gave up

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/14/20
Gave up: 3/9/20

I really liked that other Holly Black trilogy, so I picked this book up from the library.  I couldn’t find time to start reading the physical copy, so I borrowed the audiobook a few days later and listened to it in the car…for as long as I could.  Teenagers and vampires and the angst that goes with a centuries-old vampire who finds something deep and unique and irresistible and different and blah blah blah about a 17-year-old girl and I cannot count the ways in which I do not care.

Caught Dead Handed by Carol J. Perry

Leave a Comment

Started: 11/11/19
Gave up: 11/12/19

I found this mystery series in one of those library/book publisher magazines, too, but I couldn’t get into this one at all.  It’s set in Salem, so I assume magic will come into it, but it’s starting with astrology and a dead fake astrologer’s cat named Orion (dead astrologer, live cat), except they change it to O’Ryan because I don’t know why and I quit.

Invictus by Ryan Graudin

2 Comments

Started: 11/3/19
Gave up: 11/10/19

Young adult, time travel, heist/mystery.  At around 50%, I’m not sure I’m going to finish it.  I’m intrigued by the complication that arose around a quarter of the way in that has not been explained yet, but a) I feel like I can live without knowing what’s going on, and b) I’m not convinced it’s going to be explained in this book.  Is this part of a series?  I should find out.

I gave up at 70%.  That’s when they explained exactly how they were going solve their problem.  I’m sure it won’t go exactly as planned, but that’s close enough for me to know how it ends, and I put it down.  Meh.  Also, not part of a series.

The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig

1 Comment

Started: 10/9/19
Gave up: 10/12/19

In my calendar, I wrote that I put this book “on hold”, but who are we kidding?  I gave up.  I liked the idea of it – the protagonist is the daughter of a pirate captain who, with her help, can navigate to any place, real or imaginary, in any time, as long as the map is well-drawn and the mapmaker believed in it.  That’s a cool idea.  The issue I had was with the writing.  The author kept talking about maps, but ships use charts.  I can ignore the use of walls instead of bulkheads and floors instead of decks and doors instead of hatches, but for some reason, despite my near-total memory loss of everything I learned in the Navy, I can’t get past saying maps instead of charts.

Failure to Communicate by Kaia Sønderby

Leave a Comment

Started: 9/30/19
Gave up: 10/1/19

This book is supposed to be a) very good and b) a very good portrayal of an autistic person, from an autistic person’s point of view, written by an autistic person.  It may very well be both of those things (all of those things?), but I got lost in the science fiction parts of it.  Too many characters, too similar to each other (at least in the beginning), and WAY too many different aliens not differentiated from each other.  And you KNOW I’m all about aliens.  I gave up.

The Sky Is Yours by Chandler Klang Smith

Leave a Comment

Started: 9/28/19
Gave up: 9/30/19

I’ve read that this book is funny, and Mel says this book is funny, but I gave up on it because one of the characters is an over-privileged disgusting teenage boy with an attitude and I really did not like being inside his head.  I wasn’t a big fan of the other two point-of-view characters, either.

The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

Leave a Comment

Started: 9/28/19
Gave up: 9/28/19

I’m sure this book is really funny, but I am not its audience: Part 2.  Or I was not in the right mood: Part 2.  The man climbs out the window right away, but I don’t know why.  He leaves his own party and I don’t know why.  He STEALS SOMEONE’S SUITCASE at a bus station on, like, the third page, and that just seems really cruel AND I STILL DON’T KNOW WHY, so I gave up.

Here and Now and Then by Mike Chen

Leave a Comment

Started: 8/19/19
Gave up: 8/23/19

Time travel story that’s a little heavy-handed on the SF aspect.  I like hard SF, and I like time travel, but there’s something about the way we’re being told about the time travel bureau that feels amateurish.  The plot device for it could work, but it’s too clinical, I think.  Too much telling, not enough showing, maybe.  And the fact that the guy is in trouble for something he a) couldn’t control, and b) CAN’T REMEMBER seems really crappy.  Not finishing!

When You Read This by Mary Adkins

Leave a Comment

Started: 4/18/19
Gave up: 4/18/19

I couldn’t get into this one.  It’s the story of a woman who died told via the emails of the people who knew her (and one person who didn’t know her but started working for her boss after she died).  It might be depressing, it might be uplifting, I think it’s supposed to be funny, but I didn’t stick around to find out for sure.  I wasn’t learning enough about the characters to care, and the intern really bugged me.

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

Leave a Comment

Started: 4/7/19
Gave up: 4/7/19

This is hard to admit, but I gave up on Dandelion Wine.  I love Ray Bradbury, but I couldn’t read this.  It’s an ode to small-town life before the Great Depression.  Remember when boys were boys and men were men and small towns were great and aren’t little brothers wonderful and gosh, summer lasts forever, and MAYBE if there had been a plot!

Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/18/19
Gave up: 2/22/19

I couldn’t get into this story.  It started with so much exposition, and when we finally got into some characters’ heads, I was relieved and then disappointed.  It’s slow-moving, and the depiction of an alien race (native to a planet humans settled on) strikes me as vaguely racist, so it’s unpleasant to read.  Add to that the abundance of unnecessary commas and I had to walk away.

The Iron Dragon’s Daughter by Michael Swanwick

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/5/19
Gave up: 2/7/19

This could have been (and might be, to a different reader) an interesting story about belonging and ownership of self and taking action to control your life, but it felt like several stories all muddled together.  It starts in a factory with child labor, but it leaves there quickly (and abruptly), with no sign any of that will be revisited.  Then it switches to a school, with great details about tiny things that appear to have nothing to do with the plot (but they’re neat).  In both settings so far, there are off-hand crude comments involving sexualizing young girls that I found really disturbing.  We’re following one main character, but I have no idea what she’s going to do or even what she wants to do.  I gave it up.

Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix

Leave a Comment

Started: 2/4/19
Gave up: 2/7/19

This is a horror story set in a store that is identical to Ikea, but isn’t Ikea.  The premise is kind of funny, but the novelty wears off quickly.  And then the story got actually scary (or scary enough), so I stopped reading it at night, and then I found I didn’t care enough to pick it back up during the day.  No ringing endorsement here.

Song Against Shadow by Anne E.G. Nydam

Leave a Comment

Started: 1/31/19
Gave up: 1/31/19

I picked this one because the author will be at the convention I’m going to in a couple of weeks, but I gave up on it almost immediately.  The writing was stilted, formal, and boring, and the characters are all high-elf types with ridiculous names, and I am SO not in the mood.  Hard pass.