Books We Didn't Finish - June Edition

What She Left Behind - Too depressing.  Izzy's story read like a bad YA cliche.  Clara's story was just too sad to read any more.

The Fireman - I was so looking forward to reading this one.  I liked NOS4A2 a lot.  But this book was a mess.  It was overfilled with pop cultural references that won't hold up in 30 years, which you know is a huge pet peeve of mine. The story was so boring. With a unique take on viruses and the apocalypse, the author could have done so much more with this book.  I made it about 40% through and gave up.  At over 700 pages, I expected to be swept away like in The Stand, instead I found myself yawning and waiting for something to happen. My advice: Go read The Stand instead.  His father wrote a better book.

Don't You Cry - I wanted to cry because I was so confused and bored to tears.  I got about 30% in and I just didn't care about what happened to Esther or whatever twist the book had in the end.  I was baffled by all of the 5 star reviews.


I'm Thinking of Ending Things - Yeah, I ended things pretty early on on this book.  I found it confusing and kind of rambling.  I really wasn't interested in getting to the end.

The Outliers:  I really need to stop giving into hype. I didn't care for this one.  I found it hard to believe an agoraphobic or at least someone who was well on her way to becoming a full blown one, would be able to just pick herself up and leave the house to search for her friend.  I wasn't interested in seeing what happened after that.

The Girl from Summer Hill: This was a real disappointment.  I am a fan of this author, but this one just didn't grab me.  I am also a big fan of Pride and Prejudice, but it really didn't work for me in this one.  I didn't like the format or the characters. There were too many points of view.

City of Mirrors-This is the 3rd book in The Passage trilogy.  I loved loved The Passage.  The second book was pretty good.  So much time has passed between The Twelve and City of Mirrors that I can't keep all the story lines straight anymore.  I don't remember the characters well enough to follow what's going on.

The Memory Box-It started out ok, but then when the main character realized she couldn't remember her past she got hysterical.  That is an understandable reaction of course, but it got really annoying pretty fast.  I just wanted to slap her and tell her to get it together.  So I gave up on that one after awhile.

Heartsick-The premise of this book sounded good, female serial killer and all.  However, I just couldn't get into this book.  I don't have a specific reason, it just wasn't holding my interest.

The Crow Girl - Again, I tried but it just wasn't holding my interest.  Normally, I like the European writers but I didn't particularly care for this book.

Edge of Evil-Since I liked the other JA Jance book, I decided to see if the other series were as good.  Maybe
they are, but I didn't care for this series.  I didn't like the main character at all.  She was so whiny.