Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Books I Almost Put Down…But Didn't

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by the Broke and the Bookish.

This week's theme: Top Ten Books I Almost Put Down (In order of how much I enjoyed them):

I really enjoyed the first part of this 771 page novel but lost interest in the middle after the story switched gears and changed location. Characters moping around doing drugs to treat existential despair is one of the most literary of all pastimes, but it can get boring to read about. Luckily I returned to this book after a break, it's truly worth it in the end. Theo is one of the most complexly drawn characters ever.

I read this book a few years ago when I was going through a high fantasy phase. It had been recommended everywhere and I couldn't understand why when reading the first couple of chapters. Why are they so obsessed with the number 7? 13 is an acceptable age to be married? That's gross. He did WHAT? Then I was hooked by the plot and burned through the series. I'm glad I did, now I can watch the show with my non-book reader friends and smile evilly as they react to sudden deaths.

I love gothic mysteries but this book's prose did not really grab me and the characters felt flat. I stuck with it due to curiosity about what the mystery was really about. I did not see that coming.

The start of this book suffers from exposition dump and there are several story cliches. However, I persevered because I wanted to write a fair review and found the interesting characters (the Seven Dials gang) in the latter half of the book.

This book seems near-universally beloved and I just didn't feel it. I stuck with it hoping the promised twists would be worth it, but I was left with an overwhelming feeling of "meh". One problem is I was interested in the the time-travel, while the story is interested in the romance.

This book had a lot going on. A futuristic setting that rejected technology, a living prison, a boy with a mysterious past, a quest to escape, political intrigue, etc. The problem was that it somehow all so dull. I powered through it stubbornly, but have no desire to pick up the sequel.

I almost put this book down after the first chapter. It employs the maddening trope of characters in the know refusing to explain anything for, I don't know, reasons. Because the knowledge will BLOW YOUR MIND. You can know what's going on, but only after an arbitrary amount of time has passed so you can handle it. Do you think you can handle it? I don't believe you. Ok. Get ready. Here it is. Slimy. Spiky. Slug. Sheep. In a maze. That you will run. I finished this book but I wasn't happy about it.

I loved the first book in this series so much that I was shocked by my negative reaction to the sequel. The repetition I found atmospheric in the first novel grated on my nerves and the main character was maddening. I stuck with it because I actively try to avoid hating female characters and I hoped she'd improve. This backfired because by the end of the novel I was routing for the zombies to eat her.

I read this after enjoying Gone Girl. Now I'm not someone who will pan a book for having unlikeable characters or who doesn't want darkness in her stories. The problem with this book is that everyone (or at least all the women) is laughably, ridiculously, two-dimensionally evil. Dark books aren't automatically sophisticated, this book is pulpy nonsense. I finished it because a friend wanted to discuss it.

10.

This was the selection for a casual book club I had joined. I got through it because I wanted to participate but it was a rough one. Luckily it was a 50/50 split on loving vs. hating it so I felt vindicated in finding it a cynical cash grab and not funny enough by half.

Tuesday, May 13, 2014