Review Bites: DNF

I make a point of finishing every book I pick up. There have been some that I haven't made it through in the past, but since founding a book club and working on this site, I've felt compelled to make sure I get through every book, even if it sometimes means skimming pages of the less enjoyable ones.

But lately, I've had a few that, even after a significant chunk of pages under my belt, have failed to pull me in. I'm certainly not alone on this. Goodreads recently polled members on their "did not finish" reading habits. You can see the results here. It's not uncommon for books to start slow and end extremely well, but in these cases, my problem has been as much with style as with content. The content might become more interesting later on, but can I endure the style for 200+ more pages?

Reading is supposed to be an enjoyable hobby. If the thought of picking up that book on my currently-reading shelf is weighing on me, it means I have to reconsider my life choices. My to-read mountain is filled with lots of other books that are demanding my attention, so why should I waste my time on books that are not pleasing me?

The particular books in question are all critically acclaimed, but acclaim does not mean they are for everyone and no one should ever feel obliged to finish, much less like a book just because the rest of the world does. I'd intended these books to be part of my Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge, but I'd rather free up their slots for more enjoyable reads.

These three books all have one thing in common though: They are unique entries into their genres - in fact, their individuality might even transcend their respective genres and for that, I can appreciate the acclaim they receive. But at the end of the day, they just aren't for me. As LeVar Burton says, "Reading is a trip," but these aren't trips I really want to take.

The Drowning Girl by Caitlin R. Kiernan

This is actually the book that made me decide to write this post and create a DNF shelf on Goodreads. A recent Nebula Awards nominee, it won the vote as this month's read for my bookclub. While I like the concept of a haunted schizophrenic girl and the way art and fairy tales play so heavily in her memoiors of her own madness, I just could not take the writing. I didn't even mind the moments where Imp seems to stop and instruct herself. I just didn't enjoy the meandering, long paragraphs of her stream of consciousness.

This book is heading to my library for donation. hopefully someone else will find and enjoy it far more than I did.

Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

This is as far away from urban fantasy as you can get, which is what made it appeal to me. Zinzi December lives in Zoo City, a slum for criminals, easily identified by the animal familiars emotionally/psychologically bonded to them. The creatures are manifestations of their guilt, though not necessarily their culpability. Somewhere along the way, we eventually learn that Zinzi's sloth is the result of her guilt over her brother's death that she did not seem to have caused, which makes it a little difficult to understand why she was imprisoned in the first place.

Zinzi has a talent for finding lost things but the first client in the story ends up brutally murdered and Zinzi is suspected. Only, that is not the main story line. In fact, the story walks away from this entirely and I had to go back to see if I actually had skimmed pages without intending to. But nope. Apparently, we've moved on to Zinzi finding a lost pop star despite her usual refusal to track people.

Where things go from there, well, I'm curious, but not enough to continue for now. I also have issue with the writing style, which contains a lot of local (Johannesburg) vernacular that is difficult to comprehend as the context rarely offers clarity beyond a word being an obvious insult, in some cases.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Reading The Handmaid's Tale in highschool and recently rereading and loving it made me want to finally try out one of Atwood's other books. Unfortunately, this one resulted in disappointment. I actually did finish The Blind Assassin, but I did skim a lot of pages. Or, I should say, I loved The Blind Assassin, but I skimmed the pages that weren't telling that story. This is a story within a story and I loved how everything tied together, but got tired of the monologues surrounding the story of the blind boy and tongueless girl. I just wanted to read about the latter!

Wendy: Favourite Quote from Your Favourite Book

"Pearls are congealed oyster spit."

The Handmaid's Tale

Wendy's Book Haul

I'm focused on World Without End's Women of Genre Fiction reading challenge and my local library has been good to me. I did my best to walk out with only the books I had requested, but got caught right at the check out desk with the "book of the day": The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen.

The Red Chamber by Pauline A. Chen

In this lyrical reimagining of the Chinese classic Dream of the Red Chamber, set against the breathtaking backdrop of eighteenth-century Beijing, the lives of three unforgettable women collide in the inner chambers of the Jia mansion. When orphaned Daiyu leaves her home in the provinces to take shelter with her cousins in the Capital, she is drawn into a world of opulent splendor, presided over by the ruthless, scheming Xifeng and the prim, repressed Baochai. As she learns the secrets behind their glittering façades, she finds herself entangled in a web of intrigue and hidden passions, reaching from the petty gossip of the servants’ quarters all the way to the Imperial Palace. When a political coup overthrows the emperor and plunges the once-mighty family into grinding poverty, each woman must choose between love and duty, friendship and survival.


The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin opens with these simple, resonant words: "Ten days after the war ended, my sister Laura drove a car off a bridge."

They are spoken by Iris, whose terse account of her sister's death in 1945 is followed by an inquest report proclaiming the death accidental. But just as the reader expects to settle into Laura's story, Atwood introduces a novel-within-a-novel. Entitled The Blind Assassin, it is a science fiction story told by two unnamed lovers who meet in dingy backstreet rooms. When we return to Iris, it is through a 1947 newspaper article announcing the discovery of a sailboat carrying the dead body of her husband, a distinguished industrialist.


The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong

Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. Sure, she doesn't know much about her background - the only thing she really has to cling to is an odd paw-print birthmark on her hip - but she never really put much thought into who her parents were or how she ended up with her adopted parents in this tiny medical-research community on Vancouver Island. Until now.


