TBR Declutter! – Down the TBR Hole #10

declutter

Credit, as always, goes to the wonderful Lia @ Lost in a Story for this decluttering idea! I’ve been doing this for a while now and I have a load of fun doing it each week.

The aim is to declutter your tbr shelf. To do this:

  • Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
  • Order on ascending date added.
  • Take the first 5 (or 10 if youre feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
  • Read the synopses of the books
  • Decide: keep it or should it go?

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Little Peach 
by Peggy Kern

Synopsis: When Michelle runs away from her drug-addicted mother, she has just enough money to make it to New York City, where she hopes to move in with a friend. But once she arrives at the bustling Port Authority, she is confronted with the terrifying truth: she is alone and out of options.

Then she meets Devon, a good-looking, well-dressed guy who emerges from the crowd armed with a kind smile, a place for her to stay, and eyes that seem to understand exactly how she feels.

But Devon is not what he seems to be, and soon Michelle finds herself engulfed in the world of child prostitution where he becomes her “Daddy” and she his “Little Peach.” It is a world of impossible choices, where the line between love and abuse, captor and savior, is blurred beyond recognition.

If this was anything but YA, I would totally be up for reading this book, but because everyone shelves it as Young-Adult on Goodreads I’m going to remove this one.

Verdict: REMOVE

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Slasher Girls & Monster Boys 
by Various Authors

Synopsis: A host of the smartest young adult authors come together in this collection of scary stories and psychological thrillers curated by Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea’s April Genevieve Tucholke.

Each story draws from a classic tale or two—sometimes of the horror genre, sometimes not—to inspire something new and fresh and terrifying. There are no superficial scares here; these are stories that will make you think even as they keep you on the edge of your seat. From bloody horror to supernatural creatures to unsettling, all-too-possible realism, this collection has something for any reader looking for a thrill.
I’m not even sure why I would have added a book that specifically says is YA in the synopsis. I often add books not realising they’re YA until I see the genres function on Goodreads.

Verdict: REMOVE

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Deliver Her 
by Patricia Perry Donovan

Synopsis: On the night of Alex Carmody’s sixteenth birthday, she and her best friend, Cass, are victims of a terrible car accident. Alex survives; Cass doesn’t. Consumed by grief, Alex starts cutting school and partying, growing increasingly detached. The future she’d planned with her friend is now meaningless to her.

Meg Carmody is heartbroken for her daughter, even as she’s desperate to get Alex’s life back on track. The Birches, a boarding school in New Hampshire, promises to do just that, yet Alex refuses to go. But when Meg finds a bag of pills hidden in the house, she makes a fateful call to a transporter whose company specializes in shuttling troubled teens to places like The Birches, under strict supervision. Meg knows Alex will feel betrayed—as will her estranged husband, who knows nothing of Meg’s plans for their daughter.

When the transport goes wrong—and Alex goes missing—Meg must face the consequences of her decision and her deception. But the hunt for Alex reveals that Meg is not the only one keeping secrets.

After looking at the reviews for this one, I’m not sure I’d like it. Lots of people call it very unrealistic and apparently it’s pretty pretentious. Doesn’t sound like a great match for me.

Verdict: REMOVE

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The Darkest Corner 
by Kara Thomas

Synopsis: There are ghosts around every corner in Fayette, Pennsylvania. Tessa left when she was nine and has been trying ever since not to think about it after what happened there that last summer. Memories of things so dark will burn themselves into your mind if you let them.

Callie never left. She moved to another house, so she doesn’t have to walk those same halls, but then Callie always was the stronger one. She can handle staring into the faces of her demons—and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.

Tessa and Callie have never talked about what they saw that night. After the trial, Callie drifted and Tessa moved, and childhood friends just have a way of losing touch.

But ever since she left, Tessa has had questions. Things have never quite added up. And now she has to go back to Fayette—to Wyatt Stokes, sitting on death row; to Lori Cawley, Callie’s dead cousin; and to the one other person who may be hiding the truth.

Only the closer Tessa gets to the truth, the closer she gets to a killer—and this time, it won’t be so easy to run away.

I wasn’t sure what to think about this one until I read the lines “and if she parties hard enough, maybe one day they’ll disappear for good.” and then I rolled my eyes and removed it from my list.

Verdict: remove

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The Surgeon 
by Tess Gerritsen (Rizzoli & Isles #1)

Synopsis: He slips into their homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, unaware of the horrors they soon will endure. The precision of the killer’s methods suggests he is a deranged man of medicine, propelling the Boston newspapers and the frightened public to name him “The Surgeon.”

The cops’ only clue rests with another surgeon, the victim of a nearly identical crime. Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed her attacker before he could complete his assault. Now she hides her fears of intimacy behind a cool and elegant exterior and a well-earned reputation as a top trauma surgeon.

Cordell’s careful facade is about to crack as this new killer recreates, with chilling accuracy, the details of Cordell’s own ordeal. With every new murder he seems to be taunting her, cutting ever closer, from her hospital to her home. Her only comfort comes from Thomas Moore, the detective assigned to the case. But even Moore cannot protect Cordell from a brilliant hunter who somehow understands–and savors–the secret fears of every woman he kills.

I’ve heard a million good things about this series, and this book in particular so I’ve already bought the first 3. They’re waiting to be read.

