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9/1: Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis (library ebook, 2024)- You're reading a cozy science fiction book about how a hotel operating in deep space might operate and suddenly you're in a spy thriller with a dead body? I was unprepared for the whiplash. 3/5 stars
9/2: Beneath the Scars (Masters of the Shadowlands #12) by Cherise Sinclair (ebook I own, 2018) - I couldn't figure out the password to the wifi at my father-in-law's house and this was literally the only book I had downloaded on my Kindle (note to self: put some other books on there). I like Sinclair and I like this erotica series. I think the main characters in this book are both zzzzzz, but you do get some of the other characters from Shadowlands and that's fun. 3.5/5 stars
9/5: Sunrise on the Reaping (Hunger Games #0.5) by Suzanne Collins (library, 2025) - A lovely bit of fan service. 4/5 stars
9/14: Clean Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles Book 1) by Ilona Andrews (library ebook, 2013) - Did you know Ilona Andrews is a husband/wife team and she's from the Soviet Union and he's from Florida? That's not relevant, but I want to know how it works. ANYWAY. Good book. Magic and a dog. I liked it. 4/5 stars
9/17: How To Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Understanding Literature, From The Great Gatsby to The Hate U Give (library, 2003, this third edition is 2024) - Very helpful guide for doing a close reading of literature. 4.5/5 stars
9/19: The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (library, 2025) - I ate up this epistolary novel. LOVED IT. Grumpy old woman writes letters. What could be more perfect than that? 5/5 stars
9/25: Let's Make a Scene (Theo & Cynthie #2) by Laura Wood (library, 2025) - Lovely romance novel. 4/5 stars
9/25: Hemlock & Silver by T. Kingfisher (library, 2025) - T. Kingfisher never lets me down. 4/5 stars
9/27: I Am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (library ebook, 2002) - I read this book in 2017 and wrote the following: I finished this book weeks ago, but I had to sit on it to think about it. I think, as a good friend of mine would say, this author takes himself a little too seriously. I loved The Book Thief and will definitely read more Zusak, but the ending of this book was a ham-fisted and unnecessary attempt at a sermon. No need to get preachy on us, Zusak, we understand that you are the omnipotent author.
But the characters were divine. The scene at the beginning with the bank robbery was hilarious. I just wish the last 15 pages were different.
I think I stand by this review. The beginning was great, the end was preachy. I gave it 4/5 stars back then, but it's 3/5 for me now.
9/30: Mislaid in Parts Half-Known (Wayward Children #9) by Seanan McGuire (library audiobook, 2024) - I think I've come to the end with this series. It's up and down and the best books are really good, but nothing is coming close to those first two books. The worldbuilding is cool (even here we get scary birds and dinosaurs), but it's not enough to make up for shallowness of this book. 3/5 stars
Average star rating: 3.8/5 stars
DNF:
Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid - Consider these paragraphs from the first page of this book:
Her job today is one of her favorite parts of being an astronaut. She is CAPCOM on the Orion Flight team for STS-LR9, the third flight of the shuttle Navigator.
The role of CAPCOM - the only person in Mission Control who speaks directly to the crew on the shuttle - is one of many that astronauts fill when they aren't on a mission.
This is something Joan often has to explain to people at the rare party she agrees to go to. That astronauts train to go up into space, yes. But they also help design the tools and experiments, test out food, prep the shuttle, educate students on what NASA can do, advocate for space travel in Washington, talk to the press, and more. It's an exhausting list. (page 3)
Is it unfair to say that this is somehow all telling and now showing (wouldn't it be better to just drop us into a cocktail party where she's explaining this? or just drop her into a scene where she's doing her work as CAPCOM?) and yet also not explaining well? I don't know. I read until page 29 when I just realized that this book was going to annoy the fuck out of me.
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Have you DNFed a very popular book recently? I feel like between this and Margo's Got Money Troubles, I am soon to be expelled from the reading world.
My big "everyone else loves it" DNF of the summer was Broken Country, and I am not even going to attempt Atmosphere. On the plus side, I read I Who Have Loved Men over the weekend and I will be thinking about it for some time to come. I started Joy Luck Club last night.
ReplyDeleteBroken Country doesn't even appeal to me, so I'm going to stay away. Yay! I Who Have Never Known Men is such a good book. Definitely lots of thoughts.
DeleteI DNF-ed Cold Comfort Farm. I'm not in the mood for quirky classic.
ReplyDeleteI dud start and finish Joy Luck Club. And some mysteries of mediocre interest.
It's good to DNF - making good use of your reading time!
You've already finished Joy Luck Club! Sheesh. (I haven't even started it. *sigh*)
DeleteI also DNF'd Atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I haven't been carving out much time for reading the last few weeks and it makes me sad because I have a good-sized stack of books to read. HELP! I am just too busy with other things. WHY AM I SO BUSY, ENGIE??? Anyway. I am aiming to fit in solid reading each night this week. Well...until Kae arrives and then I will be chatting in the evenings, I'm sure.
