Books shelved under “Did Not Finish”

It has been over a year since I DNFed a book, and that’s a statistic I am pleased with. I am afraid that C.J. Cherryh, despite being recognized as a titan of science fiction, might be one of those authors whose books just don’t work for me. My other outing, The Paladin was all right but didn’t leave me astonished the way I hope most of my science fiction and fantasy does. I picked up …

Alas, for the first time in over a year, I must shelve another book as “did not finish.” I am loath to do this with an eARC I received from NetGalley—I try my best only to apply for books I will hopefully like, and even when I don’t like them, I do my best to finish them and provide a full review. That being said, I have no problem with DNFing a book if it…

I put this book down at the start of Chapter 6, where one of the supposed protagonists (a 15-year-old girl) is sexually assaulting a kidnapped 15-year-old boy she idolizes. I don’t care why it’s happening or what justification there is—Kill the Boy Band had already tried my patience with some other red flags as well as Goldy Moldavsky’s style; I was already mulling over DNFing it despite being less than 50 pages in. As…

I am in the minority for this one judging by the rave reviews it is getting ahead of its release. Like many of those other reviewers, I received a copy of The Councillor from NetGalley and DAW in exchange for a review. Unfortunately, it’s going to be a short one: I did not finish this book.

We’re off to a great start. Lysande is an advisor/close friend to Queen Sarelin, who plucked her from an…

It pains me, because everyone is so hyped about Kameron Hurley, and I want to be hyped too. Alas, this first foray into her writing was not a successful venture. Despite spending exactly a week with this book, I am just barely halfway through. It was this realization that made me decide to cut my losses. I am not going to finish The Mirror Empire.

Principally, I just don’t care about any of the…

I can’t do it. Why do I have such bad luck with non-fiction British history on NetGalley? First The Tragic Daughters of Charles I and now Espionage in the Divided Stuart Dynasty. Thanks to NetGalley and publisher Pen and Sword History for the eARC, but unfortunately, I did not finish this book.

Here’s what I was anticipating based on the description of the book: I was hoping that Julian Whitehead would explain,…

I have completely forgotten the first two books of this series, and I’m having a hard time getting into this book as a result.

Like completely, completely forgotten. And I have zero interest in going back and re-reading the previous books.

Maybe this is just the wrong time for this book and I’ll come back to this series one day. I’m not writing it off completely. For the moment, however, this is not the right…

I stuck it out for 50 pages or so but was pretty sure 10 pages in that Space Opera isn’t for me.

Surprised? Me too. This has everything I usually like in humorous, Douglas Adams–inspired science fiction: lengthy infodumps, absurd alien species, human characters so over the top they might as well be on Everest … but it just … didn’t work.

Catherynne Valente’s prose just tries too hard for me. That’s not really a…

I made it through four or five of the “episodes” of The Witch Who Came in from the Cold over several days. Then I looked at how much more of the book I had left to go. I looked at my colleague, who has been reading very, very long, semi-serialized work on places like Wattpad. And I gave her this book, having not finished it, because I think she might like it more than I…

Reader, I finished the first chapter but could not go any further. The writing (or maybe copyediting) of this book is atrocious.

I know that in this day and age commas are misunderstood beasts of punctuation. As someone very invested in eradicating comma splices from my students’ writing, I tend to lean on the side of using fewer commas when in doubt. Yet this book takes that position to the extreme. The result are torturous…

Reader, I have done something I didn't think I would ever do. Not only have I had to DNF another book just before the end of the year, but I …

… I skipped to the end!

Yes, I know! Sacrilege! But I could not finish Crosstalk. The constant storm of interruptions from Briddey’s phone and the people in her life was literally causing my introvert brain to feel anxious and stressed. If…

This is somewhat outside my usual reading remit. I actually kind of bought it accidentally. I gave it a try, but honestly this weekend is just kicking my ass, so it’s not the best time to be reading something that doesn’t immediately appeal to me.

DNFing this because if I finish it I’m not going to like it, and that isn’t really the book’s fault. It’s not a bad book, but I’m not in the…

I don’t remember how The Devil You Know ended up on my to-read list, except maybe that a lot of people compare it to The Dresden Files, one of my favourite fantasy series of all time. Yet it’s worth noting that I like The Dresden Files in spite of its noir elements, and I like Harry Dresden in spite of the streak of casual chauvinism that runs through him. The Devil You Know is…

Probably a mistake to start this just as Desert Bus for Hope started; I should have known I wouldn’t get any reading done last week.

In any event, I couldn’t get into An Ember in the Ashes. I don’t think it’s a bad book, or even badly written (though I’m not sure its style is for me). I just didn’t connect with either of the protagonists, and the characterization is a little too clear-cut…

Sam Sykes drops us off very much in media res in Tome of the Undergates. Often I love that kind of thing—exposition is for chumps! But as with my experience with An Ember in the Ashes, perhaps trying to read this just after Desert Bus for Hope was a bad idea. Or perhaps it was having an antihero as a protagonist.

This reminds me a great deal of Best Served Cold. I…

There is a school of thought rising in popularity which wants coding to become a mandatory subject in schools. I have some thoughts on this, but that is neither here nor there for this review. Rather, it’s just interesting that for all the talk of teaching kids to code because it will lead to “better jobs”, there isn’t much emphasis on teaching about the way Big Data is redefining our lives. From data mining…

Four years ago, I moved to England to begin my career as a teacher. Fresh out of Lakehead University's Faculty of Education, the dry job market in Ontario left me looking across the Atlantic. Thanks to Engage Education, an agency that specializes in recruiting teachers overseas for the English school system so desperately clamouring for them, I managed to land a classroom right away. When I moved back to Thunder Bay, I got on the…

Ain’t nobody got time for vampire fiction masquerading as high-octane thrillers hidden behind too many characters and subplots.

I must have added The Passage to my to-read list back when it came out and received vaguely positive reviews from some quarters. To be sure, I can see why some people would like this. Justin Cronin writes with that pseudo-noir style that works well for certain types of thrillers: everyone in his books seems like a…

It’s a shame. I really enjoyed Journeys, but my first attempt at novel-length Ian R. MacLeod falls short.

The Light Ages takes place in an alternative England where the ability to manipulate aether has jumpstarted steam engine technology somewhat. Other technologies, like electricity, have fallen by the wayside as too unreliable. The result is a grittier, dirtier, more magical and more chaotic industrialized England.

My problems stem from the writing style. MacLeod doesn’t value…

I read the first 78 pages of this book so you don’t have to.

I was trying to make it to at least 100, but I’m sorry. The body is willing but the mind is weak.

I added this book to my to-read list after reading The God Delusion; it somehow coming up as a counterpoint to Dawkins’ atheistic arguments. I just went back and re-read my review of that book, and I’m pleased…