Books I Couldn’t Finish and Why
We’ve all done it, picking up an overhyped book and deciding mid-way through that it’s not your cup of tea. I doubt there’s very many bookworms out there that can say they have read entirely through every book they’ve started. There’s no shame in it whatsoever. Think of it this way – you’re recommended a seven season show and the plot is slowly killing you, there’s no way you’d sit through hours and hours of boredom. Why should it be any different when reading a book? There are several books I couldn’t finish out there; that doesn’t make me tasteless. Jog on if you think I’m enduring an entire book claiming to be a ‘slow burn’ when the protagonists meet and flirt in the very first chapter. What’s the point of that?!
So, to get rid of that abandoned book shame, I thought I’d share with you a list of books I couldn’t finish and why. These are books I started reading throughout my life that just didn’t make the cut. That’s not to say they’re bad books – I just didn’t particularly enjoy them and therefore saw no point in finishing them. Books are entertainment for me; I’d lose the motivation to read if I forced myself through them.
Let’s kick this off, shall we?
1) Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer – John Grisham
I was a somewhat active reader as a child. Still, I ‘read too much of the same stuff’ as my mother informed me. She insisted that I broaden my consumption. Thus, Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer was tossed to me. Like most children were at my age, I was an avid Harry Potter fan, and that translated heavily into my taste. That’s probably what made my mother think I’d enjoy the Theodore Boone series with its young target audience and intelligent male protagonist. However, I think that’s why it’s a book I couldn’t finish.
I reread the Harry Potter series relentlessly, so being told it was similar to it must’ve reverse influenced me. Nine-year-old Lucy probably wouldn’t have been happy reading anything other than the series of books I had on loop. Honestly, at that age, what’s better than HP, The Hunger Games or The Beautiful Dead?
2) Wildfire – Hannah Grace
Now, this one is controversial. Indeed, one of the books I couldn’t finish was BookTok’s admired Wildfire – written by Hannah Grace. I went into this book blindly after scrolling straight past many reviews of it online. I knew nothing about it other than the fact it was getting popular on TikTok and Instagram. So, on a late night Tesco trip one day, I saw it and popped it into my basket. Weeks later, I picked it up and to my dismay, it was everything you’d expect from a BookTok story.
Full of cliches, very little plot and way too many pages I had to skip. I’m not a page skipper on any level, but the sheer amount of fanfic-like ‘spice’ scenes in Wildfire was vile. I beg for the trend of replacing plot with raunchiness to be dumped sooner rather than later because I don’t think I can sit through another book riddled with chapters used solely to lead to smut. Fellow writers – be better.
3) The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – Taylor Jenkins Reid
I must start this section by saying, I did enjoy the plot of this book. It is unlike any book I had read before, given its perspective and structure. Anyhow, this is a post about the books I couldn’t finish, so let’s get into why I put it down.
Although it was a fresh concept for me, I found it dull at times. I think I got half-way through the book before losing interest. However, I did not want to give up on The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo – I tried again a few months later. Unfortunately, I ended up drifting off at the same point I did in my first reading. I felt guilty about it, thinking maybe I just lacked motivation, but I easily picked up another book the next day and got through it by the end of the week. I think it was a case of just not finding the writing itself compelling enough which really lets the book down. A plot with that much potential deserves to be executed better, in my opinion.
Final Thoughts:
I would definitely self-describe myself as a picky reader, but do not fret. I am as brutal to my own writing as I am with the books I read. Do not avoid reading these books just because my goldfish brain couldn’t handle them. At the end of the day, we’ve all got our own tastes; our own icks and favourite tropes. Just because these are books I couldn’t finish, doesn’t mean you wouldn’t enjoy them!
Happy reading!