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Giving up on Books
Jul. 19th, 2011 07:31 pmI have, within the last week, given up on two books. This is not something I take lightly. I always read a book through to the end from at the very least, a sense of obligation to complete something once I start, and also because I'm a very loyal person (or is it stubborn?) and I don't like to give up on something.
But my TBR pile is enormous. So big, there really is no way I'll ever get through all the books on it as is, and that means never buying another book for the rest of my life. Or, I need to read about 1 book every day, and I simply don't have that much reading time these days.
So, with enormous pain, I have decided to say to these 2 books, Thanks for the date, but it's just not going to work out between us and I feel it would be best if we parted now, rather than dragging things out any further.
Book #1 was a Mother's Day gift from Son #2, which makes it doubly hard to say goodbye. I hung in there with it until the halfway point. Its problem? I find the MC horribly rude and obnoxious. It's a fairly typical scenario, young newcomer is groomed to be the catalyst for big change. But he's brash and unlearned and frankly, I just don't see many redeeming qualities in him. He talks back in a very rude manner and halfway through the book, nothing has materialized in the form of the big plot picture (i.e., no magical abilities or signs thereof). So, I bid you adieu.
Book #2 I was really prepared to like, as it's from an author whose other series I *really* enjoyed. The storyline might be fine, but it (IMHO) suffers from a bad case of MadeupName-itis. Unfamiliar terms and words and peoples are thrown about with abandon, without much context to ground me in some sense of what they're talking about, and it's more than my feeble brain can figure out.
Both book failures give me a lesson in my own writing. No whining, rude protagonists, and go lightly on the made-up languages and words.
But my TBR pile is enormous. So big, there really is no way I'll ever get through all the books on it as is, and that means never buying another book for the rest of my life. Or, I need to read about 1 book every day, and I simply don't have that much reading time these days.
So, with enormous pain, I have decided to say to these 2 books, Thanks for the date, but it's just not going to work out between us and I feel it would be best if we parted now, rather than dragging things out any further.
Book #1 was a Mother's Day gift from Son #2, which makes it doubly hard to say goodbye. I hung in there with it until the halfway point. Its problem? I find the MC horribly rude and obnoxious. It's a fairly typical scenario, young newcomer is groomed to be the catalyst for big change. But he's brash and unlearned and frankly, I just don't see many redeeming qualities in him. He talks back in a very rude manner and halfway through the book, nothing has materialized in the form of the big plot picture (i.e., no magical abilities or signs thereof). So, I bid you adieu.
Book #2 I was really prepared to like, as it's from an author whose other series I *really* enjoyed. The storyline might be fine, but it (IMHO) suffers from a bad case of MadeupName-itis. Unfamiliar terms and words and peoples are thrown about with abandon, without much context to ground me in some sense of what they're talking about, and it's more than my feeble brain can figure out.
Both book failures give me a lesson in my own writing. No whining, rude protagonists, and go lightly on the made-up languages and words.