If it makes you feel better, my numbers are absolutely inflated by audiobooks. I have no time to put my eyeballs to the page and some of my precious reading time has been cut because I am too tired to read much before bed. It will get better at some point in the future!!
DeleteEveryone (other than you and Elisabeth, apprently) seems to love Atmosphere, but I have no desire to read it. I haven't read Margo's Got Money Troubles but it is on my "someday" TBR (who knows if that day will ever come.) The only book I've read from your list is The Correspondent and I also gave it 5 stars!
ReplyDeleteYes! We all love Sibyl. I mean, how can you not?
DeleteWell, I DNF'd The Correspondent, which so many people have loved, so there's that! It's not that I thought it was bad, it just wasn't hitting my current mood (where current means the last 10 months, roughly).
ReplyDeleteI get it. Not every book resonates at every moment. This hasn't been my strongest reading year because 2025 has not been awesome for me.
DeleteI don’t think it’s unfair vis a vis the paragraphs, ha… that’s exactly the type of writing that drives me nuts as well. There’s such a clanging inauthenticity to it. I DNF’d Carrie Soto Is Back twice so I think this author is just not for me (although she is from the Eastern Shore of MD and I was first interested in her books bc of this! It’s a unique/interesting area and I thought perhaps it was featured in her fiction, but not so much. I’m still happy for her success, ha).
ReplyDeleteI read The Girls from Corona del Mar by Thorpe and mostly enjoyed it, but then DNF’d To Fang with Love (too YA for me) and won’t even attempt Margo bc I can tell I’ve reached my capacity with this author! I find that pretty often; I tend to get tired of a given author’s style even if I liked it in a previous book.
I should have DNFed Carrie Soto. The thing is that I do like a lot of TJR books! This one just didn't work and that's okay. I do think it's interesting how some authors just aren't always reliable, but when they work, they work really well.
DeleteIf you're expelled, then so am I; I have no interest whatsoever in reading anything by Taylor Jenkins Reid, darling of the reading community.
ReplyDeleteLet's see. I have DNFed a ton of books this summer, but none of them stand out as overtly popular.
I know I already said this to you, but I loooooved The Correspondent so much!
Yay! I'm happy there's so much love for The Correspondent.
DeleteI hope I feel differently than you about Atmosphere, because for some reason I bought it with one of my last Audible credits, and now I can’t return it because I’m not a Prime member anymore. Stupid Bezos. I am down to 1 credit, then I can cancel my membership! I should just pick something from my Libby app and buy it, shouldn’t I. I have a few days before they ding me again, so I am going to think on it.
ReplyDeleteI am watching your Audible struggle with interest. The decisions seem so hard because audiobooks feel like a real investment!
DeleteI like Atmosphere because I am simple. But also! I need to DNF more books-- why can't I do this????
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Sarah. I DNF with some regularity and am even thinking of DNFing a book I'm more than 300 pages into right now. LOL. Forget sunk costs in my world.
DeleteUnprepared for the whiplash and I know it was gonna annoy the fuck out of me made me laugh. Also, your reaction to the preachy author. I appreciate that.
ReplyDeleteUm, I don't read as many books as the rest of the universe apparently. I think that's why I don't DNF that many - I usually only read books I'm pretty confident I'm gonna at least like.
Um, I thought I already read Joy Luck Club and that this was a re-read for me, but I got it confused with another book and I haven't read it. I'm enjoying it and I'm kind of excited that it's new to me.
I don't do a lot of research into books before I read them because I don't want to get spoilers or go in with preconceived notions. Because of this, I regularly DNF because sometimes my limited research goes against me.
DeleteI'm impressed with everyone who has already started The Joy Luck Club. I, um, have not yet opened it.
I vaguely remember thinking the same thing about I Am the Messenger. I have The Correspondent right now. I am a terrible DNF-er, but I did recently abandon I Who Have Never Known Men, only because it was Eve's copy and she was taking it back to Hamilton, so I was still planning to read it, just not right then - I can't decide if that counts as DNF-ing? Nothing Taylor Jenkins Reid has written appeals to me at first glance.
ReplyDeleteI have traditionally really enjoyed TJR. This one just didn't hit!
DeleteI think the most "popular" book I've DNF-ed this year was Bright Young Women. I just couldn't get into it! I loved Atmosphere, mostly because I got very attached to the characters and loved the queer love story at the center of the novel. It made my lil romantic heart very happy!
ReplyDeleteHa! I didn't make it far enough to even know it was a queer love story.
DeleteWell, I am sorry you didn't like that but then to each their own. I enjoyed Atmosphere.
ReplyDeleteOne I hated and everyone is singing praise: The ministry of Time. Or The God in the Woods. Boring. Uninspiring. Almost waste of time.
Yeah, we're book opposites! I liked The God of the Woods and The Ministry of Time. I actually found the first half of The Ministry of Time to be hysterical.
Delete