DNF RoundUp: January - April

Welcome to the the first DNF roundup! It came to my attention this year that I have had little patience with books that just either didn't suit my taste or were written horridly. In the past, I slogged through hoping that it would get better. Well, sometimes it doesn't. There are too many books in the world that I want to read to go ahead and waste time with something that just didn't suit me whatever reason may be.

I've always wanted to review these DNF books, but usually they just sit in the queue and fall to the bottom in favor of the snazzy new books that I actually finished. I don't want these books falling to the wayside. That is where the DNF Roundup comes in.

Each month or so depending on what I've DNF'd, I will have a DNF Roundup post where I will post some mini-reviews along with why they were DNFs for me.

So without further ado, the first DNF Roundup. By the way, all the one line summaries are mine and are my impression of what the summary was from what I read.

Raziel by Kristina Douglas

One Line Summary: Paranormal romance featuring a fallen angel and the chick that just died whom he was helping take to hell.

What roped me in: Despite my poor recap, it actually sounded good. I love angels and wanted to try a PNR featuring them.

Why a DNF: I dislike first person narration. I really dislike first person narration that flips people every other chapter. Now this can be done well (see Across the Universe), but what happened here was at the beginning of every chapter, we would recap the last few pages from the other persons perspective. This resulted in a slow pace and overall annoyance. I was out at 55 pages.

This One Time with Julia by David Lampson

One Line Summary: Teen trying to figure out life gets roped into some kind of trip by his twin who promptly abandons him with Julia.

What roped me in: I have a thing for books with my name in them.

Why a DNF: Joe, the narrator, bothered the hell out of me. He wasn't too horrid to read when there wasn't dialogue, but when there was it was atrocious. People do not talk like that. The one line that really stuck out for me was, "I miss you, Alvin" "You too are the one that I miss" ... What? I got 50 pages in and I couldn't go on.

The Devil in Disguise by Stefanie Sloane

One Line Summary: Will, a spy, needs to protect Lucinda, a pretty lady, from a murderous man by pretending to court her in Regency England.

What roped me in: I liked the cover and I think Julia Quinn had it on her recommended reads page.

Why a DNF: My biggest issue was I felt no connection to the characters. The characters lost their sense of self really quickly, especially the heroine. We are told things about her, and then she acts in a completely different way. What am I suppose to believe? Thus things felt like they were dragging, and I just didn't care anymore. I stopped halfway through.

The Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross

One Line Summary: Steampunk England where there is a girl who does steampunk things (I didn't get far in this one).

What roped me in: I like steampunk and the cover is pretty cool.

Why a DNF: This one I think was mostly my fault. There was a LOT of exposition in the first few chapters. Two lines of dialogue would precede four pages of backstory. Show don't tell. It was rough and because of this, I just was't insterested in the little plot that I was aware of to continue on. I made it a few chapters in.

The Price of Innocence by Susan Sizemore

One Line Summary: A woman was kidnapped by a pirate in Asia, was mentally and physically traumatized and now has to meet and deal with this asshat again.

What roped me in: The actual summary I thought was about meeting a woman a man who was her pirate lover back in London and dealing with bringing their love together with their real lives. So that sounded good.

Why a DNF: I really wanted to like this book. In fact, some of the book, the flashbacks, I did like and thought could have been a strong story (until it got all rapey). It looked so promising in the first chapter. The summary was misleading, there were some forced sexual encounters and I never saw anything even close to a healthy mental and physical relationship between the two of them in the 100 pages or so that I read. The writing was fine, the plot/execution of a potentially cool idea was horrid.


So there you have it folks. Books I tried to read so far this year and why they ended up in DNF pile. Hopefully this feature is few and far between ;)