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Sometimes, I abandon books right in the middle. I just lose interest. My mood changes. I’m indecisive what I actually want to read. I’m too annoyed or appalled to continue. I want to read a new release I’ve been waiting for. Or I don’t have any reason whatsoever.
However, I don’t DNF books. Not ever. I could miss out on something. They could get better. So the books I abandon will just lie around for a matter of time as short as a couple of months and as long as 6 years. Probably longer in some cases. It has gotten much better since I use Goodreads and keep better track of when I start a book. Still, there have been cases of abandonment for a little over a year.
I intend to get back to them all. Sometimes sooner, sometimes later. Sometimes I probably shouldn’t. Sometimes I’m eternally grateful I do. Here are five of each:
The Books I Should Never Have Picked Up Again
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Breaking Dawn (Twilight, #4) by Stephenie Meyer
[dt. Bis(s) zum Ende der Nacht (Bis(s), #4)]
I loved Twilight to pieces when I first came across it. I ordered New Moon, Eclipse, and Breaking Dawn in English to be able to read them on publication day although my English back then was still very basic. I had issues with New Moon but still liked it and loved the Volturi. I wasn’t particularly fond of the love triangle – and therefore the story – of Eclipse and liked it even less than New Moon. Maybe that should have warned me but still, I was a proper little fangirl of 17 and couldn’t wait to see how the story would end. I inhaled the first two thirds of Breaking Dawn – until Jake imprinted. I was horrified, appalled, disgusted. I still am. For over six months I didn’t pick it up again. In the end, I had to force myself to continue and finish. I shouldn’t have. It really wasn’t worth my time.
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Wicked Lovely (Wicked Lovely, #1) by Melissa Marr
[dt. Gegen das Sommerlicht (Sommerlicht, #1)]
This was also one of the early days. I still remember where I bought it. I still remember that it wasn’t easy for me to read (I recently found a vocab list with words I’d wanted to look up. I went through it and I knew every single word on that list. That was pretty cool). And about 2/3 in, I abandoned it because I got bored. Last year, I finally came back to it, reread the first half, and finished it. I should just have given it away back when I stopped. I love the secondary character Donia and wish the book had been written from her point of view. Ash bored me to death. Keenan I loathe. Keenan who talks about Ash as if she were a property, who makes her drunk and takes advantage of the situation. Is there anyone actually rooting for him?!
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Elfentanz by Wolfgang & Heike Hohlbein
[LT: Fairy Dance]
And yet another book that bored me to death with its story and unlikable characters. I finally finished it last year and already can’t remember anything about it.
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The Mephisto Covenant: The Redemption of Ajax (The Mephisto Covenant, #1) by Trinity Faegen
[dt. Am Anfang ist die Ewigkeit]
This book is a trainwreck. It tries to blend in every imaginable genre. The mythological system is problematic. The whole relationship stuff is problematic. It is badly written with many repetitions or unfortunate word choices (why would you tell the whole backstory just to make the protagonist forget everything, then tell her everything once again 100 pages later – in a ski lift that seems to go on for hours? While the protagonist may have forgotten everything, the reader hasn’t). No. No. No. No. No. I couldn’t believe when I saw that a German publisher had picked up the rights. Code Name Verity is still not being translated but this total waste of paper is. Just another reminder that life isn’t fair.
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Sofies Welt by Jostein Gaarder
[ET: Sophie’s World]
If it hadn’t been a read-along, I’d never have finished this one. The first time around, I had read only about 100 pages and stopped there. I do like philosophy, but it was just so. very. boring. I had to force myself to read the assigned chapters per day. My mind always went wandering off so I don’t remember much about it. Total waste of my time.
The Books I Should Never Have Abandoned in the First Place
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Lycidas (Uralte Metropole, #1) by Christoph Marzi
[LT: Lycidas (Ancient Metropolis, #1)]
This one was a birthday present from one of my best friends. It’s huge, fat, and has a tiny font. Although I really liked the story, I gave up halfway through, but went back a couple of years later. That time around, I enjoyed it immensely – and I really do have a crush on Lycidas. He’s awesome. It was also fun to get a lot more of the allusions and references to literary works. I wanted to reread it for ages since I also need to finish the series, but so far, I just haven’t found the time. Since the fifth book is on its way and set to be published this year, I really should get going.
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Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente
Valente’s writing style is breathtaking. Unfortunately, the second part threw me completely off and it took me a couple of months until I could pick it up and enjoy it again. I didn’t regret it. The next time I read it, I’ll probably enjoy it much more.
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Die Rebellin (Die Gilde der Schwarzen Magier, #1) by Trudi Canavan
[OT: The Black Magicians’ Guild (The Black Magician Trilogy, #1)]
For some reason, I’d bought the whole series, read the first 80 pages, and stopped. I just didn’t enjoy it. In 2013, one of my friends started nagging me to give it another go. Her bait: Akkarin. So I did read the first one, and although I liked it, I wasn’t blown away. Still, I continued on and liked every sequel more than the previous one. The third novel, I loved to pieces. If I hadn’t stopped reading back then, I could have discovered it much much sooner.
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Flüsternde Schatten (Libri Mortis, #1) by Peter Schwindt
[LT: Whispering Shadows (Libri Mortis, #1)]
I got this one for Christmas and was glued to the pages, read throughout the whole family gettogether and only stopped for the food. And yet, I abandoned it about 2/3 in. I don’t quite remember why. I think I got bored because it’s very slow. I gave it a second chance when the second novel came out, finished it and really enjoyed it. Just to let the same thing happen to the second book. I marathoned the whole series when the third one was published and woah, that experience was mindblowing. It’s to date my all-time favourite trilogy.
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Das Geheimnis der Spinnenhexe by Henny Fortuin
[LT: The Secret of the Spider Witch]
It’s basically the same story: I was ill, read 2/3, abandoned it for some reason I can’t remember, gave it a second chance a couple of years later, inhaled it, and loved it to pieces. But what’s not to love: It’s a high-fantasy novel told by a dwarf, the Spider Witch, the Mist Witch, and a traitor. It’s the story of princess Mirda, the child of prophecy, who swore on the day of her birth never to speak until her father, who wanted a son instead, would be screaming for her. It’s also the story of her struggle to fight for her rightful kingdom, of her two sisters Fianna and Maev, and the power-hungry wizard Croch. It’s a tale of family, of magic, of power and helplessness, of trust and betrayal, and love and death. And I really really really need to reread it!
In a way, I do that too. Not with the books you mentioned (though I still have to read “Deathless”), but sometimes a book can’t capture me and I start reading other books and at some point I come back to them. It hardly ever takes me six months to do that though, because this tends to happen with library books and there’s always the danger of not being able to renew them, xD Though there is this one book: “Hild” by Nicola Griffith. Last year, I stopped reading it after a hundred pages or so and I’m honestly not sure if I’ll ever pick it up again. But I might.
That is some serious determination! I love DNF’ing books, and I highly recommend it, haha. Not for every book, of course, but sometimes you just *know* a book isn’t going to get better. (I’ve been known to DNF in the first couple pages.) If I’m not sure about a book, I usually see if any trusted bookish friends have read it to help me decide. But there are so many other books to read, I don’t see DNF’ing as a big loss. Of course, I would be much less likely to DNF a book I actually own.