Top Ten Tuesday: Books We Decided to DNF, and Associated Problems

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

CJ's Selections

Like Whitley, I don't usually go back to books I've DNFed, so I have no idea if I'd have liked most of them later. So my own spin is going to be Books I Didn't DNF Quickly Enough. And yeah I realize two of them aren't actual DNFs don't @ me.

1.	Queen of Shadows / Sarah J. Maas - It was way too long and none of the characters made sense and I didn't give a fvck about Rowaelin and I just kept waiting for it to get better and it never did and I basically only read it for Manon whom I'm sure has been ruined since then somehow because that's her MO isn't it. Yeah I finished it. Yeah I'm bitter.
2.	The Tiger's Daughter / K. Arsenault Rivera - Maybe this'll be a "too quickly" one because, who knows, I might go back. I really loved the first half! It was epic and beautiful and the relationship between the two women was swoony and complex. But then I realized it was still the first half and there were like 300 more pages and nothing was happening, and I wasn't in the headspace to deal with that.
3.	Fear the Drowning Deep / Sarah Glenn Marsh - People loved this book but I really didn't get it. I definitely didn't DNF it quickly enough because I wanted to after like 50 pages but it was for a tour so I FINISHED IT LIKE A BOSS in about a night and yes there was a lot of skimming so sue me. But it was instalove and two weird unconnected monsters and the plot felt like "then this happened then this happened then this happened OKAY I GET IT STOP STOP LET ME LIVE." Yeah okay I'm salty. (Like the sea.)
4.	Song of Blood and Stone / L. Penelope - This book has gotten rave reviews from others, including black readers, so don't skip on it just because of my sour grapes. I think the pacing sticks more to conventions of adult romance or NA than fantasy, so I was just like, please something happen soon? But also lots of things happened really fast? Like the world was so cool (I loved the folktale snippets!) but it felt like it started in the middle with ALL THIS STUFF going on and then slowed down to a crawl. I stuck with it for a while, but I found myself pulling teeth and avoiding reading anything, which is why I didn't finish a book for like a month.
5.	Done Dirt Cheap / Sarah Lemon - This one was really my fault because WHY did I even request this book? I have zero interest in bikers! Or age gap romances! Or Americana! This was basically an exercise in selection effects because, SURPRISE, I didn't like a book that combined all three and I found myself resenting it as I was reading further because that damn progress bar wouldn't shrink. Also I found the characters kind of Mary Sueish but maybe that was a side effect.

Whitley's Selections

Artsy Reader Girl said I could spin this one, so it's not really cheating this time! But yeah, I so rarely go back to things I've already DNFed, so I'll do "pettiest reasons I've DNFed something."

1.	The Reader / Traci Chee - When I say petty reasons, I mean petty reasons. And this one had one thing that really bugged me - PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD CAN READ. It's pictograms, but that counts! IDK why that bothered me so much, but for some reason that just made me completely irrational.
2.	Spinning Starlight / R.C. Lewis - Another language based problem, I think this is going to be a theme, lol. But a huge chunk of the middle of this book was the protagonist struggling to learn...the alphabet. Just, that's it. Weeks and weeks spent in emo flailing because she couldn't remember two dozen characters, even though in her own culture she remembered far more because they used pictographs. Heck, I learned the Korean alphabet in three days, and I wasn't motivated by that being my sole means of communication! It just...didn't seem a good enough challenge to take up so much of the book.
3.	A Soldier's Duty / Jean Johnson - And the pettiest language DNF award goes to....they specified that she put a headset on her head. I mean, I was annoyed at the writing in general before that, but that sentence took the cake. Could not go on after that.
4.	Illusionarium / Heather Dixon - This book came about in a time when I'd read just a few too many "competition" books in a row post-Hunger Games and I was burned out on the concept. The summary for this book didn't include a competition angle, so when the story changed part way through to be that, I threw it aside without a second thought.
5.	Passenger / Alexandra Bracken - Sooooo much repeating! Every single scene and conversation had to be told to use at least twice, either through the narration summarizing it for us, or the characters reflecting on what just happened, or everyone discussing it more than once. I was actually interested in the plot, but after hearing about everything over and over again it got to be too much. Alas.