The Books I’ve DNFd so far this year! 🪦

Today I’m going to go through all the books I’ve DNFd in the first half of the year. I’m going to split these into two categories. Hard DNF & Soft DNF which I’ve heard a few times now in BookTok & BookTube. So if you’re unfamiliar. Hard DNF is books you have no intention of returning to. Soft DNF is for books that you put down but want to give another go. So, let’s jump in!

Soft DNF

These three were all a wrong time or wrong format kind of situation. Song of Silver, Flame Like Night I gave a go when I was in a reading slump thinking a Fantasy might help me break it. Obviously that didn’t work. Silver in the Bone was basically the same situation as Song of Silver, Flame Like Night. The only difference being it was during the second slump of 2023 for me. I did try reading this one physically and then swapped to audiobook and neither could hold my attention. Fantasy was just not the right choice at that time. All of Us Villains I tried on audiobook right around when I was heading into the reading slump direction earlier in the year… Also, with the audiobook I was having trouble keeping things straight but I don’t know if that was just the audiobook or if that was because I was struggling to concentrate on it because of the impending slump.

Hard DNF

This section I’m going to split into two sections. Firstly I will talk about the books that I had a specific issue with and actually have something to talk about. Secondly the books that I DNFd because I was just bored or wasn’t vibing with.

Firstly we have Lenny Marks Gets Away with Murder. This one was very frustrating and majority of that was the MC. I’m not a huge fan of the unreliable narrator thing. It’s never been something I’ve enjoyed and I didn’t realise this one would have that trope when I started it. Also the MC suffered from PTSD & anxiety. Which is not a bad thing usually. I can’t speak on the representation personally, so I have no idea if it’s good or not. However, it made for an extremely painful read. The inner monologue was so frustrating. The most minuscule things were fixated on and it completely distracted from the story. There were also so man times that I was internally thinking ‘for fuck sake just…’. For example, this woman treats the MC like crap multiple times and the MC is still doing everything she can to become friends with this woman and I’m just sitting there thinking ‘literally why?!’ and there was one scene where it was pouring rain, she’s only got a bike & she is carrying a big ass bag of dog food. This dude she knows offers her a lift and she says no, while clearly struggling, over and over again for absolutely no reason other than not like people knowing where she lives… I would understand if it was some random, but she knows this guy. So it was just straight up frustrating reading paragraphs and paragraphs of this. I just couldn’t deal with it and I ended up DNFing at 220 pages.

Then is Wolfsong which was actually my most recent DNF. I only got about 50 pages into this one before it gave me the ick. I then went onto StoryGraph and checked out other peoples reviews which definitely solidified my decision to DNF. To start with I was kinda bored. Then there was the MC who I just didn’t really enjoy, was unreliable and found a little annoying. My main issue though was the age gap. If you don’t want any spoilers then don’t read any further but this one starts out when the MC is 16 and that’s when he meets the guy that is going to be the love interest. Who is 10 at the time. This child is weirdly obsessed with the MC due to this future bond and that just completely gave me the ick. All their interactions were just kind of off… 10 & 16 is straight up not okay for any of what was going on really. From what I can tell from the reviews I read, the story at some point cuts to when the love interest is 20 and he reconnects with the MC after some time apart. Which means they would still be 26 and 20 at the time. As someone turning 26 next week. Ahhhh no. And from what I can tell the author justifies this because they are a bonded/mated pair or whatever you want to call it (this is a werewolf book if you didn’t know) & the love interest has been through shit & looks buff. Which somehow makes him a grown man and makes this okay. Still no. Some other reviews I read also talked about how the younger of the two is the ‘alpha’ in the bond and was trying to be dominant but it was just uncomfortable to read especially as the ‘alpha’ acts very young and childish. Also apparently they were unhealthy dependant on each other which is also a no from me. As you can imagine, after reading those reviews I had absolutely no interest in continuing.

So these 10 are the books that I stopped reading because I was bored, I didn’t find myself invested in the characters/plot or I just couldn’t get into. I’m not bothering to individually repeat that for each of these books. So just grouping them together.

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Well that is all the books I’ve DNFd int he first half of the year.