Books We Didn't Finish - July Edition

 The Columbus Affair looked pretty interesting when it popped up on my library's audiobook website.  I have never read anything my the author so I figured I would give it a shot.  I was so bored that by the middle of the second disc, I couldn't take it anymore.  I felt like I was in history class.  The author kept switching between characters and just when things seemed to get going, he would slide into another history lesson.  I just don't think it was for me.


Fifty Shames of Earl Grey  looked like a really fun read.  You all know how much I didn't like the book that is intended to make fun of and I was hoping this one would be amusing.  It was...for about 2 chapters.  Then it got tedious and not so funny anymore.  Sometimes, I think parodies can only go so far and should be shortened to a novella or in the case of a movie, a skit.  This book is a perfect example.

I'll start by saying that I had no idea who Bethenny Frankel was when I started this book and didn't until I looked her up.   I got about a quarter of the way through Skinnydipping and lost interest.  I didn't like the main character.  For a New Yorker, she is kind of naive. Or maybe I'm just too old to care about someone's life in Hollywood. I read somewhere that this work of fiction seems to mirror Ms. Frankel's own life.  Why not just write a memoir? At any rate, I just couldn't make myself care enough about Faith to see where she ends up. It just wasn't for me.

I'm going to finally throw in the towel on  The Yard.  I had really high hopes for this book.  It was being touted as the next Alienist.  If you aren't familiar it's a historical murder mystery.  The Yard is set in London right after the Jack the Ripper murders.  There's a new murderer in town and Scotland Yard is set to investigate.  It just wasn't working for me.  I kept putting it down to read other things and every time I picked it up I'd read less and less of it until it was just a dreaded task.  It kind of reminded me of The Bedlam Detective, so if you liked that book, you might like this one.  If you really are looking for the next Alienist, check out Gods of Gotham...it was AWESOME!  And Caleb Carr is supposed to be having a book coming out sometime this year I think.

The Hangman's Daughter had a really cool title and pretty cool cover.  However, once I got into it, it really wasn't as interesting as I had expected it to be.  The book also wasn't really so much about The Hangman's Daughter.  I think the title came to be because of the trend of naming books about The such and such's Daughter and that kinda turned me off to it.  The second book in this series came out last month, it's called The Dark Monk. 

Question Readers:  Did you read these books and have a differing opinion?  Did you have any books that you just could not stand to finish?