Books

I've tried to read CJ Cherryh's Faded Sun books multiple times and don't make it more than a few pages in the first one each time. Don't know why, they seem like the types of books I would like.

literally didn’t make it past the first 3 pages. this is coming from someone who hates to dnf at all, period.

It was “pucked up” by helena hunting. rife with internalized misogyny and disparaging descriptions of women’s genitals. instant disgust.

I picked up a Sci fi book at a charity shop called Destroyer of Worlds. Noped out 4 paragraphs in when the first name in the book was Thssthfok. That is not an exaggeration. That was literally a characters name. It's generally put me off Sci fi ever since and this was about 10 years ago.

just a page when i think the writing is awful

Edgar Sawtelle. Within the first 20 pages, maybe 10. It was a while ago.

Fighting Destiny by Amelia Hutchins. It was sold to me as a urban high fantasy with hints of romance and a touch of spice. But its just low budget porn written in the style of a five year old. I kid you not. As soon as I saw the way yhr paragraphs looked I wanted to put the book down, but thought "you never know, can be good anyway". It was not. The description of the MC girl is written from the perspective of her self and its highly objectifying in a way that was so cringe and almost like a teen boy's bad fanfic of a woman. The story is nonsense. If Marry Sue was combined with a pornstar.

I skipped to a random section of the book in my frustration to see if it got better. Two chapters of nothing but poorly written smut. And I dont mean "sex scene, plot, sex scene, plot, etc" But I mean the same session going on for two chapters. I banished that book to the depths of my book shelves and swore to never listen to a recomendation from good reads again.

Rant over <3

the shadows between us,the scene right in start,nope never closed a book that hard before,needed a good fictional book that day and i think it just really peeved me 💀😭

Didn’t finish Chapter 1 of The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan. It serves a lot as a recap, and I got stressed out about the female slaves from an earlier book. I’ll get back to it, but there was no way I could read it at the time. For some reason, that storyline really freaks me out.

Honestly? I'll DNF if the author includes a playlist at the beginning of the book. For some reason this is getting increasingly common these days, and 99% of the time it's followed by some of the worst writing I've ever seen.

lies we sing to the sea by sarah underwood

dnf-ed at like 15% or less -- would've dnf-ed at around 5% but it was too late to return it and so i tried so hard to push through and not waste my money.

turns out, the author admitted in an interview to doing almost no research at all towards her novel, as well as revealing that she'd read no ancient greek literature-- not even the iliad or the odyssey... and yeah, we can tell.

i am very lenient when it comes to historical fiction. i'm quite happy to willfully ignore small mistakes for the sake of a good book, but this was not a good book.

i don't expect authors to know absolutely everything, but some of the mistakes here were laughable-- and also incredibly stupid, considering you can very easily google the answer? for instance, did coffee exist in ancient greece? no ! did ouzo exist in ancient greece ? nope, not that either !

in one part, the main character says that in the myths she grew up on, the women did nothing at all... wrong ! wrong ! and wrong ! the author is only assuming this because of the old setting, but if she had, indeed, done any research at all, she'd know this was wrong.

the writing is awful, the character is insufferable, and the dialogue is contrived and unrealistic. it reads like straight up fanfiction of ancient greece, except the author hasn't read a single thing about ancient greece.

one of the worst books i've read all year. big 0/5 stars.

any kindle unlimited dark romance recommended on BookTok. They're all just soo cringey to me

2 pages.

From a Buick 8. Just couldn't.

4th twilight book. I dnf after chapter 3. I hated the way she wrote it.

I see a lot of comments like yours about The Maid in FB groups. I got 2 chapters into The Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig and I had to DNF it. Just too much.

I listen to books more than read (mom of 3 littles) and I got a few chapters into "Hooked" by Emily McIntire and cringed so hard at the spicy scenes and couldn't continue! Just not for me. I'll take Commune or Red Rising any day but I apparently can't handle too much spice!

The Paper Palace. I made it maybe 2-3 chapters.

