Books I Successfully DNF’d!

I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I give myself enough credit for DNFing. No matter how much I tell myself that it’s good to DNF, that life’s too short, that I don’t have to finish everything I start, I still feel like it’s a shameful secret that I’ve given up on something. So today, I thought I’d start working on that attitude by *celebrating* some of my successful DNFs! Who knows, maybe in the future I’ll get better at singing about my DNFs across the blogosphere. Okay *deep breaths*, it’s time to confess boast about my DNFs:

Happily Ever After– Let’s start off with the book that inspired this recent spate of posts- a book I embarrassingly proudly DNF’d in March. In fairness to the book, this DNF in part came down to my mood. I thought right now I needed to read contemporaries… but that just isn’t the case (apparently I’m craving something a little bit darker). However, the reason I read 70% of this and quit was more to do with the fact the story felt entirely unnecessary. I fell in love with its predecessor, Cinder and Ella, because it offered a fun Cinderella retelling. This not only lacks the charm of the original, it also feels like filler.

V is for Virgin– annnd this one is straight up embarrassing. I DNF’d this shortly after Happily Ever After, not only failing to learn my lesson that I wasn’t in the mood for contemporary, but also going for a book by the same author (in fairness, I have liked her books before, so I imagined it was a blip). As with Happily Ever After, there wasn’t anything particularly wrong with this, I simply wasn’t feeling it.

Murmur of Bees– this is definitely a case of it’s not the book, it’s me. I can see, objectively, that this had beautiful writing and strong characterisation. I just… knew immediately that this wasn’t my sort of story. I struggled through about half of it, before realising I didn’t want to do it anymore.

 

To the Lighthouse– putting this on here is more like a promise to myself than anything else. As I’ve mentioned before, I never like stream of consciousness and so have always clashed with Virginia Woolf. This was no exception to that rule. A little part of me really thought when I put this down that it wouldn’t be forever. Yet, as I realised after finally completing Mrs Dalloway last year, that would be a BIG MISTAKE! For my own sake, I should leave well enough alone! So, for goodness sake Future Me, heed this list, stop whatever it is you think you’re doing and don’t pick this up- else you’ll make a liar of us both!

Wicked– oh man, this was atrocious. I *hated* the writing style and was bored throughout. I can’t actually remember if I made it to the end or not, but I’m counting it because I definitely remember abandoning it on several occasions (and if I did finish it I must’ve skimmed, because I don’t remember it!)

 

Mysteries of Udolpho– I picked this up solely because it’s referenced by other famous works… and it wasn’t anywhere near their league! For a book about mysteries and naughty monks, it was a very dull tome indeed. After trying to read a few very dull pages every few weeks, I realised no amount of cool points for reading the book mentioned in Northanger Abbey would make this worth my time. At least I sort of get the joke about people reading this sensational novel (it feels a bit like making fun of Twilight, maybe…?)

Otherworld– this was just completely meh. Other books have done this story better (try Ready Player One) and with more interesting characters (that aren’t simply obsessed with the length of their nose). It felt like a celebrity cashing in on a tried and tested story- it’s only a pity that they didn’t do a better job of copying other’s works.

 

And that’s all I’ve got! I told you I’m not that good at DNFing! Do you have any books you’ve proudly DNF’d? If so, why did you give up on them? Let me know in the comments!