Books I DNF (Book Tag)

I was very excited to see last night that Zezee created her own new Book Tag focused on DNF books! It felt like perfect timing given my reading slog through August which is ending in a bit fat DNF to both save my own sanity and so I have something to talk about in my Reading Roundup!

Zezee has a list of 20 questions to pick from – check it out here – I’ve adapted that to what I felt like answering, and you know I’m never sticking to answering just one book…

If I’ve linked a book title that’ll be to either a review on this blog or my review on Goodreads! That said…

Have you DNF any books so far this year? If so, how many?

4 books so far this year!

1. Nothing But The Truth: Stories of Crime, Guilt and the Loss of Innocence by The Secret Barrister

2. Alien Clay by Adrian Tchaikovsky

3. The Final Girl Support Group by Grady Hendrix

4. The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin

Has your tendency to DNF books changed over the years?

I forced myself to finish The Hobbit when I was about 13 and it was not worth it, so that was the first and last time I voluntarily made myself read a boring book to the end!

I say voluntarily because I spent 3 years doing an English degree and had to read a lot of stuff not to my taste (I won’t pretend I finished everyone.. more on that later…). I’ve also finished books I’d otherwise have DNF’d for the sake of the book club I was in 2019-2020.

In general life is too short and there are plenty of books to enjoy, so don’t waste time!

What’s a major reason why you’d DNF a book?

If I’m bored with a story that’s usually because I’m not connected to the characters, which might be too much description, too much flowery language, flat characters, not enough emotional development, predictable plot or just plain bad writing.

Really I just realised that I don’t care what’s going to happen in the story…

Or I might realise I’ve come to hate the obnoxious characters and am now actively rooting against them… as was the case with Alien Clay and the All Souls trilogy!

Do you find that you’re more likely to DNF a certain format or genre more than others?

Physical book and ebook is about the same. I may persevere more with a physical book. With an audio book I’ll DNF quite quickly with a bad narrator, but if I make it through the first few chapters I’ll usually push to the end since I can be busy with chores while I listen so it’s less of a time waste in a way. 

Romance books are my quickest genre DNFs because I’m very specific about what I do and do not find romantic, and they’re very formulaic so usually I can tell where it’s likely to go pretty quick. Unfortunately, there are a lot of terrible or outright toxic romance books out there, so I don’t read many!

What book did you give up on after reading a few pages (like 10 pages or less)?

Elektra by Jennifer Saint was a very quick DNF. I really wish I’d read a sample first (learned that lesson!). I don’t think I made it to the end of chapter 1. The writing was sending me to sleep and I could just tell it was going to do anything interesting.

Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad is one of the first books I had to read for my undergraduate degree and I always remember I couldn’t get past page 9! It’s so dense, and I had no knowledge of the conflict in the Congo, so I didn’t have the context for what was going on. I read those 9 pages over and over and took nothing in before giving up!

What book did you give up on even though you were close to the end (only a few chapters or pages left)?

I’ve just done that at 75% of The City We Became. I think that’s the the furthest in I’ve given up on a fiction book in my memory. And that’s an audiobook!

Usually, if I was that far through an eBook or physical book I’d start skim-reading through to the end, but you can’t do that with audio!

What book did you stop reading, or nearly stopped reading, because the characters were unlikeable or unbearable?

OMG You and Me On Vacation by Emily Henry 10000% … I hate those characters.

Another more frustrating example of this is that I made it through A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness and gave it 3 stars because its trashiness made it an enjoyable hate read. I crawled to the end of the second book, Shadow of Night and gave it 2 stars… but then The Book of Life finished me off… I couldn’t get through page 1. I couldn’t endure being trapped with those fucking idiots any more. OMG Diana is the most cringeworthy 30-year-old woman I’ve ever read the POV of. She is such a moron. It’s all so stupid.

And by the way do not be fooled by the title, these books have barely any witches in it! It’s a fucking Vampire Romance! I am still annoyed about those books 2 years after I tried to read them. I also have them all in paperback and hardly ever buy physical books. I really need to donate them and get them out my library!

The worst thing about them is that the world and side characters are kind of interesting which was enough to keep me trying to push past the terrible main characters.

What book did you stop reading because an element of the book, or the entire book, irritated the shit outta you?

Hoofin’ It! I already talked about that in my response to the Goodreads Was Wrong tag!