A court of thorns and roses by Sarah J Maas, I barely made it five pages in

the first of the Illuminatus trilogy. started reading it because it was one of my dad's favorites and we usually have pretty similar taste but i got slightly less than 3 chapters in and gave up. Not only is the story all over the place but the formatting is so bizarre that it makes it difficult to keep track of when there is a scene or POV change.

I forget the book, but page 1, a detective rolls onto the crime scene and starts describing an ungloving. I clapped the book shut and thought about it for days lol.

the book was called ‘they both die at the end’ Silvera Adam, and I got half way in before I decided to call it quits. It’s the only book I ever DNFd. I believe one of the protagonists had a weird way of speaking that made it obvious a person was trying to write and speak “hip”. The protagonists often would say “mad” every other sentence. (Ex. That’s mad weird). It got on my nerves so I just stopped reading cause it was borderline annoying.

I think page 1 or 2. Don't ask me which book. Just the feeling of revulsion at the main character sticks with me.

Lol 20 pages

another roadside attraction by Tom Robbins. just was NOT for me. his writing style irks me

It was called “when god was a rabbit” I don’t really remember who it was by but I was really excited to read it since id heard it recommend in a magazine as something thought provoking and I love rabbits too so I thought it was a good sign. It turned out to be a shock value book that wasn’t thought provoking in the slightest and was just kinda disturbing. I got about half way through but when the author did some pretty gruesome things to a baby I just kinda called it quits. It had these whimsical moments that would led you into a false sense of security too then do something awful. I could feel the author almost saying “see how awful it all is?” Like yeah but why tho? For what? There is no deeper meaning in works like that imo

Way back in the early 90s, as a youngster and an air head, I bought Dianetics by Hubbard near a train station in Palatine Il, on my way into Chicago to meet parents. I didn't know any better at the time. Page 2. Left it on the train.

I quit The Maid before the murder as well. My soonest though was Twilight - 3 pages. I like vampires but those 3 pages were so bad I couldn't go further. For Twilight fans, this is a subjective opinion. I am well aware there are people who love the books and movies, several friends rave about them.

This is kind of a dumb DNF, but a couple years ago, when I first got into romance books, I picked up one by an author that I'd tried and liked. They weren't great, but I'd enjoyed one of their other books, and the premise was interesting, so I figured I'd like the next one too.

A few pages in, the MC referred to their college, Arizona State University, as "Arizona U".

Unfortunately for the author, I've lived my entire life in AZ - worse, my family are die-hard ASU fans. I have never heard anyone call it that. Instantly cringed, my soul departed from my body like a bat out of hell. I don't think I've ever DNF'd a book I actually wanted to read that fast.

I start with the premise that I'm a big King's fan but the first time i read IT i dnf'd it about 100 pages in, i did go back to revisit it a few years later and got to the last page but i can't say i loved it as much as his other books, to me it just feels mild and a bit of a drag at many points.

Ugh. I plodded through The Maid but the main character thoroughly annoyed me 😑

First three pages. I tried so hard to give it a try but I think the author was from the UK and had a writing style that I just couldn't understand and get into. No hate to the author, I'm sure it was probably a really great book for the people who could understand it but I just couldn't

SAME! Usually I try to give it at least 100 pages, but The Maid was DNF after about 20.

Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. I know it's a beloved classic and highly regarded but I knew after a few pages the author's sense of humour was going to irritate the shit out of me. You can't please of all the people all of the time and no doubt there's stuff I love that others think is woeful.

The kaiju preservation society. I loved the name of the book, the premise and the start of the book. Then it got progressively worse by the page. Halfway through and all the characters felt like they were caricatures of each other and I really didn't care what was going to happen it to whom. Stopped forcing myself to read once I realized I was just waiting for it to end.

Wizard's first rule. Heard a lot of good things about the series, read the first three pages and the vibes were wrong. The prose was bleh, it wasn't hooking me, i just knew it wasn't right. One of the only times I've returned a book.

Atomic habits after about 5 pages. It felt like it’s already repeating the same ideas over and over again.