I don't want to spend more time on these DNFs than I already am, so you get the cover, title/author, where I got it from, and why I didn't finish it. Also, if you're coming here expecting sweetness? You might want to leave. I try to hold myself to a certain standard in reviews, but all bets are off in DNF reports.
Crash by Nicole Williams (Bought)Oh God, there are not words for this. I read a single chapter and... Wow. Just check out my Goodreads review of it for quotes. If I copy the quotes here, it'll take up way too much space. In short, this is one of the worst attempts at writing in a teenage voice that I've ever seen. It may actually be THE worst I've ever seen, it's so bad. That this got a deal with HarperCollins baffles, terrifies, and amazes me.
Okay, here's just one quote: "My heart went boom-boom, my head got all foggy, and I felt this ache inside when he turned and walked away, like we were tied together by a fixed rope. I’d let exactly four of these soul typhoons pass unexplored, but I’d made a pact of the utmost sacredness with myself that I wouldn’t let a fifth go by in the same kind of way. (2)" Just so you know, that really is from page TWO of the book. TWO. I'm way too smart for this bullshit.
Books like this are why new adult can KISS MY ASS.
Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler (Birthday gift)Note to readers? Don't be stupid like me and buy a book because of its title. I bought this one because it implied harem romance I was fully aware wasn't going to happen and all I got out of it was a headache.
This is a major case of me getting what the author is going for and seeing it sometimes but it not working most of the time. Anna just lets Frankie keep pushing her and pushing her about her virginity when it's none of Frankie's damn business. My best friends don't get to push me like that about my sex life or relationship status just like I don't get to push them around about it. If they try to, their ears practically get bitten off once we're in private.
I was so sad to see this one fail as badly as it did too. Ockler her the heartfelt moments in her prose and times where it rang true, but I got so annoyed with Frankie and Anna and everything else that I gave up a little over halfway through.
Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza (ARC given to me by a friend)I got a bad feeling just looking at my copy and lo and behold, reading it didn't go well. Quit after part one, which was about 34% of the way in. I just didn't have the patience for this.
The way the other girls Mila's age are characterized disgusts me. Kaylee's only traits are that she's boy-crazy, she's angry when the new guy starts paying attention to Mila, and she's vicious enough to start a rumor saying Mila cut off her arm and sent it to an ex-boyfriend after he broke up with her. Another girl named Parker makes mean quips as well about how Kaylee is only nice to her because she's new. The way Mila describes them/their clothing reeks of judgment, like how she expects Parker to preen smugly when Mila notices her haircut and how both girls wear platform shoes.
What, are platform shoes the sign of mean girls now? Then you all better run for your lives because me and my three-inch glittering platform heels? We're the motherfucking devil in disguise.
Mila just isn't that interesting of a character. Her developing relationship with her love interest Hunter is boring and all the information about who/what Mila is gets infodumped on her/us via an iPod she listens to while her mother fixes her arm. Seriously? That's a pretty lazy way to tell us about her origins.
Smokeless Fire by Samantha Young (Bought)Did I really expect anything different from the woman who brought us the hot mess known as On Dublin Street? No, not really. Still, I gave it a try because it sounded interesting enough. Bzzt! Wrong!
This quote left me asking what the hell was going on when I'd barely even begun to read: "Everywhere he glanced those eyes of a thousand nights, eyes that had made love to every spectrum of color this realm and the others had to offer, were refracted on the cold glass and black marble of his home (p. 6)."
Eyes making love? What? Not to mention the poor grammar. Commas: they're important. "Let's eat, Grandpa" and "Let's eat Grandpa" is a good example of that.
There are also words being thrown across a room belligerently, amateur infodumping that doesn't even attempt to seem natural, lots of head-jumping into heads we didn't need to be in, and no commas where there needed to be commas. Also, slut-shaming: not cool.
"OK, maybe it was too early for patience. “What… get high? Get wasted. Sleep around with a bunch of STD-infected skanks (p. 47)."" (Also a failure to use question marks right in this passage, but the slut-shaming is much more important.)
Thank goodness this one was a Kindle freebie when I got it. I don't feel like I wasted any money because I didn't PAY any money. All I wasted was time on this sorry excuse for a book.
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There are plenty more DNFs where those came from, but I tend to just mark them as gave-up-on on Goodreads, make a small note about why, and leave it at that. What about y'all? Anything you haven't been able to make yourself finish reading for the life of you lately?
