Welcome to Top Ten Tuesday, a weekly bookish meme hosted by Jana @ That Artsy Reader Girl that features a different bookish topic every week.
Today’s topic is Books I Did Not Finish
There are many books I dnf’d because I didn’t like them but there were also some books that I think I might like but just wasn’t ready for. Today’s list is a mix of those I didn’t like and will never pick up again, and some that I know I want to try again one day.
Top Ten Books I Did Not Finish
- Dracula by Bram Stoker – This one is a funny story because it’s not that I didn’t like the book, it’s that I listened to it on audio and somehow thought it would be a good idea to listen while sleeping. I was frightened awake by a nasty, scary, loud voice – Dracula’s voice, I presume, I didn’t wait long enough to find out. I quickly turned it off and hid under the covers and I just haven’t picked up the book again. I will eventually! Maybe on print and not before bed!
- You, Me, and the Colors of Life by Noa C. Walker – I read up to 52% of the book. I don’t know what happens so this isn’t a spoiler, but I got the impression that things wasn’t going to end well for the MC. She has non-Hodgkins lymphoma, which is the same cancer I had when I was 19, and I couldn’t keep reading thinking that she was going to die from it.
- Caraval by Stephanie Garber – I had really high hopes for this book and I think I got all the way to 90% of the book and then rage-quit because it kept getting worse for me. Here’s what I said in a review: “It was all so juvenile and nonsensical, and there were so many holes in the plot. I didn’t like any of the characters at all, and even Julian, who was supposed to be the most appealing and was portrayed as such, didn’t appeal to me at all. A lot of the book was repetitive and annoying, and I really didn’t like Scarlett and her sister Donatella.”
- Hollow Kingdom by Kira Jane Buxton – This one came highly recommended and I really wanted to like it but I just didn’t. I love the idea, but the execution was disappointing. There was too much narration, too many big words, too much telling, too much effort going into trying to convince us how smart the crow was. I just didn’t care about the characters or the story. I dnf’d about 35% in.
- I Fell In Love With Hope by Lancali – The language was beautiful but it was too much purple prose. It became not about the story but about the word-crafting, which is fine, but that’s not what I thought I was getting into. I dnf’d maybe 10% in, probably less, because I just couldn’t get through the story, I got so stuck on the words.
- We’ll Prescribe You A Cat by Syou Ishida – I only read two “chapters” but it looks like each chapter is an individual story about different people who were prescribed cats. They all seem unrelated to each other except for the cat thing, I can’t say for sure since I dnf’d, but I realized that maybe slice of life stories just aren’t for me. I was mostly bored.
- Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson – Here’s my review from when I tried reading it in 2016: “I couldn’t get past the first 15%. It started so confusing with the characters names and change in POVs, but then I started to get it and it seemed promising. Then came pages and pages of descriptions about how Kelsier was using Allomancy… all the talk of Pushing and Pulling, and IronPush, PewterPull, etc. It’s much worse than what I’ve described here, it was just too tedious and boring.” Don’t come at me, Brando Sando fans! I’ve enjoyed his other books, and I’ve since read the first three books of the Stormlight Archives and loved them. Maybe 2016 me was just not ready for Mistborn but I’m open to trying again!
- Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang – I borrowed this book because I wanted to read just that one story that the movie Arrival was based on – Story of Your Life. I loved it and intended to read the rest of the book, but didn’t get to them before I had to return the book. I’ve since read Exhalation by the author and loved it so I’m looking forward to reading the rest of this one!
- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion – I initially thought this book was about magical living, you know, the whimsical happy life kind of thing. I picked it up in 2016 when my father was sick and I needed something whimsical. It turned out to be a book about grief and I just couldn’t do it then because it was too close to home. One day, eventually.
- Only A Monster by Vanessa Len – I try my best to support Malaysians where I can, so I got excited when I found out this story has a Malaysian MC and the author has Malaysian roots. It sounded like a great story and I was looking forward to reading it but unfortunately, I couldn’t get into the book. I couldn’t relate to the characters or the story, but I love that others seem to like it and I hope that adding it to my list might help it find other readers.
Have you read any of these books? What did you think of them? Would you read any of these books?
