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Welcome to another TTT! This week\u2019s topic is Books I Did Not Finish (DNFed), so I\u2019m sharing my ten most recent DNFs because I think it would be hard for me to rank every books I\u2019ve ever DNFed. Top Ten Books I Didn\u2019t Finish? lol. If they were worthy of ranking, I would have finished them! I keep track of my DNFs on Goodreads, and that shelf has 424 books on it as of right now. WOW. Honestly, though, allowing myself to DNF has made me love reading more. Life\u2019s too short for bad books! Excuse my overly-long thoughts on some of these. lol. All but one of these were review copies and I had to give more detailed reasons for DNFing for the sake of fulfilling my end of the deal.<\/p>\n
1. A Very Bad Thing<\/a><\/strong> by J.T. Ellison<\/p>\n DNFed @ 12%<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what happened here. The high star average rating on Goodreads had me thinking I was the problem and I wanted to hang in there, but I have already rolled my eyes at so much of this already. It\u2019s theatrical and Darian is ridiculous. Riley is annoying. I couldn\u2019t stand Columbia in the beginning, so I really don\u2019t care that she\u2019s dead now and I really don\u2019t care to find out why she\u2019s dead or what \u201cvery bad thing\u201d she did before she died. Also, this is narrated by my beloved Saskia Maarleveld, but even she can\u2019t save it. Her tone is making everyone sound more annoying.<\/p>\n 2. But He\u2019s My Grumpy Neighbor<\/a><\/strong> by Annah Conwell<\/p>\n DNFed @ 23%<\/p>\n Oh how I wanted to love this book. The cover is cute, the reviews are great, and I love a closed-door romance. But, unfortunately, this was too sugary, drippy sweet and unrealistic for me. Juliette is incredibly sweet and sunshiney and acted like she was 7 years old. The hot flushes when his finger brushes hers or the stomach flips when the arms of their coats touch had me rolling my eyes. The gasping and hiding under a blanket when he looks her way, all while saying, \u201cplease don\u2019t notice me, please don\u2019t see me\u201d is the kind of thing I did as a child. And yet, Juliette owns her own cottage on a lake. She owns her own business. She\u2019s not a silly teen, she\u2019s a fully grown adult who is out on her own. I couldn\u2019t handle the immaturity. And then Adrian. He\u2019s former CIA, and was written in such a stereotypical way. And he\u2019s certainly not grumpy, as the title suggests. When comparing him to Juliette, I suppose maybe he could be considered grumpy. The writing wasn\u2019t the best. Juliette walked outside and the cold bit (nipped?) at her cheekbones. Dear, your cheekbones are covered in skin. If the air nipped at your bones, you\u2019re a skeleton. I tried to continue, but this just wasn\u2019t for me in the end.<\/p>\n 3. A Christmas Promise<\/a><\/strong> by Mary Balogh<\/p>\n DNFed @ 27%<\/p>\n After an absolutely horrific wedding night, this hero is irredeemable. I hate Ellie\u2019s father, who blackmailed Randolph into marrying her and required that they consummate the marriage on the wedding night. What father would do this to his daughter? She\u2019s his entire life and he loves her so much, and this is his final gift to her? Randolph hates her so much and is so upset that they\u2019re married that he decides to hurt her and be as rough as possible. No foreplay, no slowness, no respect. And then when he feels bad after, he justifies his actions by thinking to himself that she brought it out in him. And then he runs to his mistress. I hate this book.<\/p>\n 4. Baking It Merry<\/a><\/strong> by Samantha Chase (Audio)<\/p>\n DNFed @ 7%<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t listen to this narrator\u2019s voice anymore. Too much vocal fry, over-enunciation, and a high-pitched, sharp, overly smiley tone. I felt like my preschool teacher was talking to me.<\/p>\n 5. The Water Witch<\/a><\/strong> by Jessica Thorne<\/p>\n DNFed @ 15%<\/p>\n This was very poorly written and extremely boring. The characters are flat and dull, and I just did\u2019t care. I went and looked up spoilers, and I\u2019m so glad I didn\u2019t spend more time reading this. I love archaeology and legends and treasure hunting, but it sounds like none of that actually matters in the end anyway.<\/p>\n 6. The Unwedding<\/a><\/strong> by Ally Condie<\/p>\n DNFed @ 29%<\/p>\n Ellery acts both extremely immature and extremely old for her 40 years of age. She sounds like she\u2019s 12 and then she sounds like she\u2019s 70. And I know more about what these people are ate than about the supposed mystery.<\/p>\n 7. Rebel Summer<\/a><\/strong> by Cindy Steel<\/p>\n DNFed @ 28%<\/p>\n I really didn\u2019t like flashbacks to high school, and this happened every other chapter. Also, I didn\u2019t like all of the mean things that people in the town were saying about the hero. It\u2019s ok to have tattoos and be a loner, but they used those characteristics to typecast him. I also just didn\u2019t like the narration style. Fake southern accents don\u2019t do it for me.<\/p>\n 8. A Fire in the Sky<\/a><\/strong> by Sophie Jordan<\/p>\n DNFed @ 21%<\/p>\n I\u2019m honestly surprised that this was written by Sophie Jordan. I\u2019ve read many of her books and have always really liked them, so I have no idea what\u2019s happened here. The writing is cumbersome and repetitive. There\u2019s a lot of inner monologues from different characters, all recounting the same events with no additional information. Many passages are overly dramatic, with short, blunt sentences that I\u2019m sure were written to try and add emphasis and drama, but they all came across as annoying \u201cmic-drop\u201d moments where the characters keep trying to illicit a gasp from the reader. Examples:<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a good day for a whipping. I\u2019d had my share. Too many to count. But today was special. Today the border lords arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEver since we were little girls, we had done everything together. Played together. Ate together. Took lessons together. There was no distinction between us. We were sisters. No difference except one. A very important distinction. I was the only one to bear any punishment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI shook my head. It was not even a request. Not even a proposition. It was a statement of fact. A forgone conclusion.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe had taught me to fight. He had taught me the meaning of honor. That you bled for the things that mattered. Your homeland. Your people. A worthless and feeble king. I inhaled.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI let my words hang in the air. Not a threat. Precisely.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMy boyhood was gone. The time for childish things was over. I had things to do. Important things. Adult things. And yet there was something about her. Something that had me lingering over her.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe was going to be free. Free to be. Free to choose.\u201d (This one made me roll my eyes the most.)<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I was ten years old, I learned that there would be no grand state wedding for me. No multitude of guests. No weeklong festivities. No royal hunts for the wedding party. No lavish feast with all manner of entertainment. No bells tolling throughout the land. No marriage rites\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEspecially not at ten. Not yet. I was a little girl. I didn\u2019t worry about such things. I lived in the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI spent my mornings learning with tutors and our governess. In music lessons. Dance. Art. Comportment.\u201d<\/p>\n This is not all of them, and this is only up to 16%. Is the author\u2019s period key broken on her keyboard? What happened to commas and flowing sentences? Reading this was like driving on a bumpy road.<\/p>\n