Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Should Have Abandoned

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! I'm doing a twist on this week's topic, which was supposed to be the last ten books we abandoned. While I judge no one else for not wasting their reading time on something they're not enjoying, I am a never-DNF type. Even I, though, will admit that sometimes I probably would have been better off throwing in the towel. Here are ten books that I found so bad I should have just put them down forever.

The Perfect Son: I did not know it was possible to have so many cliches in one book.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: Turns out I just really don't like reading about people having feelings about nature/the outdoors.

Whores of the Devil: This survey of accused witches and heretics throughout history seemed like the kind of thing that I would enjoy but the author wrote in such a lurid fashion based on sketchy details and it was incredibly off-putting.

Catch-22: I often don't care for satires, and this was no exception. It has one joke (war is ridiculous!) and doesn't go anywhere for hundreds and hundreds of pages.

Soon the Light Will be Perfect: This book is pretty short but tries to balance way too many plots and feels like a draft that needed real work.

Empire Falls: I had high hopes for this Pultizer-winning family drama but it was just awful. Misogyny and lots of feelings about "real America" and a sensationalized school shooting subplot...just a mess.

The Man in the High Castle: I wanted a story and got mostly a thought experiment. It wasn't completely without interest, but I did not care about any of the characters or what happened to them.

Good Riddance: This was supposed to be a light-hearted comedy but was just offensivelydumb.

Ready Player One: This book had such hype, and was so mediocre and boring.

Shantaram: I hated this book almost immediately, and unfortunately it's pretty lengthy. I eventually got into a kind of hate-reading groove that let me finish it, but I wish I had just stopped reading it.

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Should Have Abandoned

A Month In The Life: April 2020

You almost have to wonder if Corona the beer is going to re-brand after all this...I think we're all very tired of hearing about corona anything! I never thought I would miss waking up early and going into the office, honestly, but here I am hoping that I get to spend some quality hours outside the apartment sometime soon (when it's safe, of course).

In Books...

• Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: The more broadly I read, the more I learn that there are certain sorts of books that are just not for me. The subgenre I've dubbed "nature thoughts" is one of them. Unfortunately for me, this Pulitzer Prize-winner is exactly that. Dillard's devotion to examining plant and animal life alongside the creek in the Virginia backcountry is clearly deep, and her writing is sweeping and ambitious, but I found it both terminally dull and eye-rollingly overwrought.
• Shatter Me: This, on the other hand, very much worked for me, despite the fact that I've largely moved past YA dystopias of the "chosen one" variety. Part of that is the way that Mafi crafts a unique voice for her heroine, which helps it rise above the many tropes she indulges in. And to be honest, part of it is probably related to the fact that this kind of angsty drama is just easy and fun to read, especially in a time of crisis. 
• Amateur: This short book is about the author's experience of becoming the first trans man to box at Madison Square Garden (as part of a charity match). It's a blend of memoir and examination of masculinity, particularly the ways in which violence is tied in to conceptions of maleness. It's honestly uneven: some moments all but took my breath away with their clarity and insight, but at other times you can feel McBee stretching to pad out the page count with superfluous information or digressions that never really go anywhere. 
• The Perfect Son: This is the kind of low-stakes family drama which I usually enjoy: when a hyper-involved stay-at-home mother has a massive heart attack, her workaholic investment banker husband and their son, who has Tourette's, find themselves really needing to connect for the first time. It is FULL of cliches and lazy sentimentality and the resolution is way too pat and predictable and I did not like it at all.
• A Beginning at the End: First of all, this was 1000% the wrong time to be reading a book about the world in the wake of a major pandemic, but that's not the book's fault. This had promise: the characters were compelling and relatable, and I was impressed by how well it was structured and paced. But there were some clumsy moments, some promising plot elements never really developed, and the end in particular resolved a little too neatly.
• Cutting for Stone: I'm a sucker for a family epic set against significant historical events, so this over-600-pager set in and around a hospital in Addis Ababa during the reign of Haile Selassie was very appealing to me. The storytelling is strong, and I enjoyed it overall, but the main character was underdeveloped and while the prose quality was competent enough it never took off like I wanted it to.

 
In Life...

• Social distancing continues: Like many of you, I spent the month trying to leave my house as little as possible. I'll be honest: this really sucks. I miss my coworkers, I miss my friends, I miss my book club. I miss places that aren't my apartment. I miss going to the thrift store to browse around. I miss planning vacations. I am so happy that we've been able to flatten the curve as much as we have, but I am ready for what's next...but only once it's right, which I very much hope is sooner rather than later!

One Thing:

The library is always a great community resource, but as their buildings are closed, I recommend taking a look at what's available online! I've been able to access Rosetta Stone through the Clark County library system to try to brush up a little on my long-faded Italian, and have been watching some of The Great Courses to keep myself intellectually engaged. I had no idea before the pandemic that either was available to me as a cardholder!

Gratuitous Pug Picture: 

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

A Month In The Life: April 2020

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2020 TBR

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This week is another seasonal TBR. It's officially spring as of Thursday, so let's look at the books I'll be reading over the next several weeks (or maybe faster, if I'm stuck at home without much else to do for any extended period of time!).

The Magical Language of Others: This is a memoir by a woman whose Korean parents, after having immigrated to America with their children, went back to South Korea and left them behind...her mother wrote her letters, and Koh went back and re-read them as an adult to try to make sense of it all. This sounds heart-wrenching and amazing.

White Teeth: I've somehow never read Zadie Smith before, and this story about two war buddies coming back to England and changing as the world changes sounds like a great place to start.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek: This environmental non-fiction won a Pulitzer, so I'll read it.

Shatter Me: I don't read much YA, but this book is supposed to be fun and I could use some brain candy right now.

The Perfect Son: I'm a sucker for a family saga and this one has very solid reviews.

A Beginning at the End: I would actually probably skip this pandemic-based post-apocalyptic story right now but I feel bad enough about being late to get to this review copy!

Cutting for Stone: Another family saga! This one has been recommended by people I trust so I'm going to try it out.

Bird Box: I've had this hanging out on my Kindle forever, long before the Netflix movie came out, and I'm finally going to get around to reading it!

The Son: I'd heard good things about Jo Nesbo's work and found this one secondhand before I found the first of his Harry Hole series so figured I might as well start here.

The Weight of Silence: This was a book that looked good during a browse of what was on sale for the Kindle, so we'll see how it plays out (suspense isn't always my fave).

Share:facebook - twitter - pinterest

Top Ten Tuesday: Spring 2020 TBR