy to move on to the next one!

What's in your Top Ten? Let me know, in the comments below!

The Summer Slump

I'm an autumn person, a fact I've never really been too shy about admitting. While the impending start of the school year is causing me severe anxiety, that factors more into the countless summer-related tasks I've yet to accomplish, not the crunch and snap of stepping on leaves, the chilly sunshine, the back-to-school supply shopping - a new planner! - and the crisp freshness of a new composition notebook cracked open for the first day of a new class.

However, summer, with its boundless free time and ample opportunity for adventures and trying new things isn't without its allure, as well. I love the lemonade, the beach, the vacations to new places, the yellow sunshine waking me up every morning, the ability to wear activewear all day without feeling compelled at all to actually be active...

Still, year after year, despite my planning, and prepping, and enthusiasm for the brighter months of the Washington weather system, it always ends, at some point, with me staring at my ample bookshelves, and thinking, "I don't want to read any of this."

It's not just that feeling of being unable to find a good book... it's a string of abandoned books in a row, bookmarks sticking out haphazardly from between pages like you knifed them in the ribs. Meanwhile, you're reeling, because your favorite hobby has suddenly turned into a black hole of effort and it's giving your conscience some grief. Can you really give that book a two-star rating? Should you just DNF?

Fear not, for this beast has a name: The Summer Slump. 

Symptoms of the Slump

Feeling guilty about not reading. 

A chronic strain of one- and two- star recs on Goodreads.
Being unable to commit to a narrative, or attach yourself to a main character.

Feeling uninspired by the books you manage to finish, leading to series-abandonment, genre-jumping, etc.

This tragic occurrence hits to me like clockwork almost every year. The slumps I sometimes have during the rest of the year are sometimes bad, but never this heart-breaking; primarily because summer is also when I feel like I should be getting most of my reading done.

So, you can imagine I've come up with more than one way to combat such a crippling condition. Behold, y'all: my instructions on how to break the dreaded summer slump!

How to Break the Slump

#1. Admit defeat. It's okay. That's one of the great things about Summer... despite the fact that August is basically the Sunday of  the scholastic calendar, at this point, you've still got about a month left of free time before you've got to go be a responsible adult again. Shut the blinds against the sun, stay in, and have a movie party for one, or throw open all the windows in your house and have a tea party with your friends. All this pressure you're imposing yourself is not good for your mental health... take a break. 

#2. Find somewhere new to read. Personally, I live within fifteen minutes of a bustling downtown metropolis area, full of restaurants, cafes, and bakeries that I have never experienced before (Truth: there's more to life than Starbucks). And that's not even mentioning wide-open public gardens, park benches, yonder grassy knolls just crying for a nice quilt and a picnic basket to break up the landscape. If, once you're there, you're still not inspired... just revert to #1 (because, hey: at least you got out of the house today).  

#3. Sometimes all you need to regain your reading prowess, is to go back to your roots. Time to revisit an old favorite. Whether its the novel you read in the sixth grade where you first fell in love with a favorite author, or the summer reading classic that made you realize AP classes weren't so much of a racket in high school, there's a book in the backlogs of your memory that you loved, but can't quite remember. It's time to go remember. 

#4. Get some new material. Now, this is a dangerous one: if you're like me, and already have a TBR stack that does it's part in keeping the roof staying up, then you don't want to go crazy. While a new novel or two can definitely do its part in breaking a slump, use sparingly: instead of raiding the Sale section at Borders like some kind of literature viking, grab an expensive hardcover that you've really been looking forward to, and would usually wait for in paperback. Treat yo'self. 

#5. Ask for a recommendation from a trusted friend. (Key operative word is trusted.) That way, you're held accountable for your reading, and you have someone to talk through it with when you're getting stuck. Honestly, reading is so much better when you have someone to dish fiction with. Just think of it as a book club for two... or they're the sponsor for your Reading Rehab. Buddy up, amigos. 

Final Words

Don't overthink it; that's probably what got you into this Slump in the first place. Take a breath, take a break, and take a good look at the sunny world around you... it's still summer for another month. You've got this! 

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Almost Put Down (But Didn't)

"Top Ten Tuesday" is a weekly countdown meme, hosted by the Broke and the Bookish!

Just earlier this week, after regaining my reader appetite after the fluffy marshmallow of a novel that was The One, I immediatley tucked into Cruel Beauty, by Rosamund Hodge... and found it sticking in my throat a bit. However, I finished the novel, and enjoyed it pretty well. Therefore, it's only fitting that this week's Top Ten Tuesday Topic was books that almost ended up on the DNF pile... but managed to pull through!

Cruel Beauty, Rosamund Hodge

A slow starter, with a little too much hype in the way, and conflicting accounts of what the story was based off of... for instance, people described it to me as Beauty and the Beast, but having been scholastically involved with the cultural intimacies and history behind that particular fairy tale, I can say with no short amount of certainty that it would have been much better to have ascribed it to Greco-Roman mythologies. 

Final Decision: Glad I Finished.

Timebound, Rysa Walker

Yet another slow starter, with some weird world building, especially due to the fact that time travel is involved. Time travel is just so freakin' aggravational.

Final Decision: Glad I Finished. 

Bossypants, Tina Fey

This might get me some heat, but by about 20% into this set of comedian memoirs (which is one of my favorite splinter genres!) I was tired of Fey's endless quipping... less jokes, more story! There just wasn't really much emotional "realness," which was what I was looking for, as opposed to sheer stage presence and brand extension.

Final Decision: Should Have Put it Down.

