Books we Didn't Finish May Edition

The Burgess Boys-The premise of the book, a mother and daughter gossiping about another family, seemed kind of stalkerish to me.  Even when it switched from the mother and daughter talking about the family to the narrative about the family, I couldn't stop thinking about the fact that it was someone not related to the family telling the story.  It was weird.  Maybe it was that doubt in the back of my head that I couldn't trust the storyteller.

The Liar's Gospel-Maybe the title should have been a tip off.  I was bothered by Mary denying that her son was anything special.  She of all people would have known he was divine.  Then when Jesus came in to the picture and he was angry and fighting with Joseph, that was enough.  I'm not a big bible thumper and I know Jesus was probably an ordinary person most of the time and those things didn't make it in the bible, but I don't want to read stuff that purposely puts him in a bad light.  I really enjoy historical fiction about this time period, like The Red Tent or The Dovekeepers but this one didn't float my boat.

Vigilante Nights-This book comes from a new imprint YA imprint (Merit Press) and I was expecting good things because Jacquelyn Mitchard was the editor-in-chief and I've liked her writing.  The synopsis of this book sounded pretty good.  Then, I started reading it.  There's a gang initiation in the beginning that's totally ridiculous.  Maybe, I'm used to hearing about more hardcore gang initiations, but this one sounded just really bizarre.  The sentence structure in the first few chapters of this book was making me crazy.  I don't like incomplete sentences or sentence fragments.  My next gripe was the teen slang; if you don't know it, don't use it.

Flu: I have come to the conclusion that I just don't like the zombie genre.   I'm not sure I even like to watch zombie shows on TV. The story wasn't bad, but I didn't like the feeling of defeat that I got from starting the book. I found myself uninterested in the survival of the characters, so I gave up. I also didn't care for the narrator.  His voice was too deep for me.


Origin & Cause:  Always on the hunt for a good Throwback Thursday feature, I thought this one sounded interesting.  How wrong I was. I started falling asleep halfway through the first disc. I felt like I was listening to a history text book.  Not a great way to start out.  I gave up.


Don't Breathe a Word:  I have had this one on my TBR pile for a while.  I finally got it on audio.  I only made it through the first 2 discs.  I can't really pinpoint what made me stop listening.  It was just dull.  I didn't like the way the story waffled between then and now.  I also felt like there was too much inner reflection in Phoebe and the story wasn't moving forward fast enough for me.