Six books I did not finish

This post is part of Top 10 Tuesday, run by Jana from That Artsy Reader Girl.

I may be a massive bookworm, but there are some books that even I couldn’t get through. There’s no book too long, but there can be a book too tedious.

Marking a book as DNF, or did not finish, is almost like admitting defeat. There can be so many reasons why you would abandon a book halfway through – maybe you couldn’t get into the story, or perhaps it was just too long for your concentration to hold at the time.

Whatever reason, these are some of the books I’ve closed the cover on long before the final page. If I can’t get into it after three reading attempts, our relationship comes to an end.

Image via Jared Hiebert

Books I Was Too Cynical For

I am possibly one of the most cynical people I know. I don’t even know the reason why, but it seems throughout my life I have very little tolerance when it comes to romance. I am the only person I know who didn’t cry at the end of The Notebook. Maybe something happened somewhere in my life that turned me off the idea of a happy ever after. Or I was just born with a heart of impenetrable stone.

Why Young Adult fiction is actually bleedin deadly

On August 19th 2016, TES printed an article titled Why Young Adult Fiction is a Dangerous Fantasy, saying how the YA fiction genre is full of tired predictable storylines and has dumbed down teenagers. The author claimed it has led to generations of teens who will never be literate, because they spent their formative years reading Twilight rather than Voltaire.

 

Image via We Heart It

Some points to raise. First off, YA is not a genre – it’s an age group, and there are many genres within.

 

But let’s move past this and get to the heart of the issue – the content. I spent three in 2016 months immersed in YA fiction while writing my Master’s dissertation. Those were the most exhausting, but most eye-opening, three months of my life. It was all I read. All I wrote about. All I discussed.

July 15th: A popular day in books

Today is my parent’s wedding anniversary. They’ve been married 27 years, and neither of them has committed any serious crimes against the other. Believe me, it’s a big achievement.

While my parents celebrate, July 15th is also a pretty popular date for fiction. Maybe it’s because it’s almost right in the centre of the year (it’s the 196th day of the year, and there are 169 days until the New Year) but it’s come up in two books I’ve read so far.

The book sacrifice tag

This tag taken from the fabulous Bookish Regards talks about something I can’t even bear to think about – destroying a book. However bad the story may be, no book should ever be abused. I mean my brother drew all over one of my school books once and I had to fake sickness to get out of working on that page the next day. (Spoiler: my teacher did not buy that excuse at all. Lying is bad, kids.)

For arguments sake though, these would definitely be on my list.