Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Decided I’m No Longer Interested In Reading

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This topic, about books we meant to read at one point, but are no longer interested in, is a hard one for me. I rarely change my mind on reading something once it's made my list. But these are ten that I've decided to let go on.



My Absolute Darling: Bad reviews, particularly from Queen Roxane Gay, turned me off.

Heather the Totality: A trusted reviewer (Jessica Woodbury) said that it wasn't only bad, it was offensively bad and very reductive about its central female character. The book turned out to be a massive flop so this was apparently the right call.

I Am Charlotte Simmons: My rule is that I give authors two tries. If I don't like one book, it just might have been that particular book, or the time that I read it. Twice, though, almost certainly means that author isn't for me. Tom Wolfe has two strikes.

Nutshell: I'm usually here for Ian McEwan, but I heard this novel is very weird and not in a good way...in a "fetus judges the crap out of his mother" way. Which doesn't sound like anything I'd particularly enjoy.

Portnoy's Complaint: There are several other Roths on my TBR, but given that I've heard this book is basically about one guy obsessing over sex for a couple hundred pages...unless I start to read him and turn into a completionist, I think I'm good.

My Sister's Grave: This was a book I got from the Kindle First program, but realized I don't actually want to read and I don't have to.

The Killing Kind: Pretty much exactly the same as above. I don't really like mystery-thrillers, so no reason to force myself to read mediocre ones just because I got them for free.

Younger: Same.

(R)evolution: Same.

King of Taksim Square: I thought I should keep this on my list just to get some more exposure to Turkish literature, but honestly, the not-great Goodreads reviews turned me off. I'm sure there is much better Turkish work out there (I've read some of it!).

12 comments:

  1. Great list! I haven't heard of a lot of these, but Ian McEwan is someone I tend to stay away from as well - I'm never drawn to his work.

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    1. I actually tend to like him, but what I've heard about this particular novel has definitely steered me clear

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  2. I am really curious about Nutshell. I like McEwan, but it does sound weird. And I liked, I Am Charlotte Simmons, but it has been quite a while since I've read Wolfe.

    hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com

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    1. Yeah at first Nutshell sounded interesting...and then it started to sound like maybe the bad kind of interesting

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  3. I kicked a few of these titles off my TBR recently as well because of bad/mixed reviews.

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    1. It's so disappointing when you're looking forward to a book and then the bad reviews roll in. Like, I saw Weiner complaining that Heather The Totality bombed because he caught some flack in the MeToo movement, but dude, it got awful reviews.

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  4. I have a few of these on my audio tbr that I might try at some point, but my audio tbr is huge so maybe not. Heather, the Totality, was horribly shallow but mercifully brief. I have no wish to encourage people to read it, ever.

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    1. Usually I don't let one bad review turn me off of a book (not everything's for everyone), but the bad review was from someone whose taste I trust and it was SO. BAD. that I just deleted it off the list. And then I kept hearing more, so sounds like that was the right choice!

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  5. Good call on My Absolute Darling! I didn't realize Roxane Gay had given it a bad review! And, although I do love Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons was not my favorite. But, his writing style is really distinct and I can see how he's just not for everyone.

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    1. She like EVISCERATED it, and it sounds like from other people who've chipped in that she was right on. I've read two Wolfe books and they've both been ones that I really didn't care for, so I think I'm going to make the call that he's not for me at this point.

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  6. I've only read (R)Evolution from this list, and I really loved it, but if the genre isn't your thing, you probably wouldn't as it's quite long. I have the sequel that I need to read soon...

    -Lauren
    www.shootingstarsmag.net

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  7. These are titles I do not know, so I actually enjoyed this list very much!

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