Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga’s Reviews featuring the books we got this week, and I also mention blog news/happenings of the past week. Hiya guys! I hope everyone is doing awesomely even as the weather gets colder. At least for those up north like me. So even though Jenni is not blogging anymore, I still plan to only post an STS every 2 weeks, mostly because I rarely get enough in just one week to bother making a book haul post about it. Also this week, if you missed it, was my 3 year blogoversary. I did up a post with a sweet giveaway here! I also shared a fun sneak peek at The Gifted Dead here. So the past weeks were a tad slow for…
DNF Round-Up [2014: Part 2]
Posted by Giselle • 20 Comments
The post where I post mini reviews on why I DNFed (did not finish) these books!
For my past DNF posts, click here!
Mortal Danger
Ann Aguirre
Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn’t imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She’s not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he’s impossible to forget.
In one short summer, her entire life changes, and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly… bad things are happening. It’s a heady rush, seeing her tormentors get what they deserve, but things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon, the pranks and payback turns from delicious to deadly. Edie is alone in a world teeming with secrets and fiends lurking in the shadows. In this murky morass of devil’s bargains, she isn’t sure who—or what–she can trust. Not even her own mind…
I’m sad because I was so looking forward to this, but I was sooo bored. I put it down to read something else when it felt like I’d been reading this one for a year, and I just can’t motivate myself to pick this up and continue on with it.
It started out alright, but soon enough it turned out to be all about these 2 paranormal/afterlife “companies” who are in competition with each other with all this political drama. Well, bleh. Also, the love interest is another of those stalker guys who has watched her her whole life – mostly when she was getting bullied and emotionally tortured by her peers while he stood and did nothing (or took notes for his boss or something). But, you know, it’s okay because it was his job; so, yeah, lets jump his bones because he’s hot!? Eh, no, still creepy.
Furthermore, seeing as the girl was bullied relentlessly for years, and now seems to have a serious lack of self esteem from how she describes her past self, she gets out of her shell a bit too easily once she’s made attractive. There’s no lingering insecurities at all; a prettier face perfected her social skills in a second. Not very realistic for a girl who was at the point of suicide 2 seconds earlier. That confidence she suddenly displays would be hidden deeper than that.
Anyways, maybe the last half is an epic showdown of 5-star-ism, but honestly I don’t care to find out.
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Blackbird
Anna Carey
A girl wakes up on the train tracks, a subway car barreling down on her. With only minutes to react, she hunches down and the train speeds over her. She doesn’t remember her name, where she is, or how she got there. She has a tattoo on the inside of her right wrist of a blackbird inside a box, letters and numbers printed just below: FNV02198. There is only one thing she knows for sure: people are trying to kill her.
On the run for her life, she tries to untangle who she is and what happened to the girl she used to be. Nothing and no one are what they appear to be. But the truth is more disturbing than she ever imagined.
The Maze Runner series meets Code Name Verity, Blackbird is relentless and action-packed, filled with surprising twists.
Blackbird is told in 2nd person tense, which I thought would be unique – and it is, naturally – but instead of being a fun change of pace it was just distracting. This was made even worse when I quickly grew frustrated with the cheesiness of the plot. It also doesn’t try to be all that realistic. For instance, some random guy who has never used a gun before, goes up and shoots a woman from a few stories high (who knew it was that easy to hit a target? >.<), kills her, and he’s just all ok with it because she was going to kill someone else anyways. Then I hear he randomly gets eaten by a dog or something odd like that. Anyways, I put this one down a while ago after I got bored, not necessarily planning on DNFing but, but after seeing the reviews of those who finished it, I can safely say I don’t ever plan on picking it up again.
I do think you should try it, though, because it feels like one that will be a hit or miss. 2nd person POV could make for a really awesome read if the story is able to compel the reader into the heroine’s shoes/mind – which Blackbird did not get close to achieving for me, sadly.
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The Girl with All the Gifts
M.R. Carey
Not every gift is a blessing.
Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class.
When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite. But they don’t laugh.
Melanie is a very special girl.
This book has an incredibly interesting concept – definitely a unique take on zombies. Also with only a few pages in, I could tell there was a lot of research done to make it scientifically fascinating. But… I just couldn’t get into it. There are several POVs, all in 3rd person which is always hard for me, and I was simply not feeling this one at all at the time. I think it may have been my mood more than the book itself, too.
However, unlike any other DNF books I’ve had, it’s one I’d consider picking up again in a couple of month, especially after seeing all the 4 and 5 star reviews from my friends. I’m a very curious person in nature, so I’m dying to see what this book turns out to be; what brought out so much love for it. If you have read it, what do you think? If I didn’t like it by 30%, do you still think I should reconsider?
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Have you DNFed any books recently?
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