The Thousand Names, Django Wexler

The entire genre of martial fiction was a new one for me, and while I thought the battle explanations and detail paid to the movements of warfare were incredibly interesting... they also get quite a bit boring after about 200 pages without much other plot. 

Final Decision: Maybe Skip Ahead to the Next Chapter? 

Everneath, Brodi Ashton

Boring. Boring. Just, SO boring. Unpopular opinion, I know, it was just highly unbelievable, unrealistic, unmanageable in terms of the sort of stuff characters could get away with... 

Final Decision: Should Have Put it Down. 

Anna Karanina, Leo Tolstoy

I don't need to explain much to you people how much effort a 1,000 page novel is. But SO WORTH IT.

Final Decision: You Finish What You Started, or your Book Nerd Membership is Automatically Revoked. 

The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Margot Livesey

A revamp of Jane Eyre for the modern European woman, it was a solid book in itself, but it frustrated itself a little bit by attempting to adhere to the Bronte basics. Would have been improved vastly by simply not calling itself a version of the classic.

Final Decision: Glad I Finished.

The Firm, John Grisham

I don't love thrillers; that's kind of an obvious thing that I'm not too shy about saying. This is just a fairly suspenseful one... and we all know how I get when things are super-suspenseful...

Final Decision: Yeah, I Guess.

Neuromancer, William Gibson

Sci Fi epic glorified by my father, consumed during my sophomore year of high school while studying for Finals. Too much attention to science fiction detail work and world-building, not too interesting of a plot, and more important things going on in my daily life? Yikes.

Final Decision: At Least Now I Can Say I Read it.

Splintered, A. G. Howard

I'm leery of basically every single take on Alice in Wonderland ever written/produced/whatever ever, EVER... especially those whose character direction sounds like they escaped from a 2004-era Hot Topic kid's daydreams. 

Final Decision: Meh, it's Deece. (But I'm not going to continue the series).

What's your Top Ten this Tuesday?

DNF Review: Death Comes to Pemberley

This is my first-ever DNF review, and while I'm disappointed how it all came about, I am fully confident in my decision to stop trying to enjoy this book at about 40% of the way through. It's a sad occasion, but I'm determined, because this just wasn't a very good book.

Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James, details the story of the famous fictional house's residents - Mrs. Elizabeth and Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy - as what was originally supposed to be a time of excitement and celebration takes a turn for the macabre, when the oft-shunned Lydia Wickham stumbles out of a coach screaming that someone has killed her husband.

I don't have to remind you that I'm an Austen lover, right? Because the intense amount of excitement that followed the promise of George Wickham's murder would have clued you in otherwise. From the very blurb on the back of the cover, the novel promises excitement, a bit of gore, a mystery, and a fair amount of comeuppance for one of Austen's most despicable fellas. However, I'm going to puncture that little bit of hope that ballooned up in front on anyone who thought that this description actually sounded interesting: Wickham's not dead, and it's figured out in about the first 50 pages or so. What's worse, is that it didn't even take that long to figure out that this ain't no work of Austen. Let me explain...

Reasons (Besides That Wickham Isn't Actually Dead) That I Hated This Book: 

• DCtP is, essentially, fanfiction. And that's not knocking fan fiction: sometimes you really wonder about what happens after the end of a story, and it's interesting to hear other fans' takes on the matter. However, when a work is proclaimed to carry the voice of the author as transposed into another era, you're immediately attuned to the fact that the author is writing with an adopted pen. By the end of the first chapter, I had already ticked off in my head everything Austen wouldn't have done... wouldn't have mentioned war, wouldn't have mentioned the names of minor servants (and certainly wouldn't have main one of them a main figure in the story), wouldn't have pointedly remarked on the political state of England, etc. The shoe, simply put, does not fit. 
• Our favorite characters are given significantly ill treatment. Anyone who read Pride and Prejudice can attest to the enduring devotion that holds fast in the heart of any Austenian for that indomitable pairing. Layman's terms: Liz + Darcy= 5Ever. And yet, in this novel, our darling Lizzie's sparkling wit and playfulness are reduced to a simpering servitude, and Darcy is transformed into a wooden, stoic, and heavy-handed wall for her to bounce off of. They are never acknowledged as the rightful team they are - even by Regency era standards - and get rare amounts of time together at all. Minor characters are transformed into stock and static, which I can't stand either: Jane's not a saint, and Lydia's not a petulant idiot (well, not completely). There's complexity of character that was sacrificed for the complexity of plot, which, let's face it, was also pretty useless. 
• If anyone actually wanted CSI: Regency Gentility Unit, they would have already made the TV show. And that's both a comment on the enduring nature of the television show and the exploitation of classic literature for popular entertainment format (here's looking at you, Elementary). But what is admittedly interesting about the concept of a period piece procedural is simply undermined by the sheer stupidity of police procedural standards for this time period! What they did was pretty basic stuff, and yet, we are subjected to in-depth descriptions of every aspect... even if it's just everyone staring at a dead guy on a table (What do you mean the victim's extreme and bloody amount of blunt force head trauma is the real cause of death? Well, you're the doctor). 
• Send this one off to the Department of Redundancy Department. At the beginning of nearly every chapter - and then again, in more depth, at the beginning of each of the novel's individual sections, we are subjected to a rehash of the previous action, and given a role call of the mystery's key players in the matter. Do we need to be reminded of what's going on every 20 pages? Admittedly, maybe they were wondering whether the reader would have stopped paying attention between them. 

Regardless of the numerous other stumbling blocks thrown in my way by the book that came between me and contentment, I'm going to cut myself off here. Thank goodness I only paid $1 for it, and now I don't have to wonder about why a near-new copy was sitting on the shelf of a Goodwill's fiction section anyways.