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sophia_sol) wrote2022-01-02 08:55 pm
sophia_sol) wrote2022-01-02 08:55 pm
Entry tags:
DNF 2021
Here's an incomplete roundup of books I DNFed over the course of 2021. I didn't bother to make note of every book I started without finishing, but I wanted to keep track of the ones that were either notable for some reason or ones that I'm likely to run across again and might not remember that I've already given it a try.
The Gilded Ones, by Namina Forna - bad ya fantasy that badly needs an editor. Someone else confirmed for me that it does not improve. Gave up 20% in.
Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History, by James Carroll - it is just such a very Christian approach to the history of the relationship between the Christian church and Jewish people. It starts by taking a long time to explain why having a cross at Auschwitz is bad, and does so in a way where you're not actually sure which conclusion the author is going to come to! (He does eventually say unequivocally that it's bad, but it feels touch and go for too long.) And then moving on from that it still felt very much like the author is using Jewish suffering to help him understand his own (Christian) faith better. The cross at Auschwitz helps him truly understand the cross! Yikes. I gave up partway into chapter 2. It's possible the book improves from here? But I did not feel moved to give the author more of a chance.
Axiom's End, by Lindsay Ellis - I got bored and stayed bored. After about 50 pages of that I started skimming forward, didn't see anything worth slowing down for, and gave up
The Unspoken Name, by AK Larkwood - I was bored
Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi - confusing and hard to follow, and I couldn't make myself focus on it
Middlemarch, by George Eliot - https://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/388930.html well written but the author doesn't seem to like people.
Six Crimson Cranes, by Elizabeth Lim - special princess with special magic and an evil stepmother, and she haaates embroidery, and there's lots of awkward infodumping via dialogue, I gave up 15% in.
The Ruin of Kings, by Jenn Lyons - started out promising but just got so confusing and I had no motivation to try to figure things out. Bailed at page 64 of 559.
A Psalm for the Wild Built, by Becky Chambers - what chestnut-pod said: https://chestnut-pod.dreamwidth.org/117657.html. I gave it 60 or so pages, which is more than a third, but just found it irritating.
The Last Human, by Zack Jordan - I love the webcomic, but the book didn't work for me nearly as well. It came across as a teen coming of age story where the comic is a kid's story, and I'm just more interested in the story of the bond between mother and daughter than I am in the story of a teenager's individualistic search for identity; and the point where the mother died (about 100 pages in) I abruptly lost interest in continuing to read. I heard from R who did finish the book that it gets really really dark, and in a way that's more an adult novel than a YA novel, but that also didn't sound interesting to me, tbh, so it didn't inspire me to try again.
The Black Panther: The Young Prince, by Ronald L Smith - a middle grade novel about preteen T'Challa and M'Baku of the Black Panther being best friends seems promising, but then it turns out the main premise is "what if we send them to the USA" and I'm just not that interested in the USA, lol. can't they be preteen besties in Wakanda? I read a little bit of their introduction to Chicago and just gave up.
Riding Rockets, by Mike Mullane - Read the first chapter, found the author obnoxious, and I've heard that how you feel about the first chapter is a good indication of how you'll feel about the book, so no thanks.
Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson - googled the book for spoilers when I was still in the first chapter, discovered it does not have a happy ending, decided to abandon ship before I got invested
The Gilded Ones, by Namina Forna - bad ya fantasy that badly needs an editor. Someone else confirmed for me that it does not improve. Gave up 20% in.
Constantine's Sword: The Church and the Jews: A History, by James Carroll - it is just such a very Christian approach to the history of the relationship between the Christian church and Jewish people. It starts by taking a long time to explain why having a cross at Auschwitz is bad, and does so in a way where you're not actually sure which conclusion the author is going to come to! (He does eventually say unequivocally that it's bad, but it feels touch and go for too long.) And then moving on from that it still felt very much like the author is using Jewish suffering to help him understand his own (Christian) faith better. The cross at Auschwitz helps him truly understand the cross! Yikes. I gave up partway into chapter 2. It's possible the book improves from here? But I did not feel moved to give the author more of a chance.
Axiom's End, by Lindsay Ellis - I got bored and stayed bored. After about 50 pages of that I started skimming forward, didn't see anything worth slowing down for, and gave up
The Unspoken Name, by AK Larkwood - I was bored
Riot Baby, by Tochi Onyebuchi - confusing and hard to follow, and I couldn't make myself focus on it
Middlemarch, by George Eliot - https://sophia-sol.dreamwidth.org/388930.html well written but the author doesn't seem to like people.
