I want to say these books aren't bad but I would be lying. But these are my opinions and you know what to do with opinions,right? Some of these books aren't bad, they are just bad to me as a reader. These are the books I stopped reading because I either lost interest or I simply didn't like it enough to continue. Sometimes I do finish a book even if I didn't like it because my brain sometimes refused to listen to the rest of me. Here are the books I unfinished lately.
What's it about: short stories, fantasy, science fiction
Quit at: 17%
Why I quit: I was enticed by the cover art but the oddity, craziness, weirdness was too much for me but mostly because there are no resolutions to these short stories. I know short stories usually don't have resolutions but these were so short, they wouldn't have fit in a resolution. I didn't read them all so I couldn't say if they get longer.
What's it about: singular traveler, threat of death travels, travels tales to strangers, random sexual encounters, a secret library that may or may not existed
Quit at: 24% (chapter 21)
Why I quit: It seems like it's same thing over and over - the main character travels, meets people, tells them some bits about her adventures, moves on, meets new people, tells them another adventure, moves on and repeat. But the main character is very capable so she learns the local languages easily, gets along with most people and basically survives everything.
The main thing was, she wasn't traveling to find out why she was bleeding to death, she was just traveling to not to bleed. Plus all that bleeding and she didn't faint or die? As a child, she and her mother consulted a lot of doctors and then all the doctor consulting stopped after she was alone. I get that she had to survive but why wasn't she looking for answers? The puzzle ball should have meant something since it kept being mentioned and she traveled with this puzzle ball but she didn't think to open it until later but still in that moment, they offer no answers about it, just skipped over it.
The magical elements are small and few and rather vague. The magical library which was hinted at about 20% - she entered a door and came out days later all tattered, starving and beat up and then moved on to some other adventure. So I supposed the library will appear later in the book but this stupid hint is annoying.
I had hoped they would just turned her into a nun and focus on her finding answers to her strange disease but no they had to add in her sexual encounters and so her first sexual encounter (in the order the book was written) was with a stranger on a train whom she knew for maybe two hours.
It's the journey not the destination - is what people will say but I really prefer book journeys to have destinations or a goal. It just seems like the main character really just enjoys moving about and telling her tales to people, it's like she didn't care to find answers to her strange disease which is one main reason why I didn't want to continue.
Much of what she tells have no details, just summaries. There was the story about her learning to spear and ending up on a ship, spearing fishes and such and there was the mention of spearing a dolphin (chapter 14) and earning respect from the men but no details.
Maybe reading 24% is not enough to judge. The story wasn't going anywhere and mostly everything is random because when she tells her story to people, she does not say how old she was. Supposedly she didn't even know because she didn't keep track of time. So it's like trying to read bits and pieces but not in order and always there is some vagueness that makes the reader either believe this fantasy trip or assume nothing is true. I got bored with her and her moving about and getting nowhere.
What's it about: sorcery, lesbians, gays, trans, pansexuals, Sherlock Holmes retelling, vampires, time travel, travel to other worlds/dimensions, corpses
Quit at: 18% (chapter 12)
Why I quit: I chose to read this because it was a Sherlock Holmes retelling with a female Sherlock but it turned out Haas (the Sherlock Holmes character) was just made female but she is essentially a male in disguise according to her behavior.
Mostly, I find Haas is like Sherlock Holmes but without the charm or the humanity or even the genius. She's a total slob who shots the ceiling for no reason, smokes a pipe, is probably a drug addict and someone who could do everything and anything and is smug about her abilities and apparently she's okay with having someone murdered by being devoured by some otherworld beings. Being a sorcerer just means she had more ways to disturb the universe or do more disturbing things.
This book started out with a boring first chapter full of exposition-galore about Wyndham's life (in the Watson role) and all I learned was his father disapproved of him and some other things about the place he was raised and some boring political bits that are so boring that it left my mind the moment I read it.
I mostly just didn't like the way this was written. The narrator, Wyndham, censored and edited what he is telling the reader. Sentences get cut off only to tell us he had hid some curses or something horrific, dark or disturbing. His specific words were 'I have taken some license in representing her (Haas) use of language in order to protect the sensibilities of my readers.' And he went on to censor everything and everybody. This tells me he's either too chicken to write it or he feels like everyone's a prude like him which made no sense because this was written after he had experienced all the disturbing events he is telling.
By chapter 11, all these interruptions and omits and edits became rather annoying. And in that particular chapter, a character's dialogue was coupled with long dashes (these dashes represented missing words) so that the character sounded like she had hiccups. And then at the end Wyndham summarized why readers are to avoid this character which means repeating what had happened in a sort of dumb-down way and why would readers needed a summary when they had already read what happened a minute ago? And in this chapter he delicately said Haas had sexual relations with a character like it was some sort of marriage act, like some genteel woman which Haas wasn't, she's a pansexual and she's not afraid to admit any type of relation with anyone (and she might had a romantic relationship with a 17-year-old Eirene Viola (supposedly Irene Adler) when Haas was 30-something but that's in chapter 15 which I took a peek).
This narrator (Wyndham) apparently listened to his editor and did whatever that editor tells him to the point of making it as an excuse to omit/edit things that might have make the book worth reading. Readers' sensibility is a stupid excuse because if readers wanted to protect their sensibility, would they be reading this book which frankly, does not contain anything sensible because all kind of disturbing things happened in this world (as stated by Wyndham many times) so to write this recounting means to offer insensible stories which contradict censoring his writing. And also there's a landlady who possessed dead bodies - he didn't spare readers the details of the rotting corpse she is possessing - is that not disturbing a reader's sensibility? Also, it's very long-winded - supposedly they are imitating the original Sherlock Holmes sort of writing but the characters talked in an almost modern way.
