Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’ve Decided I’m No Longer Interested In Reading

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly linkup of book bloggers hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl! This topic, about books we meant to read at one point, but are no longer interested in, is a hard one for me. I rarely change my mind on reading something once it's made my list. But these are ten that I've decided to let go on.



My Absolute Darling: Bad reviews, particularly from Queen Roxane Gay, turned me off.

Heather the Totality: A trusted reviewer (Jessica Woodbury) said that it wasn't only bad, it was offensively bad and very reductive about its central female character. The book turned out to be a massive flop so this was apparently the right call.

I Am Charlotte Simmons: My rule is that I give authors two tries. If I don't like one book, it just might have been that particular book, or the time that I read it. Twice, though, almost certainly means that author isn't for me. Tom Wolfe has two strikes.

Nutshell: I'm usually here for Ian McEwan, but I heard this novel is very weird and not in a good way...in a "fetus judges the crap out of his mother" way. Which doesn't sound like anything I'd particularly enjoy.

Portnoy's Complaint: There are several other Roths on my TBR, but given that I've heard this book is basically about one guy obsessing over sex for a couple hundred pages...unless I start to read him and turn into a completionist, I think I'm good.

My Sister's Grave: This was a book I got from the Kindle First program, but realized I don't actually want to read and I don't have to.

The Killing Kind: Pretty much exactly the same as above. I don't really like mystery-thrillers, so no reason to force myself to read mediocre ones just because I got them for free.

Younger: Same.

(R)evolution: Same.

King of Taksim Square: I thought I should keep this on my list just to get some more exposure to Turkish literature, but honestly, the not-great Goodreads reviews turned me off. I'm sure there is much better Turkish work out there (I've read some of it!).

12 comments:

  1. Great list! I haven't heard of a lot of these, but Ian McEwan is someone I tend to stay away from as well - I'm never drawn to his work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I actually tend to like him, but what I've heard about this particular novel has definitely steered me clear

      Delete
  2. I am really curious about Nutshell. I like McEwan, but it does sound weird. And I liked, I Am Charlotte Simmons, but it has been quite a while since I've read Wolfe.

    hawthornescarlet.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah at first Nutshell sounded interesting...and then it started to sound like maybe the bad kind of interesting

      Delete
  3. I kicked a few of these titles off my TBR recently as well because of bad/mixed reviews.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's so disappointing when you're looking forward to a book and then the bad reviews roll in. Like, I saw Weiner complaining that Heather The Totality bombed because he caught some flack in the MeToo movement, but dude, it got awful reviews.

      Delete
  4. I have a few of these on my audio tbr that I might try at some point, but my audio tbr is huge so maybe not. Heather, the Totality, was horribly shallow but mercifully brief. I have no wish to encourage people to read it, ever.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Usually I don't let one bad review turn me off of a book (not everything's for everyone), but the bad review was from someone whose taste I trust and it was SO. BAD. that I just deleted it off the list. And then I kept hearing more, so sounds like that was the right choice!

      Delete
  5. Good call on My Absolute Darling! I didn't realize Roxane Gay had given it a bad review! And, although I do love Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons was not my favorite. But, his writing style is really distinct and I can see how he's just not for everyone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. She like EVISCERATED it, and it sounds like from other people who've chipped in that she was right on. I've read two Wolfe books and they've both been ones that I really didn't care for, so I think I'm going to make the call that he's not for me at this point.

      Delete
  6. I've only read (R)Evolution from this list, and I really loved it, but if the genre isn't your thing, you probably wouldn't as it's quite long. I have the sequel that I need to read soon...

    -Lauren
    www.shootingstarsmag.net

    ReplyDelete
  7. These are titles I do not know, so I actually enjoyed this list very much!

    ReplyDelete

 
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