Six Crimson Cranes, by Elizabeth Lim - special princess with special magic and an evil stepmother, and she haaates embroidery, and there's lots of awkward infodumping via dialogue, I gave up 15% in.
The Ruin of Kings, by Jenn Lyons - started out promising but just got so confusing and I had no motivation to try to figure things out. Bailed at page 64 of 559.
A Psalm for the Wild Built, by Becky Chambers - what chestnut-pod said: https://chestnut-pod.dreamwidth.org/117657.html. I gave it 60 or so pages, which is more than a third, but just found it irritating.
The Last Human, by Zack Jordan - I love the webcomic, but the book didn't work for me nearly as well. It came across as a teen coming of age story where the comic is a kid's story, and I'm just more interested in the story of the bond between mother and daughter than I am in the story of a teenager's individualistic search for identity; and the point where the mother died (about 100 pages in) I abruptly lost interest in continuing to read. I heard from R who did finish the book that it gets really really dark, and in a way that's more an adult novel than a YA novel, but that also didn't sound interesting to me, tbh, so it didn't inspire me to try again.
The Black Panther: The Young Prince, by Ronald L Smith - a middle grade novel about preteen T'Challa and M'Baku of the Black Panther being best friends seems promising, but then it turns out the main premise is "what if we send them to the USA" and I'm just not that interested in the USA, lol. can't they be preteen besties in Wakanda? I read a little bit of their introduction to Chicago and just gave up.
Riding Rockets, by Mike Mullane - Read the first chapter, found the author obnoxious, and I've heard that how you feel about the first chapter is a good indication of how you'll feel about the book, so no thanks.
Sorcerer of the Wildeeps, by Kai Ashante Wilson - googled the book for spoilers when I was still in the first chapter, discovered it does not have a happy ending, decided to abandon ship before I got invested
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Yeah, that is what I was expecting going in, but after the first chapter or two where he seemed to be missing some ability to understand what kinds of behaviour/viewpoints from the church might be a problem with respect to Jewish people, it didn't fill me with huge amounts of confidence in the author's ability to accurately write about the full dimensionality of the problems with the Catholic church's theological stances on Jewish people, if that makes sense?
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it didn't fill me with huge amounts of confidence in the author's ability to accurately write about the full dimensionality of the problems with the Catholic church's theological stances on Jewish people, if that makes sense?
It does make sense. I think that he was focused more on the stuff that led to the more overt kinds of persecution than on the subtle stuff that grinds away at you as you're living as a minority. I feel like the subtle stuff would need to be examined by someone who is actually Jewish, and I have been on the lookout for a similar book from a Jewish perspective. I know it's out there, I just haven't found it yet. It would be best to read this one in conversation with a more subtle one.
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It's funny in a non-funny way that, every time I've thought of reading that book, something's popped up to tell me to wait. People who know my tastes did tell me that the book was not gonna be to my liking (because the plot was gonna go places I wouldn't like, iirc.) Then I learned that the entire series is basically one of Lindsay's Transformers fics with the serial numbers filed off and what remained of my enthusiasm for the novels faded away. (NO offense if you like Transformers fic; it's not my cuppa at all.)
Moving on.
Your commentary abt the Black Panther book was the same one I had. The way I went HELL NO to the idea of younger T'Challa & M'Baku in the US...Like, WHY GO WITH SUCH A BORING PLOT? I couldn't care less to see that happen in the canon (aside from the glipses in the first BP movie. Those were made with a v. definite intention that built up everyone's character.)
My other 2021 DNF was a really bad M/M book.
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I actually did see someone post very positively about the Black Panther book, which is why I bothered to give it a try in the first place, but I was just unable to get over that premise. So boring indeed!!
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The Gilded Ones, by Namina Forna -- that's really too bad; it had such a pretty cover. Well, they say what they say for a reason.
(Meanwhile, feeling pettily vindicated by A Psalm's appearance, lol.)
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I do wonder how I would have felt about A Psalm For The Wildbuilt if I hadn't read your thoughts on it beforehand, priming me to notice those features of the book! I do think I still wouldn't have liked it, but I might not have realized why I wasn't enjoying it tbh.
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