Books I DNFd this year (did not finish)

Hey y’all! I’ve had a flux this year so far where some months I had plenty of time to read, and others I felt like I had none with everything else going on. It made me really value the time that I did have! And with that, I became pretty ruthless about not bothering to continue or finish a book if it was just not doing it for me. So far this year I’ve ditched 5. Here’s which ones and why!

*prepare for some potentially unpopular opinions* 🤣

Books that didn’t make the cut

Frankly in Love by David Yoon

This one got ditched because I had just read Super Fake Love Song by him, which was okay enough for me to pick up another book by him. However, I quickly realized that the characters and style are almost identical. I was bored pretty quickly after that. I may read this at a later time with some more distance, but it didn’t seem like I was missing out after having read the other one.

Blanca & Roja by Anna-Marie McLemore

This one actually was pretty good, it was just very abstract magical realism that I was way to tired to put in the effort of following. It took some focus, sort of like poetry, and I just was not in a place to dedicate that to it. I’ll probably come back to this as a summer read or something!

My Year Abroad by Chang-Rae Lee

This was one that I heard such effervescent praise about, for both the book and the author, that I couldn’t not give it a shot. But sort of like Blanca & Roja, I just didn’t have the energy for the effort this one required. It was extremely slow and kind of weird (for me). I might come back to it later, but definitely as a slow focus read among other books.

Bleaker House by Nell Stevens

I gave this one a solid go. Probably 70% of the way I finally gave in to the fact that it wasn’t going to change enough to make me care. It was a very strange collection, which does reflect the atmosphere she describes on an isolated dreary island, but as a reader it just didn’t hold me. Combined with seemingly random short stories or anecdotes, I was not feeling this one. Ah, well. I’m not likely to come back to this one.

The Part About the Dragon was Mostly True by Sean Gibson

Ahhhh, the most painful one of them all. I really hoped I would love this. I really hoped it would be a delightful surprise for me, like The Champions of the Dragon. But it was not at all like that, didn’t make me laugh at all, and was super disappointing. A lot of other people found it hilarious, so this one comes down to my disinterest in crude humor like poop and farts and such. The anti-cliched moments were also pretty much still cliched in how popular they are now. 😔 More in my DNF review here.