DNF'd, top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: All The Books I Have DNF’d and Wished I Had DNF’d

This week I’ve decided to take part in ‘Top Ten Tuesday’ again hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. This week’s topic is ‘the last ten books I have abandoned’. Seeing as how I just posted a spring cleaning unhaul I figured that may be a little boring to read for anyone that follows this blog, so today I’m going to talk about the books I’ve DNF’d and all the ones I wish I had.

I very rarely end up DNFing books as I like to give them a chance, and I also tend to get very caught up in being so angry at a book I forget I don’t have to read it. So I don’t DNF books very often, but I have a lot of books I wish I had DNF’d.

All images link to Goodreads page

The Books I Have DNF’d

The Doll Factory by Elizabeth McNeal

I tried to read this for this blog for my ‘Waterstone Book of The Month‘ series, but I just couldn’t. The theme of this book was too disturbing for me personally as a reader, and it’s a real shame as the little I did from this was really well written. Unfortunately, I think this is a case of wrong reader and wrong book. You can read my full discussion on this here.

The Catcher in The Rye by J. D. Salinger

I tried to read this years ago when I was sixteen, and I think I was too young for it. I know you’re meant to find the main character unlikable, but I found him to be so unlikable I couldn’t read the book, I only got to the part where he started talking about how good he looked in a hat and I bailed. However, since it’s a classic I will try to read this again at some point, but I’m not sure when that will be realistically because I hated this so quickly the first time I tried it

Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell

I can’t explain to you how excited I was when it was announced Carry On was getting a sequel, and I can’t explain to you how disappointed I was when I hated this so much I DNF’d it. There are so many problems with this book, and I’m actually writing a post about it at the moment because I need to talk about it in some way. I know people loved this, but there were some things in this I couldn’t forgive – and on top of that, it had the audacity to be boring!

The Rose & The Dagger by Renée Ahdieh

I tried to read this years ago when the hype surrounding this duology was huge. I remember reading ‘The Wrath & The Dawn’ and thinking to myself it was pretty ‘meh’ and figured everyone must have loved the sequel then, and then I tried to read this sequel. I think I only got about five chapters in before I decided this was just as boring and not my cup of tea. I’ve learnt over the years through trail and error that poor old Renée Ahdieh is not for me.

The Books I Wish I Had DNF’d

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen

God I hated this book. I read this as part of my ‘Buzzfeed Recommends‘ series on my blog, and if it hadn’t been for that promise review I would have DNF’d it. This was an ambitious book and I applaud if for all it tried to do. However, it had on major flaw – it tried to excuse revenge porn. Critics of YA often say it’s limited as a genre and sometimes they’re wrong, expect when YA books discuss social issues or crime because a YA book, unlike an adult novel has to at some point state that the person was wrong to do that – and this book didn’t do that. Instead one of the character commits revenge porn against the protagonist, and they become friends again after the author uses domestic abuse as a method to bridge to gap – it’s inexcusable and so this became an immediate one star read for me. This had other huge problems as well and you can read my full review here.

The Queen’s Assassin by Melissa De La Cruz

Again I read this to review as part of my ‘Buzzfeed Recommends‘ series, and again if it hadn’t been for that series I probably would have DNF’d this book. I think this was really poorly written, the characters lacked any depth of personality, the romance was stale and uninspired, and I honestly can’t tell you what the plot of this book was – it was lost in the protagonist being the most entitled person I’ve ever met. This book is a hard pass for me and you can read my full thoughts on it here.

The Thousandth Floor by Katherine McGee

I only bought this as the ebook was on sale for 99p on Kindle, and I’m so glad I didn’t spend anymore than that on this. This had a very interesting premise, the whole of New York as we know it now in one skyscarper and your welath decides what floor you live on, but the execution was lacklustre. I hated all the perspective but one, the incest was grim and the drama was somehow boring and too much at the same time.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Christ, I wish I DNF’d this. Again, I’m glad I only spent 99p on this ebook on Kindle because I don’t think I’ve ever hated a book more. This should have been amazing, it had so much potential from the premise and from the fact is a beloved YA classic. Let me tell you, this is not good. The male love interest was boring and unoriginal, and therefore the romance was too, the main character was uninspiring and I remember being either bored or angry at this book the whole time I was reading it.

Flame in the Mist + Smoke in the Sun by Renée Ahdieh

Yep, you read that write, I read this whole duology even though I hated it and hated the duology by Renée Ahdieh that I had read before this. I don’t know why I did it to myself, it was possibly one of the dumber things I’ve ever done. Honestly the main character in this book is annoying and the whole duology suffers from the problem of telling and not showing, although I appreciate how Ahdieh tried explore grey morality but she did not pull it off.

Why We Broke Up by David Handler

The only reason I didn’t DNF this when reading it is because of the award on the front, I thought it had to be good at some point if it won a award – spoiler alert: it didn’t get better. This could have been great, unfortunately it was not. The main character was dull, all I can tell you about her is that she is Jewish, likes old movies and loves her ex boyfriends – that is it, that was all of her. A boring character makes for a boring story when it is character driven.

27 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: All The Books I Have DNF’d and Wished I Had DNF’d”

  1. Yes to all the Catcher in the Rye. We had to read it in school and I really don’t understand why that’s on the curriculum. Why force children to read books they won’t like anyway? I don’t remember much about it just about this repeated questions of where ducks go in winter. I’m also very curious about your post about Wayward Son. I haven’t read the books and somehow also don’t plan to but I’m curious what you think.

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    1. i’m really lucky in the fact I was never forced to read it for school, I got To Kill A Mockingbird instead which is vastly superior in my mind! I still want to read it though as it’s a classic a lot people think everyone should read at least once in their lives. I understand why you don’t want to read either, but unfortunately everything that made Carry On successful was missing in the sequel so it just doesn’t work on that level and several others. It may be a while before that post comes out as I’m having a hard time articulating my thoughts on it, but I’m interested to see what you all think and if anyone agrees!

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  2. I’ve been wanting to read Loveboat, Taipei for a few months now and I was eager to read it, but your description has kind of put me off now. Revenge porn?! That’s awful! Maybe it needs removing from my TBR

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    1. I’m not going to tell you if you should read it or not, a lot of people loved it. It’s just it didn’t meet a standard I personally hold YA books to so I wish I had DNF’d it because there were a lot of problems with the revenge porn plotline. Though it could be for you! My advice would be to go into warily or maybe borrow it from your library or an app you library is connected to so you don’t have to buy it!

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  4. Oh no, I’ve been *so excited* to read Loveboat, Taipei and I’ve heard so many positive things about it… I didn’t ever hear about this aspect of it though?! That’s quite disturbing… I also agree with you on the Queen’s Assassin… I thought I enjoyed it okay enough after reading it but the more I think about it now I’m like yeah, nah. Don’t think I jam with de la Cruz’s writing 😅

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    1. Yeah it was really weird, and I would have forgiven it if there was a lot discourse surrounding victim mentality and why the victim decided to do it but there was NOTHING! The author just used a domestic abusive relationship as a method to bring them back together, it was really disappointing 😬

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  12. yes… wayward son… i just don’t know what happened there… it was just.. it just… it totally missed the mark, especially in comparison to Carry On. it didn’t feel as AMAZING and GREAT and everything that i loved the first book for. it felt like a filler book, like it could have been a novella but was fleshed out into an entire book… idk. I loved this post idea tho, it was great!!

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      1. yeah i really hope so, considering it’ll be the last??? i just hated not being able to ship them too??? because in the first book I was SCREAMING with how much I shipped them.. and this one… just… was not that. oh well, we can only hope the next book blows us away!!!

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