I don’t intended on making “DNF Digest” a regular thing because honestly? I always hope to finish a book! Lately, though, I’ve been more inclined to mark a book as DNF because there are just soooo many books I need to read (you’ve seen my shelves) so I just can’t afford to be pushing through books that I’m really not enjoying. If I’ve read a lot of the book I finish, it’s sort of a policy of mine to try to write a small “review” saying why it didn’t work for me, but today’s collection of DNF round-ups didn’t quite warrant reviews because I didn’t make it as far as I’d hoped.
Here’s my latest collection of books I decided to mark as DNF and the reasons why
Title: You Look Different In Real Life
Author: Jennifer Castle
Format I was reading: Audiobook
Started reading: 1/8/14
Date marked as DNF: 1/9/14
Marked DNF at: 25%
Reason for marking DNF: To be honest, I really shouldn’t have requested this book in the first place but I got carried away with the auto-approval on Edelweiss and thought I should give it a shot. I’m not really a fan of books surrounding people on reality-type shows, camera crews…. Eh. I made it a quarter of the way through and honestly couldn’t find myself caring about any of the characters or the situations and even at 2x speed, the audio was slow and boring. I didn’t really care how the book ended so I figured that was about time for me to end it.
Title: False Sight (False Memory #2)
Author: Dan Krokos
Format I was reading: ARC from BEA
Started reading: 7/31/13
Date marked as DNF: 2/5/14
Marked DNF at: 153 pages/45%
Reason for marking DNF: I really kept hoping to come back to this one but the book took a weird turn and I just didn’t want to keep going. I really wasn’t enjoying it as much as the first book and I put it down to start something else and could never make myself come back to it. I still sort of want to finish it someday because it’s not a long book but the motivation to pick it back up just isn’t coming to me.
Title: The Promise of Amazing
Author: Robin Constantine
Format I was reading: ARC from HarperTeen
Started reading: 12/1/13
Date marked as DNF: 2/5/14
Marked DNF at: 142 pages/36%
Reason for marking DNF: I wanted to love this book and I feel SO bad because I got to interview Robin Constantine for The Selective Collective featured and she was so incredibly sweet! I just didn’t connect with either character, the relationship had a nice meet-cute but still felt sort of weird, and I just didn’t like the direction it was going. I’m not a “bad-boy” type of person. I like the bad boys who really have hearts of gold and are only perceived to be bad, but actual bad things or guys who are players…. Nah. I didn’t like Grayson’s image and I couldn’t let that go. I also didn’t like the whole pregnancy story line with Wren’s sister because it just seemed to take away from Wren’s own story.
Title: And We Stay
Author: Jenny Hubbard
Format I was reading: egalley from Random House
Started reading: 1/15/14
Date marked as DNF: 1/29/14
Marked DNF at: 18%
Reason for marking DNF: This book was just soooo not for me. I thought the Emily Dickinson story line would be interesting and we’d get to see some cool history wrapped up in the present day but it seemed like an obsession was forming and it was just a little weird. The narration in this book is not for everyone either. It’s third person present tense which felt incredibly distant and let’s be honest, Emily is going through a LOT here and I wanted to share that grief and anger and regret with her. I felt like I couldn’t connect with her because of how the book was written. Oh yeah, and all that STUFF? It was thing on top of thing and I think a lot of stuff is thrown at the reader and I wasn’t sure what to do with it. Like, HOLY COW, that’s… that’s a lot. I talked it over with a trusted reviewer and good friend and she said she made it farther and was even more weirded out so that pretty much sealed the deal for me. When I decided to stop reading, I honestly felt like a weight was lifted.
Title: Perfect Lies (Mind Games #2)
Author: Kiersten White
Format I was reading: egalley from HarperTeen
Started reading: 1/14/14
Date marked as DNF: 1/14/14
Marked DNF at: 10%
Reason for marking DNF: I didn’t really like book one but I wanted to give this series a second shot. I liked the idea of the series but I didn’t like the main characters or the writing style. It only took a few pages before I realized it wasn’t changing and I really shouldn’t have expected it to. That and I couldn’t remember a single thing that happened in book one except for the very end and forgot why it even happened like that. I really shouldn’t have even started the book to begin with and quickly decided to stop reading because that would have been a painful read for me and it’s just not the book I should be reading and then assigning a low rating to.