Verdict: keep

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Break Her 
by B. G. Harlen

Synopsis: Your home is your castle. Until it’s invaded. Until you wake up to find a strange man next to you. Now your home is your prison, and your body, a battlefield. This man will do anything it takes to destroy everything that matters to you: your sanity, your self-esteem, your very soul. And you will do whatever it takes to save them.

I’ve been wanting to read this one for ages. It’s said to have no boundaries in its grotesque descriptions of repetitive sexual abuse but it’s apparently very eye-opening and thoughtful at the same time. Something I hate about this book is that people are classing it as “Erotica – BDSM” on Goodreads when this is literally a story about rape, the whole way through. you can only get this on Kindle.

Verdict: Keep

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What We Saw 
by Aaron Hartzler

Synopsis: Kate Weston can piece together most of the bash at John Doone’s house: shots with Stacey Stallard, Ben Cody taking her keys and getting her home early—the feeling that maybe he’s becoming more than just the guy she’s known since they were kids.

But when a picture of Stacey passed out over Deacon Mills’s shoulder appears online the next morning, Kate suspects she doesn’t have all the details. When Stacey levels charges against four of Kate’s classmates, the whole town erupts into controversy. Facts that can’t be ignored begin to surface, and every answer Kate finds leads back to the same question: Where was Ben when a terrible crime was committed?

This book is very clearly about rape and the effect it has on a large number of people but  for some reason this book isn’t connecting with me on any level.

Verdict: Remove

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A Stolen Life 
by Jaycee Dugard

Synopsis: On 10 June 1991, eleven-year-old Jaycee Dugard was abducted from a school bus stop within sight of her home in Tahoe, California. It was the last her family and friends saw of her for over eighteen years. On 26 August 2009, Dugard, her daughters, and Phillip Craig Garrido appeared in the office of her kidnapper’s parole officer in California. Their unusual behaviour sparked an investigation that led to the positive identification of Jaycee Lee Dugard, living in a tent behind Garrido’s home. During her time in captivity, at the age of fourteen and seventeen, she gave birth to two daughters, both fathered by Garrido.

Dugard’s memoir is written by the 30-year-old herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, utterly honest and unflinching narrative, Jaycee opens up about what she experienced, including how she feels now, a year after being found. Garrido and his wife Nancy have since pleaded guilty to their crimes.

I have such a huge fascination with morbid non-fiction like this. Any sort of true crime book is always something I will enjoy. Dugard went through some truly horrific and terrifying things in her life but she’s managed to overcome them and come out with her story, which I admire so much.

Verdict: keep

27794651
I Will Rot Without You 
by Danger Slater

Synopsis: Meet Ernie. His life is a mess. Gretchen’s gone, and the apartment they once shared is this grey, grim city is now overrun with intelligent mold and sinister bugs.

Then his neighbor Dee shows up, so smart and lovely. If he can just get past the fact that her jealous boyfriend could reach out of her blouse and punch him in the face at any moment, this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

Unfortunately for all involved, a Great Storm is coming and it will wash away everything we’ve ever known about the human heart.

This is a horror but sounds like it could also be quite witty. It’s not got very many reviews or ratings on GR but I’d like to give it a go.

Verdict: Keep

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Black Eyed Susans 
by Julia Heaberlin

Synopsis: As a sixteen-year-old, Tessa Cartwright was found in a Texas field, barely alive amid a scattering of bones, with only fragments of memory as to how she got there. Ever since, the press has pursued her as the lone surviving “Black-Eyed Susan,” the nickname given to the murder victims because of the yellow carpet of wildflowers that flourished above their shared grave. Tessa’s testimony about those tragic hours put a man on death row.

Now, almost two decades later, Tessa is an artist and single mother. In the desolate cold of February, she is shocked to discover a freshly planted patch of black-eyed susans—a summertime bloom—just outside her bedroom window. Terrified at the implications—that she sent the wrong man to prison and the real killer remains at large—Tessa turns to the lawyers working to exonerate the man awaiting execution. But the flowers alone are not proof enough, and the forensic investigation of the still-unidentified bones is progressing too slowly. An innocent life hangs in the balance. The legal team appeals to Tessa to undergo hypnosis to retrieve lost memories—and to share the drawings she produced as part of an experimental therapy shortly after her rescue.

What they don’t know is that Tessa and the scared, fragile girl she was have built a  fortress of secrets. As the clock ticks toward the execution, Tessa fears for her sanity, but even more for the safety of her teenaged daughter. Is a serial killer still roaming free, taunting Tessa with a trail of clues? She has no choice but to confront old ghosts and lingering nightmares to finally discover what really happened that night.

This was all over GR not too long ago. Lots of people really love it and it’s sounds like it could be good. You can get this really cheap in paperback form too.

Verdict: keep


Half removed, half kept! I think that’s pretty good! I still have over 600 books on my TBR shelf but it’s reducing, I promise!

Have you read any of these books and think I made the correct move by keeping or removing it? Let me know!

7 Replies to “TBR Declutter! – Down the TBR Hole #10”

  1. I really like this regular post from you! It’s a tough decision sometimes to remove tbr’s, but it’s something I do on occasion. Purely to take away the pressure of the pile! (And make space for more!!) I’m with you on the YA side of things. It does put me off, but I often ask myself, am I missing some really good reads here because of my YA label dislike?!

    Liked by 1 person

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