Thursday, October 10, 2013

Mini Reviews - Did Not Finish

As of today there are three books that I have started to read and put down and decided I was never going to pick them up again.  I officially moved these to the Did Not Finish pile and while I am getting more comfortable adding books to this pile (why commit more time to a book I’m not enjoying when there are hundreds of books on my TBR list) I still hate to give up.

  
The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson – I never really connected to Jenna.  Maybe I wasn’t supposed to.  I liked the concept of the novel and it raised interesting questions as to what it is that makes us human, but after reading two-thirds of the book and still not caring one iota about how anything turned out I decided I was done.
 
 
 
 

Jessica by Bryce Courtenay – I jumped up and down when I found this at the Half Price Book Store.  Bryce Courtenay wrote my favorite book The Power of One but the rest of his books aren’t in print in the US so stumbling across one is a major find for me.  I also read and reviewed April Fool's Day last year. 
The first 40% of Jessica was terrific:  I loved the setting, the characters, and the writing.  Unfortunately about half way through it started to feel like Courtenay knew what he wanted the plot to do, and forced the characters to behave in ways that were not consistent with how they were portrayed leading up to that point.  I got mad and threw the book across the room.  Giving up on this one was hard for me.  Side note – I discovered recently that all his books are now available for Kindle so I’ll definitely give more of them a try. 
 

On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta – Please don’t hate me.  I know that most book bloggers love her books.  I read “Saving Francesca” last year and while I liked it I definitely didn’t quite get the hype.  I was still really excited to try another of Marchetta’s novels and went with Jellicoe Road.  I was vaguely interested in Taylor’s back story, but the “Turf War” between the Jellicoe Students, the Townies, and the Cadets bored me to tears.  Seriously, not my cup of tea. Please don’t hate me.

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