Aaaand as I was writing this post, this just popped up on my Goodreads radar (Amazon's one-click buy button wins again!):


Eye of the Goddess by M.J. Faraldo

Kyra St. Clair’s life is about to change. Terrible events will thrust her head first into a world unknown to her, a secret world where ancient Egyptian gods are not myth but in fact very real. With the help of an unexpected friend she will come to terms with who she is, and in doing so they will both discover that there is much more to the story than meets the eye.

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

March's read for my book club is themed "Back to School." As in, return to the books you read in (high)school and see how they hold up today.

I don't remember exactly what grade it was that I read The Handmaid's Tale. In fact, I don't remember any related projects or essays. And this is both surprising and disappointing. The themes expressed are ones that ought to have been discussed in a classroom - otherwise, why bother to have students read this book at all? But what I do recall of my highschool English class years, was that not many of my teachers were willing to address more serious issues. Not many of my teachers were willing to go beyond the course curriculum, which itself did not delve too deeply into 'dangerous' topics.

Rereading it now I can appreciate it more and suppose I am happy that the school at least introduced me to it and a few other books that I now also intend to reread. I realize that this was likely my first introduction to feminist literature. It takes place in a not so distance future where the feminist movement of the past has been turned inside out. Women are now subjugated, in body, and worse, in mind. The depth of the subjugation is made clear because the tale is told through the thoughts of Offred, who's life was stolen from her. She is now a handmaiden - a womb on two legs, existing only to provide offspring for a Commander and his Wife. The circumstances of this future are extreme, but not impossible to imagine, considering some of the things happening in our own world now.

Some might have issue with the writing style, but it was an element I really enjoyed. I've recently read a few books told in first person narrative and have found them unbelievable. No one can remember things so clearly in that way! Train of thought though. That I can handle. In this case, the style serves to enhance the character, not just to tell the story. At times, she chooses not to pursue a line of thinking because of how it affects her, she recalls her past and the things she took for granted, she speaks in tangents to avoid dealing with the situation at hand, or reconstructs details of events she was not privy to. These moments I liked most because she isn't just reconstructing to tell us what happened. Her reconstructions, sometimes told in two or three different versions, are her way of coping with not knowing about the people she's lost.

This is not a happy ending story. It's a story that has moments of hope, but for both the character and the reader, you're never quite sure if that hope will turn into something positive. You're forced to cling to the tiny moments and objects, as Offred does. This is, for me, one of the great strengths of this book. The reality of the events through Offred's narration sucked me into her plight.

The only thing I didn't like was the long, drawn out epilogue that takes place further into the future in the form of a lecture that is trying to piece together the events of the past. I felt it takes away from the mystery of the book by adding this clinical element.

4 of 5 stars

Mogsy's Book Haul

Posting my recent acquisitions for this week, audiobook edition.

As you know, Amazon has their Whispersync for Voice feature available for some of their Kindle books which allows seamless back and forth switching between the ebook and the Audible audiobook. In a lot of cases, Audible even offers a special price on Whispersync books you already own on Kindle, sometimes at pretty steep discounts.

The Mongoliad Book 3 by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, Nicole Galland, Erik Bear, Joseph Brassey, Cooper Moo, Mike Grell (Illustrator)

If you haven't heard about The Mongoliad, it's the authors' trans-media revisionist interpretation of the Mongol invasion of Europe set in the mid-1200s. Originally released as a community-driven project in serialized format to be read on the web or mobile apps, it's since been re-edited and republished in both print and for the Kindle.

I still don't know how I feel about this series, but I've been following it and picking up the books because they're always such a good price and entertaining for what I pay. Preordered the third book on Kindle for like a buck or two, picked up the audiobook version for the special price of $1.99. Pretty sweet deal if I say so myself. The first book I thought was okay, the second book kinda dragged and I had to almost force myself to finish, but I am feeling pretty positive about this one.

The Dragon Keeper by Robin Hobb

The first book of the Rain Wild Chronicles. This is another one I've owned for a while, bought when the Kindle version went on sale a long time ago. I think I just glimpsed the name Robin Hobb on my newsletter email and snatched it up without a second thought.

I might have even forgotten that I owned this, until I was browsing through my list of books the other day and I noticed Audible offering the audiobook of Dragon Keeper for $3.49 for those who already have the Kindle version.

Okay, again, another impulse buy for me, but who could resist a price like that? Plus I've read and enjoyed the first book of Hobb's Farseer trilogy, so at least I know she writes good stuff. Listening to it now as my current audiobook read.

 Beyond The Shadows by Brent Weeks

Bought it for the Whispersync price of $3.99 earlier this week, and I was so revved up to tear into it that I've already read/listened to it. This is the third book of Week's Night Angel series, and I was so happy I finally got around to finishing this trilogy.

Anyway, now that I'm done with it, I'm a little torn as to what to think. While I liked the trilogy as a whole, I have to say the second and third never really managed to capture me like the first one did, though I have to admit that happens to me a lot, where subsequent books in a series never seem to live up to the first in terms of stirring my emotions and excitement. Still, highly recommended for those who enjoy darker fantasy, especially for fans of magic and assassins.


The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

While I'm going nuts with audiobooks this week I might as well go all the way. Sometimes, having the audio version also motivates me to read a book, so while I looked through my Whispersync feature books, I also decided to pick up The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood's classic which I really want to -- and should -- read.