MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ANYONE WHO CELEBRATES! I come to you with a slightly down post oops. Ladies and gentleman. As the avid DNFer that I am, I am surprised that after reading 160+ books this year I have only DNFed 10! Let’s get into them and my reasonings. I think I might upset a few people this year 😦

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 37%

This book started off super strong but once I got to the 100-page mark the plot started to slow right down and I found myself reading and waiting for more to happen. I am more of a plot-focused reader so following Addie as she reflects and learns and walks through her 300 years while interesting at first started to get repetitive and I started to lose interest. The historical chapters were super interesting but they were few and far between and the modern setting was just not interesting to me.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 58%

Now this was a DNF that shocked everyone of my friends. This book is short – very short. We all saw the viral tweet a couple of months ago of this book being promoted. Well the main reason for the DNF was I just didn’t enjoy the writing style. I can admit when something goes over my head and the writing style of both authors did. The structure of the novel was all over the place plus with a writing style that I thought to be confusing and it just made for a reading experience that I didn’t enjoy.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 42%

Normally I loved a short story collection. Especially a British Library one. Their book themed collection saved me during covid. But I only read 4 stories before I DNFd – all of the stories were just underwhelming.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 33%

Unfortunately, while this book started off great I slowly started losing interest. For a book marketed as The Scarlet Pimpernel with vampires. I was hoping for more vampires, they barely make an appearance in the 100+ pages I read. I also found the male aristocrats to be indistinguishable from one another. I just needed more from this book.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 26% (165 pages)

A bit of an infamous DNF. I had a lot of people on my TikTok telling me how bad this book was. Overall, I loved the characters, the world and was interested in the plot but the pacing was just so slow that it was just a struggle to read and ultimately hindered my enjoyment.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 50%

Now I know this will shocked some people! I love the movie it is one of my all time favourites movies but, while I knew the versions are different, some of the scenes in the book just didn’t work for me. I prefer the movie.

Reasons for the DNF: I can’t remember exactly when I DNFed this book but I have actually decided to re-read this graphic novel later down the line as my friend Morgan read it and loved it. This made me want to give it another go.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 43%

I did not enjoy the writing in this book. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 29%

This was very underwhelming. The relationship dynamics all felt surface level, the characters weren’t that interesting and the plot was just meh. I had been waiting a year for the right time to read this collection but I was just disappointed. I did skim to the end to see who she ended up with and I was also disappointed.

Reasons for the DNF: DNF at 30% (181 pages)

I am sorry but I got nearly 200 pages in and barely anything had happened. I was waiting and waiting for something to happen. I thought the lore/world-building was really interesting but this book felt more like one big info dump. I thought the characters were ok but nothing really happened to make me care and I just lost momentum waiting.