DNFing The Muse

Another day, another blog post about DNFing.

Like I said yesterday in my blog post about DNFing Sunny Side Up, I have wrote in the past that I am going to talk to you about stories that I DNF. Because it's important we're honest with each other over the fact that sometimes, we just don't click with some stories. Could be a number of reasons, could be one huge problem, but it's ok to say "This isn't working" and go onto another story.

And The Muse... it was a hard and easy decision to make. Will get to this in a tick.

The Muse, for those of you who are curious, follows the lives of two women. Odelle in 1975, struggling with living in London after leaving Trinidad and now working as a secretary for the mysterious Marjorie Quick. And Olive in 1936, stuck in rural Spain who gets caught up in her art and the lives of artist (and revolutionist) Issac and his half-sister...

I tried to get into this. I really tried. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about, hence why I requested this for review. But something happened along the way...

A few days ago, I realised that I hadn't made any attempt in the past few days/weeks to listen to the audiobook. I listened to a chapter and realised why I had stop. Why I hadn't found myself rushing back to listen to what happened next with these characters.

I didn't care.

This, like most readers out there, is a big deal. I have to care about something within the story so I keep going. It can be a character, plot, a scene, a twist in the story. There has to be a hook that grabs me and keeps me.

And this didn't happened. I didn't care what happened next. So why should I keep listening to this audiobook if I don't care about the story, the characters, the what-happens-next?

Now, as I stated in the past, this is no one's fault. It's not the author's, not the publisher's, not me. It's no one's fault. I just didn't click with a story - it's ok. At least I tried! At least I attempted this story. Sometimes you click and other times, you don't. It happens. I'm not going to make myself feel guilty or ashamed for not finishing a story I didn't connect with. Like I don't feel guilty or ashamed for not liking that TV show/film.

Oh well... I didn't click with this book. Maybe I will with the next...