It’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the wonderful blog at The Broke and the Bookish! This week’s topic:
Ten Books I Struggled to Get Through!
I’ve never been afraid of the big old DNF but sometimes I’ll stick it out if I think that a book has potential, if I need to know how it ends, or if it’s a short book and I want to count it towards my Goodreads goal (ha). With a topic of books I struggled to get through, here are some reads that I didn’t particularly enjoy but still finished… and I’m sure you’ll find a lot of nice black sheep moments here!
TRUTHWITCH by Susan Dennard
I just didn’t connect with this book at all. I wanted so much more world-building, I didn’t think the characters had a lot of depth and the pacing just didn’t grab me. I still finished it because so many friends raved but I tried reading this on audio (I hated the voices) and then in print and it was still rough.
DEFIANCE by C.J. Redwine
I had high hopes for this book but it was kind of dystopian and kind of fantasy? The genre concept just seemed all over the place and I wasn’t a big fan of the characters but I really wanted to see exactly how it ended.
INTERWORLD by Neil Gaiman & Michael Reaves
I’ve been a fan of everything Neil Gaiman has written… except for this book. It got really messy and weird and a little too odd for my tastes. It also read way younger than I thought it was going to so that wasn’t enjoyable, really, but it was an audiobook so it was easy to keep listening and finish.
NOBODY BUT US by Kristin Halbrook
This book was supposed to be romantic but it was just… boring. The main characters are 18 and 15 and the 15-year-old felt very, very young and I had a hard time with the whole book reading how the characters spoke. It just wasn’t my thing but it was short and I wanted to finish.
WENTWORTH HALL by Abby Grahame
Wentworth Hall was like Gossip Girl meets Downton Abbey but it seemed more like a ploy to combine them rather than doing it well. It was cheesy and not enjoyable but short, quick, and read it for a feature so I finished it!
WHERE FUTURES END by Parker Peevyhouse
This book consisted of five different stories at different points on a timeline and the first one was the only one I liked. I was listening to the audio so I kept on going but the stories got less interesting for me as the book progressed.
SHADE ME by Jennifer Brown
I was so excited to read a book about synesthesia but the way it was done was just… not put together well. There were several plot holes in how it actually works, a lot of things didn’t make sense, and the characters were just not enjoyable to read about.
TRAITOR TO THE THRONE by Alwyn Hamilton
I AM STILL SO BUMMED ABOUT THIS. Rebel of the Sands was one of my favorite reads of the whole year last year and this book took a turn. It was very long (unnecessarily, in my opinion), the characters were split up, it took a break from the action, and I didn’t like the plot points that were used. Such a major bummer that I don’t even know if I’ll read the last book in this series.
REBEL by Amy Tintera
I waited waaaay too long to read REBEL after REBOOT (like several years) and I was just so out of the story that it was too hard to catch up again. I also just didn’t feel as involved in the story line either way so it was a little rough.
STRANGE AND EVER AFTER by Susan Dennard
Oops, that’s two Susan Dennard books on my list now but this book just didn’t do it for me. I had a hard time getting into the story of this last book and I was falling out of love with the characters but I got really upset because I was following Susan Dennard on Twitter and she spoiled her own book for me by tweeting about a BIG THING in this last book even though I had only started reading it about 6-9 months after it was published. Way too soon to tweet spoilers for your own book so I had a sour taste in my mouth.
1 thought on “Top Ten Tuesday: September 5, 2017 – Ten Books I Struggled to Get Through”
Bummer about SHADE ME!! I have read almost all of Jennifer Brown’s books and LOVED them!! I didn’t read this series though because it was SO different from her other stuff and scared me. Where Futures End is also on my TBR– but the book looks so short, I feel like I’ll be okay to get through it no matter what.