So perhaps reading slightly over 12 chapters does not qualify me to judge this book but maybe if they didn't censor the writing, I would have continued but of course, if they didn't censor the writing, I wouldn't even have picked up this book because instead being a fantasy, it would be a horror and I don't read horror.
What's it about: unlikable people who curses a lot, ghosts, seances, deaths, clumsy investigation skills, weed, alcohol
Quit at: 40%
Why I quit: Why was this boring when there are ghosts, séance (half a séance), maybe murder, maybe bribes, and a lot of people who seemed rather suspicious? 40% in and they didn't even know who was the victim, just a list of names and large amount of guessing and meandering.
Claire (main character) tells the reader Sophie (main character, ghost) used the F word a lot and then Claire started using it too. It's like everyone just suddenly decided they need to use the F word. And smoking cigarettes and weed. It's like these people can't just drink tea or something. At first, this sounded very American and then suddenly, it started to sound very British, at least, in terms of the writing.
In the beginning (first chapter), why do they bothered to hide that Sophie was a ghost? I didn't read the synopsis so I thought Sophie was Claire's niece or something but then it turned out she was a ghost but that's really the only interesting thing about her.
Claire and Sophie casually tries to solve a murder. Casually because they didn't know what the heck they are doing and they are bad at it. In one scene Claire searched a room but Sophie wanted in instead of being the lookout so of course Claire got caught. Sophie being a ghost isn't much help aside from eavesdropping.
I had this odd impression this was a YA book but it wasn't since the main character (Claire) is thirty-something but sounds like a teenager. Sophie (the ghost) died when she was 17 so I guess she retained her teenage-ish behavior. Claire is a medium but somehow she couldn't care much for her profession even though she couldn't afford not to work. She is awkward doing even half a séance and told lies when she didn't even have to because there are ghosts there she could talk to get info. I think she would rather spend time smoking weed or getting drunk rather than talk to ghosts or hold séances.
I don't think Alex (a non-binary) teen does anything other than smoke cigarettes and weed and provide Claire with weed which seems to be their only function. There is a former detective (or policeman) but he's not doing any detecting so I don't know why he should have that profession. He certainly wasn't helping Claire to do detecting.
Mostly, I find not a single decent character to hang on to but there is the grandmother in the beginning but she got killed off, became a ghost and left (not a spoiler since she is not part of the mystery). The mystery is crawling on like it only existed to give Claire something to do because if it's not there, Claire would have gone home and that would end the book. Also, Claire can see ghosts but she doesn't talk to them to find information? Why? I stopped caring so I quit.
What's it about: dragons, technology, humans, fighting over planets
Quit at: 47%
Why I quit: Too much exposition right away, not just with conversations but also actual exposition in between chapters (which drops off after a while) and characters also deliver expositions - I don't mind exposition, but if they are going to do actual exposition between chapters then why are characters delivering them too? It's too obvious.
This world is a mixture of many things - teenagers who talked a bit too much like teenagers who spent a lot of time online, a dragon who is still a youngster, a planet (mars) with animals that attack humans, there's technology like tablets and computers. And these dragons are to go into space with humans on their backs and go to war with other dragons - sounds fun right? But this is a first book so none of that, at least from what I had read so far but it is apparent the actual war will be in later books.
In this world, each planet has a dragon that is kind of like the owner but once killed, anyone (mainly humans) can take over the planet. So dragons killed the dragon on Mars so that humans can live on that planet. And these dragons loves humans so much one of them even sacrificed themselves to save earth which is odd because why would they do anything for the humans when they are the superior specie? I guess these human-loving dragons must need humans but somehow I just can't believe that.
The main character, Lunar, the chosen one, he's a failure at training and stop believing in himself and then suddenly, he succeeds in a test run and voila, he believes in himself and yada, yada, we got a hero and the other people who opposed him are suddenly his pals. And also, for someone who supposedly grew up on Mars knew a lot of earth things like soda and chocolate and cliches but didn't know Grand Canyon but whatever.
A leader named Poppy (last name) suddenly accepts Lunar into their secret military just because the dragon chose him as his dragoon (a leader who rides dragons) even though he and everyone at the military base wanted to kill him in the beginning. Everything just speeds along, not much conflict or complications and really at 47%, there should be something but nope, just cruising along. This reads like a first book and like those war books where you know a battle is coming but somehow I didn't care. Not caring leads to boredom and boredom leads to not wanting to finish so I quit. I can't relate to the characters, didn't like them, couldn't find anything interesting other than the dragon and he's kind of boring and doesn't do much so yeah, no more. But the cover is great.
What's it about: murder pies, baking, magic, serial killer
Quit at: 43%
Why I quit: The beginning of the book started with a murder but then it moved on to Daisy's (the main character) boring life. Daisy sounded like she was middle age, like she had lived a long life. The scene where she was selling her pies from her van in a college campus and revealing she was in her early twenties is just weird. I thought she was middle age.
The magic bit was Daisy infusing things like self esteem or a boost of energy into her pies which was good but the pies that she called 'murder pies' kills men but not women - nothing special. She might as well just put poison in her pie because it's almost the same thing.
I didn't like Daisy and not because she's a serial killer (okay, that may be a factor) but because she thinks what she is doing is justifiable. Killing rapists and male abusers is still murder. And her killing only men is stupid because did she not think women could also be abusers? I kept picturing Daisy dressed in some 1950's outfit and killing men like in a horror movie only she feed the men pie instead of stabbing them.
If you take out the serial killer bit, it's a contemporary romance (there is a romance that might have been forced because Daisy was attractive to a woman and the man she had the romance with seemed like she chose him because... I have no idea why since he's the dullest character in the book) and every day life stuff. There wasn't enough for me to care about Daisy or what she was doing. I just can't muster up the interest to continue.
Have you unfinished a book lately?
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