Today I’m participating in Top Ten Tuesday. This meme was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each week there is a new theme/topic, and participants choose ten books that fit it.
This week’s theme is Books I Did Not Finish (DNFed). It takes a lot for me to DNF a book. I’m trying to get better at it, but this is an almost exhaustive list of all of the titles I’ve DNFed in the last four years. So, my completionist tendencies still need some work. lol. All of these books were ones I couldn’t stand to finish. Many of them were just mind-numbingly boring. Some were confusing, poorly written, or just annoying. Others had the problem of having a main character I couldn’t put up with for one moment longer. I’ll let you guess which description fits each book. 🙂 Even though I don’t recommend any of these, the covers do link to the Goodreads page of each book in case you want to learn more about them!
The Starless Crown by James Rollins, Silk Fire by Zabe Ellor, The Stars Undying by Emery Robin, The Fairy Bargains of Prospect Hill by Rowena Miller, The Boy in the Rain by Stephanine Cowell
Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Infinity Alchemist by Kacen Callender, When the Moon Hatched by Sarah A. Parker, The Black Hunger by Nicholas Pullen, Order of Swans by Jude Deveraux
There you have it! Ten books I did not finish. Do we have any DNFs in common? Alternately, did you love something I just couldn’t finish? Let me know down in the comments!
This is the second list that I’ve seen The Stars Undying on so I probably won’t be picking that one up anytime soon. I did finish When the Moon Hatched but I have to say that it was more of a skim read over the last half of the book so probably ought to count as a DNF 😃
Oh my goodness, The Stars Undying was so confusing and one of the most boring things I’ve ever tried to read. I could not stand it. When the Moon Hatched wasn’t terrible. It just felt really similar to other stuff I’d been reading, which left me feeling bored.
Good for you for knowing your limits!
Yeah. I’m trying to get better about it.
I couldn’t finish THE STARS UNDYING, either. I got to about the 50% mark. It was confusing and also boring. 🥱
50%?! Wow. That’s a lot further than I got. lol. I very much enjoyed giving that ARC away in my preparation to move. It was satisfying to get it out of my house. 🙂
Yea, I gave mine away a while ago!
Some of those are on my tbr that I might take as an excuse to ditch. I generally finish most now, although Valis (Philip K Dick), Jade City, Service Model and Dispossessed (Le Guin) are the only notable ones for me in recent years, although the latter two I’ll go back to some day
Jade City!!!! I love the Green Bone Saga so much. I get that it wouldn’t be for everyone, though.
Please feel free to take this list as permission to cull some things from your TBR. If it is anything like mine, I’m sure it is a mountain. lol.
I enjoyed reading The Assistant to the Villain, and I’m looking forward to reading the 3rd book in the series. But I do understand that not every book is for every person.
Pam @ Read! Bake! Create!
https://readbakecreate.com/books-i-dnfed-in-2024/
I’m glad you enjoyed it! You are absolutely right about each book not being for everyone. That’s one of the things I find most fascinating about reviewing and blogging, seeing how everyone interacts differently with the same material. I hope you love the third one when it comes out. 🙂
I’m a bit worried about When the Moon Hatched now as it’s still somewhere on my TBR, but gets put aside a lot.
My TTT: https://laurieisreading.com/2025/03/25/top-ten-tuesday-dnf-books/
Yeah. I just wasn’t feeling it. I hope you enjoy it, though, if you decide to pick it up.