All the Books I DNFed in 2019

Looking back over the books I’ve read in 2019, I’ve had a pretty damn good reading year. I’m working on my best-of and worst-of lists right now, and can’t wait to share them with you guys.

Today, though, let’s talk about the books that I DNFed this year.

If you don’t DNF books, think about starting in the new year. Why read a book you hate when you could be reading something amazing? For more insight, check out my post Why You Should Start DNFing Books.

• Moon Knight: Bad Moon Rising by Steven Grant – Marvel’s Moon Knight is a character that I typically really enjoy. He’s ruthless (depending on which personality he has at that moment), hilarious, and nuts, which is why many of his comics are a lot of fun to read. This collection didn’t appeal to me, however. I was bored after reading the first few issues, and the character I’ve come to know from the newer Moon Knight series was toned down quite a bit.
• Going Dutch by James Gregor – I received an ARC of this contemporary romance novel from NetGalley, and DNFed it quickly. I hated this book right from the very start. The main character, Richard, is selfish and uses people. I have no issue with unlikeable characters usually, but Richard’s personality was so atrocious that I was becoming angry reading about how terrible he was to people.
• Normal by Warren Ellis – Sometimes when I’m at the library, I’ll randomly pick books off the shelves that I know nothing about. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. I only made it 20ish pages into this book, but I wasn’t feeling it right from the start. There’s a chance that I might give this book a second chance, but not anytime soon.

• Planetes, Volume 1 by Makoto Yukimura – This was another book that was an unplanned library checkout. I’ve always found it difficult to get into manga, which is bizarre since I love graphic novels and comics. I think I made it through the first part before DNFing it. It was in no way bad, it just failed to catch my interest.
• Until the Last Star Fades by Jacquelyn Middleton – I made it maybe twenty pages into this novel before deleting it from my Kindle. Within the first couple of pages, I realized that I did not enjoy the cheesy writing.
• Empire of Sand (The Books of Ambha #1) by Tasha Suri -I will definitely be giving this book a second try. I have a feeling I’ll love it, but when I picked it up earlier this year I had just finished reading several fantasy books one after the other and felt a little burned out on the genre. Next time I pick it up, I’ll make sure I’m actually in the mood for a fantasy novel.

• Nordic Tales: Folktales from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, and Denmark by Chronicle Books – Once again, another book that I will be rereading once I’m actually in the mood for it. I’m in love with the Nordic countries (my god, how I’d love to live in Norway one day), and would love to familiarize myself with the region’s fairy- and folk-tales.
• Cold Storage by David Koepp – This novel is a science fiction thriller that I had requested from the publisher. I’m a huge fan of disaster or apocalyptic scenarios in fiction, and since this novel deals with a “highly contagious, deadly organism,” I thought it’d be perfect for me. I read five chapters, and I hated this book. I dislike funny thrillers. In this case, primarily because I didn’t know it was going to have terrible humor in it. This was a quick and easy DNF for me.
• Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith – I had a lot of fun reading Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, so after I read Pride and Prejudice earlier this year, I figured I’d follow it up with this retelling. It wasn’t for me though. It failed to hold any of my interest and I found myself bored while reading it.

• Dreaming of You (The Gamblers of Craven’s #2) by Lisa Kleypas – I enjoyed this book for the first 60% of it, but it was too long. There were definitely some really great steamy moments, and the story was fine, but it came to a point where it had just gotten monotonous to read, as well as predictable. If I finish more than half of a book before DNFing it, I’ll rate it, and I ended up rating this novel two stars.
• New Avengers, Volume 3: Other Worlds by Jonathan Hickman – I’m sure I’ll come back to this collection of Marvel comic books, but as this is the third volume, I’ll be reading the first two before I do. Usually, comic book arcs can be read out of order, but I had absolutely no idea what was happening here.

And, finally, the three most controversial books:

• Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi – Oof, this book. I’ve read two of Tahereh Mafi’s books, A Very Large Expanse of Sea and Furthermore, and I enjoyed both of them. Shatter Me, however, was so cringy and I hated the writing style and all of the strikethroughs. I tried it on audiobook as well and that was even worse. This was definitely not a book for me.
• One Day in December by Josie Silver – I made it four chapters into this book before I put it down. My least favorite romance trope is insta-love, and that’s literally what this book is about. The main character sees a guy at a bus stop and instantly falls in love with him, and, shocking! he starts dating her best friend. Ugh.
• Nevernight by Jay Kristoff – Please don’t hate me for this one. I really wanted to like this book as it seems to be the darling of the book community, but between the overly-flowery writing and the massive footnotes on nearly every page, I couldn’t get through it. By the time I started nearing 100 pages, reading it felt like an awful chore, and I immediately felt lighter sitting it down.

Considering I only DNFed fourteen books, I feel pretty good about my reading year. What books have you DNFed this year?

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