12 thoughts on “DNF Digest [1]”
I’m so sad about The Promise of Amazing! It looks so good!! ]= And that cover!!!!
First, I love that you’re doing a round up like this! Even though I’ve finished 3 of these it’s still interesting to hear what made you stop. I did not like You Look Different in Real Life, I probably should have DNF it, but I do like reality TV-type stories so I kept hoping it would get better (it just got worse, IMO). The Promise of Amazing I think I went into with really, really low expectations, but I liked it. I didn’t love it, or even really like it, but I was entertained and interested in the characters. I hated Wren’s friends though and I agree with you about the sister’s pregnancy story line. And We Stay I ended up really liking. I was unsure about it at the beginning, but it really grew on me. I went to college down the road from Amherst and have been to the Emily Dickinson House many times so I think that connection helped. I really liked the writing, I thought the weird tense mirrored how distant Emily felt from her own life and choices. I didn’t like the whole reincarnation thing, too weird for me and I mostly just ignored it!
Thank you! I wanted to still share my thoughts but I couldn’t review them and one post for something so small wasn’t worth it haha. I like this format!
I totally feel like And We Stay is either a book you get or a book you don’t. I just wasn’t a book for me but I know lots of other people really enjoyed it! I like how you connected with it! That’s really cool and I’m sure that really helped you connect!
Aww. Sucks to see that you weren’t able to come back to — and finish — False Sight. But I definitely understand, because it is really very different from the first book. It went places I was not AT ALL expecting, and it threw me off, but I ended up liking it more than you did. Alas!
I completely agree with you about The Promise of Amazing. I loved the title and the cover but the rest of the book just wasn’t good. I kept wanting to forgive Grayson and give him a second chance but his attitude just wouldn’t allow it, I never believed he had changed. It was such a disappointment. I definitely couldn’t argue with anyone who didn’t finish that one. And I couldn’t even get through Mind Games but it’s too bad the sequel didn’t improve at all.
Aww, that’s too bad about And We Stay. I’m reading it right now and I absolutely love it. It’s definitely not for everyone though, and your reasons for DNFing make sense. This is the first book I’ve ever read in third person present tense, and weirdly enough, I like it. I know a lot of people mentioned that they couldn’t connect with Emily because of it, but I’m finding it very easy. Also, I totally get her obsession, which probably helps as well.
I’m surprised you picked up Perfect Lies! I remember us discussing the first one after I read and strongly disliked it. It’s good to know the second one isn’t worth my time, because I was curious if it would get better or not.
I’m really happy to finally see I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t blown away by And We Stay. I’m not really sure how I managed to finish it, but I thought it was pretty rough. The concept was fantastic, but I just could not get over the writing style.
The Promise of Amazing sounds like it’s just not for me. At first I was thinking about it, but the more reactions I read about it, the more I’m thinking it’s too blah for me. And We Stay sounds SO interesting!! That’s so disappointing that it’s in 3rd person. I have a super hard time connecting with 3rd person narration for whatever reason. And I don’t like obsessions. So yeah I have no idea if I’ll like that one or not 🙁
I ended up finished Perfect Lies last night (It was a really quick read). I still honestly didn’t remember much detail from Mind Games, but I caught the basic gist of what was going on. I was honestly disappointed by it though. I didn’t feel like Fia developed at all which was super disappointing. 🙁
I think it is great that you do mini-reviews of DNFs. I think it is important to share books that you like and books that you don’t like. I think it was wise for you to DNF The Promise of Amazing, I haven’t read any strong reviews of this book.
It’s hard to mark a book as DNF, but like you said when there’s just so much to read sometimes you have to. I’ve marked one so far this year as DNF mainly because I couldn’t get into it at all and it made me not want to read for days.
I’ve seen the Promise of Amazing DNF’d by another blogger too, and I don’t think I’d like most of the books on your list either.
You Looked Different in Real Life was on my radar when I first heard about it, but I’ve seen mostly “meh” reactions to it. I’m glad I passed on The Promise of Amazing now. It sounded SO cute but I don’t think I could handle the *actual* bad boy thing. I don’t even really like most bad boys with a heart of gold characters. . . they have to be different from most to stand out in my mind.
I didn’t like Mind Games either, but also thought about giving Perfect Lies a chance. All in all, though, I think passing was probably a good thing. Too many other books I actually WANT to read!