DNFs So Far This Year

Not sure why lately, but there seems to be a lot of talk online on whether you should rate & review books you quit (DNF = do not finish). I’m don’t really know what camp I’m in as I tend to jump between the two. 

I know, how rude! 

So, because of this, I was looking at the books I quite over the past few months to see if there was a pattern. Whether there was a common thread between the way I kept DNFing books. Maybe because I have outgrown the books and genres. Maybe there was a subject matter involved in the book that made me “nope” out. Or maybe, it was the right book for me, but not the right time…

So, let’s chat about some DNFs and see where that gets us… (and yes, I will put affiliate links to uk.bookshop.org for you all. I mean, just because I didn’t like them for one reason or another, doesn’t mean you won’t. This might be your book!). 

Let’s start with the most recent (of sorts): Red Rising by Pierce Brown*. I have tried SO MANY TIMES since prior to its UK publication 10 years ago. But every times I start, I struggle to get past chapter 3 or 4. It’s just a tad too dark and our main lead is hard for me to find likeable. But this book should in theory, be right up my street: imagine The Hunger Games set in space but dark, grittier and more bloody and you have this series. But, like I said, this isn’t for me. I really, really tried! I might be stubborn and try the audiobook from my local library but that will be my final chance. 

Another book I DNF was A Little Trickerie by Rosanna Pike*. I mainly tried this as this sounded weird and intriguing, plus it was on the long list for this year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction. Now I quit this at about the 29% mark (so I went further than Red Rising), but I wasn’t really in the right mindset for this - plus, I wasn’t gelling with the writing style of the stream on consciousness. But, I can see why it was on the long list. Plus, I am very curious over another title (which went on to win this year’s prize), The Safekeep by Yal van der Wouden*. Maybe I should try that for Pride (my Pride reading will be later in the year because celebrating Pride shouldn’t be a one month thing.)

I love a good myth/legend/folklore so when I discovered Britain’s Folklore Year* on NetGalley, I jumped at it. And I got a go way through, but the main reason I stopped was that this was tad too dry for my reading taste. I needed something a tad lighter in tone (hence why the audiobook I started after this DNF and Red Rising is my current audiobook of A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan*, which I am really enjoying - so much so I have bought audiobooks two and three int he series. Pray for me as I have no idea when am going to listen to these alongside my audiobook TBR list in my head…)

Let’s end on something lighter: An Unexpected Kind of Love by Hayden Stone (sadly, this isn’t on bookshop.org). A queer romance, similar to the vibes of the movie Notting Hill. Sign me up! But I couldn’t gel with this. It was a tad too sweet for my tastes and our main lead was a tad much for me. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I knew very quickly that I wans’t going to be rooting for him to get the guy at the end of the book so I decided to save myself raging at the character and his decisions and quit while I was ahead. 

So, yeah, some of my DNFs. No shame, no guilt here. Some books work for us readers, others done. If you enjoyed the above, great. AM glad you did. But they weren’t for me. So, no shame, but what were your guys last DNF? Love to know what title and why and see if this is a book I would go near or flee quickly away…