Trust & Obey

Even though I have read quite a few books recently, I also had a couple that I could not bring myself to finish. I even came back to some a year later but couldn’t do it! Here’s a handful of books that I remember particularly struggling with.

Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I really liked Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles but I did not like Heartless. It had hardly any action and was all about Catherine- who lives in Wonderland- and her romance with this Jester named “Jest” (boring, am I right?) that shouldn’t happen because the King of Hearts wants to ask for her hand in marriage. The proposal would be a huge step up in her family’s status. Instead of doing this, Catherine falls for Jest. This girl goes on and on about his golden eyes and “black motley” and I was sick of it half way through. This felt like the diary of an obsessive teenager girl, not an exciting fantasy romance.

Twelve Extraordinary Women by James MacArthur

This book takes a deep dive into twelve women of the Bible, why they were important and what we can learn from them. In theory, I was very interested in this topic and thought it sounded promising. However, there were certain things I really struggled with… He begins with saying that man and woman are equals mentally but a page or so later says that the reason Eve ate the fruit in the garden of Eden was because she was vulnerable. Why was she vulnerable? Because she didn’t have her husband there. If Adam had been there, Eve wouldn’t have screwed up. He entirely contradicted himself there. On top of that, MacArthur preaches that a woman’s job is to marry and have children. Well, that’s fine but what if you never get married? If I adopted this, I could end up in a loveless marriage out of fear of not fulfilling God’s purpose for me! Out of all the women of the Bible, the author also failed to mention Deborah in Judges who was chosen by God to guide the men in war strategy. Her husband is hardly mentioned! There are definitely women of the Bible who are shown as role models despite their marital status (like Lydia, a business woman). From what I have heard and seen, I believe God thinks women can be far more than who they marry and how many children they can have and in my opinion MacArthur seemed to missed this big time.

Little Darlings by Melanie Golding

I tried this book on a whim. It’s supposed to be all about a mom who thinks her twins have been replaced by these creatures. I was intrigued! I decided to YOLO it and began reading. Come to find out 50-ish pages in that this was gonna have a lesbian romance! I wish that would have been marketed more because I was not interested in reading that, I wasn’t interested in a romance in this book, period. On top of that, I did think Golding was a bit TMI on birth and all of that. I didn’t come for all of this; I came to read about creepy children.

Obsessed by Ted Dekker

Even though I have cherished just about every Dekker book, there has been one that I cannot finish and that is Obsessed. It’s all about a treasure from World War II and a Jewish man must find it before an anti-Semitist man. Sounds great, right?! Then how come I can’t finish it and I have never made it to the end? I tried about three times. After a while, I just stopped trying. I won’t be able to finish it.

Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

It’s famous so I wanted to read it! I got it and tried but I couldn’t not handle the wacky old English. I was exhausted after reading it instead of rejuvenated and was scanning through the dictionary constantly. Long story short, my Oma had an abridged version of the story so I read that! If you can find an abridged version, just read that!

The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis
So, I heard this novel has been made into an incredible TV show on Netflix and that people should definitely give the book a read. With that in mind, I borrowed it at my library and gave it a crack. Well, I’m here to tell you to back out now because this book is a wreck. Within the first chapter, you have an eight-year-old girl being sexually assaulted by another girl in her orphanage. This same little girl is also heavily addicted to drugs that the orphanage gives her. I think where I struggled the most was the fact that Tevis made Beth (the protagonist) strangely sexual for an eight year old. I still remember being an eight year old and will tell you I was far more interested in other things. It was too hard to read and I could not go on. I finished the chapter and called it a day.

DNF (Did Not Finish) posts are difficult for a lot of reasons. I know there’s a chance someone would read some of these and say “This book was great, what do you mean it was boring?” This type of post is super opinionated and kinda first impression based. There’s a chance I would have finished Heartless and thought it was fantastic! However, that’s kinda how these posts go. At the end of the day, my hope for this post is to assist you in finding what to read next!

What’d you think of this type of post? What’s a book you could not finish? Tell me about it with an email or a comment!