To talk about a different one I had to stop Alien Clay by Adrian Tachaikovsky recently because the main character was so obnoxiously annoying and that was compounded by the framing of “I’m telling you a story and telling you I am deliberately leaving out elements to sound clever.” Flippancy is irritating and not charming to me.

I’m also going to bring up You and Me on Vacation again because honestly, everything about it was irritating!

What book did you stop reading because you hit or were in a reading slump?

This is where I am right now, and why I decided yesterday to call time on The City We Became! The book wasn’t going to get better and it was killing my reading habit, and wasting my limited audiobook hours on Spotify! Because of this book – and also crawling through Deadhouse Gates still – I’ve not finished any novels this month!

What book did you expect not to like and/or DNF but ended up completing AND liking?

Honestly, Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson is a recent one… It was more of a surprise I didn’t hate it, and I enjoyed some elements of it!

I wasn’t sure that I was going to like Secrets of a Summer Night by Lisa Kleypas because from it’s froofy cover and description it sounded like it would be a bit of an old fashioned sickly affair, but… I fucking loved it and devoured all The Wallflowers and for all four books wrote reviews with analysis!

Conversely, what book did you expect to love but ended up neither liking nor finishing?

I was going to answer American Gods by Neil Gaiman for this, and commented on Zezee’s post that I DNF’d it… but after checking Goodreads I actually did finish this in 2016, and apparently gave it three stars! Despite the fact that it lives in my memory as terribly boring and I didn’t make it to the end!

A more recent one was Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood. I really, really thought I’d love it! I did finish it by skimming to the end, I gave it 2 stars. The characters were so flat, Oryx was so objectified – in a really uncomfortable way – that she’s barely even a character, and the only interesting things happen off-page!

What book did you give up on because it was a case of “wrong book at the wrong time”?

The Blind Assassin also by Margaret Atwood was a DNF the first time I tried to read it in my early twenties. Years later I picked it up again while on holiday and devoured it in 2 days… I could not put it down! It’s a bit more of a mature book so I think I’d got a bit more perspective and experience in the intervening couple of years… I mean, the holiday I read it on was one I took with my ex-boyfriend weeks after we’d broken up but still lived together… so I’d learned a bit more about life and relationships! It’s now a book I will probably reread.

All the Discworld books are very much mood reads for me! If I try one and I’m not feeling it after a few pages it’s time to put it down with the knowledge on a different day I might really vibe with it!

What book did you read because of hype but DNF?

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller! I remain completely baffled by the hype.

What book(s) did you DNF but would like to give another try?

Saints and Strangers is a slim anthology of short stories by Angela Carter where she reimagines mythologised characters (and real historical people) in a very Angela Carter way. I’ve had this book for probably 15 years, I got it in the charity shop I used to volunteer in. I’ve tried to read it a couple of times but both of those times it was on a train because I kept forgetting this is not a book to read in public! It’s got far too much weird sex stuff and just disturbing imagery!

I haven’t read any Angela Carter since I was in my early twenties and I really want to go back to her now I’m passing the hump of my thirties!

What classic novel(s) have you DNF?

I already mentioned Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. I tried to read Dune by Frank Herbert about 8 times and only finally succeeded on audiobook a couple of years ago (it was not worth the effort, I hated it!).

I couldn’t make it through Dracula by Bram Stoker, I thought it would be fun to read before visiting Whitby and it was not… I can’t remember if I ever finished Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. That wasn’t a purposeful DNF though because that is a cool story, I just lost my copy and never went back to it!

What book did you DNF but think would have worked better in a different medium (movie adaptation, etc.)?

I know a lot of people enjoy being adamant that “the book is always better” but that is not always true! When I read Wuthering Heights I did wonder if I’d enjoy the campy melodrama more if I watched a movie with some OTT actors. White Teeth was another one where I was curious to see if I’d prefer it in a TV format too. I’ve not tested any of those though!

There are some books that I find a lot easier to get through in audio format instead of reading – again Wuthering Heights is a prime example! I found Persuasion more accessible for my second read when read aloud because those insanely long sentences are hard to make sense of on the page sometimes (even the narrator struggled!).

Bonus! Do you review books you DNF?

Yes I do, but only if I feel like I have something to say about it and I want to record my reasons for giving up on it. There are a few I gave up on this year that never made it to my blog but have a brief Goodreads review – like Alien Clay.

And now, fellow book bloggers…