Mom and I love good books! We love good books so much that we do not do lousy books. You know. The kind that top our DNF list.

Look, Cupcake

One of us used to feel a wee bit guilty about our Did Not Finish list. But then I says to Mom, “Look, Cupcake. We get zillions of requests for book reviews every day. We don’t have time to slog through sludge!”

“Yeah, but…” sputters Mom.

“Oh, c’mon Mom! Our time is valuable. Why waste it on sludge? Or stuff that’s so grimy and gross, it belongs on the bottom of a bird cage. Or the kitty litter box.”

“You may have a point there,” concedes Mom. (“A point? Really. More like, Game. Set. Match!”)

We used to slog through sludge cuz we felt duty-bound to finish every book that came our way.

Not anymore.

One of us finally realized that if a book doesn’t grab us in the first few chapters, we’re unlikely to keep going. Or if we do, it’s through gritted teeth. (Hi, Mom.)

Oh yeah. “What’s a DB list?” Glad you asked. That’s our list of skunkers. Clunkers. And Dunkers. As in, Don’t Bother. Ugh.

Well. Life’s too short. I mean, really. Who wants to waste their time on sludge? Especially when there are so many other good books around. Nowadays, we don’t bat an eye at consigning a book to our DNF pile. (For more, see 4 Reasons Why We’re World Champion ‘Book Bailers.’)

Anyway, here’s the short list of our usual criteria for sludge that’s headed for DNF pile ignominy. Followed by a list of recent inductees:

Basic DNF Criteria:

1. A pointless slog to the Middle of Nowhere littered with unsympathetic cardboard characters we don’t know, don’t want to know, and could care less about.
2. Poor writing littered with spelling and grammatical errors and typos.
3. Political polemics disguised as fiction.
4. Badly overwritten, tedious and mundane. Dull as a box of rocks and twice as dense.
5. Does not enrich, enlighten, educate or inspire in any way.
6. The format is unreadable. 
7. Gratuitous violence and/or profanity
8. Has no transcendent theme or redemptive qualities and falls into the “So what?” category.

A PSA

Here are some of the newest additions to our DNF & DB Lists. Consider this a Public Service Announcement. Like, we’re saving you a lot of time here, okay?

Latest DNF & DB Lists

No cover art available.

1. The Great Harvest – by By Michele Ballantyne

Dear Toots:

We usually enjoy Christian fiction. We do not enjoy being beaten over the head with a Bible big enough to choke a Dromedary. And that’s what most of this book is. Gag me! (We actually finished this one. Remind me to stock up on camel feed.) 

2. Awakening: An Enchanted Romance – by Diane Green

Listen up, Buttercup:

Provide us a book in a format that we can uh, actually read. That pretty much rules out microscopic print that’s not adjustable. And requires a magnifying glass. Don’t give us that “Just pinch each screen and manually enlarage each page” stuff. So not happenin’. Bye!

3. Scourge: Triskellion Saga Book One – By Rodney McWilliams

Hold on there, pardner. And either learn to use Word Count or grab the nearest abacus. 

This fantasy book lists itself as clocking in at “0 – 1,000 words.” It’s actually closer to  It has 185,000 words. So. Un. Cool. Sayonara baby!

4. The Summer Demands, by Deborah 

This steaming pile of horse hooey tops this week’s DNF list. Ugh.

Newsflash, authoroo: If you’re going to go all dumpster diving on me with gratuitous gross and mindless morass in the first coupla chapters, I’m not giving you the time of day for the rest. Oh, and by the way? You’re a lazy writer. I’ve got better things to do than wade through garbage dumps disguised as books.

5. Three Good Things, by Wendy Francis

This book is allegedly “a warm, witty and wise story of sisters on their journey through love and life.”

And I’m the Easter Bunny.

Ellen McClarety and her kid sister, Lanie, lost their mom when they were youngsters. Ellen was 16. Lanie was six. Lanie is now a successful divorce attorney with a new baby and a strained marriage. Recently divorced, Ellen is the owner of Singular Kringle.

Both miss their mom and her gentle guidance. And boy, could they ever use it.

The plot plods downhill like an As The World Turns episode stuck on replay. (We get it that Baby Benjamin is the bee’s knees. Cute as a button. We got that the first 4,672 times the author beat us over the head with it. Can we move on?)

The two sisters act more like teenagers than midlifers. As in, How dumb are you? And widower Henry the lovesick puppy? Really?

As for Lanie’s groundless suspicions about her architect husband, Kole – another installment in the ongoing saga of the Twin Drama Queens – you just kind of want to tell them both to Snap. Out. Of. It. (By the way, I have a kid sister, too. She’s a serious professional. And a grown-up. Did Lanie not get that memo?)

The title derives from their mother’s admonition to recall three good things about every day. Too bad this novel isn’t one of them.

6.  Centerville, by Karen Osborn 

Another dud. Set in 1967, this story is supposedly about what happens to a small town after some idiot sets off a bomb in the local drug store, and how different people react to tragedy.

It’s really about watching paint peel. Or smashing kitchen dishes.

And Dumb

Centerville is the kind of tome I detest: trying oh-so-hard to be hip and happenin’ and socially relevant, but it winds up being just sophomoric. And dumb.

The onion-skin plot is hackneyed, predictable, and dull as dirt. Better load up on extra-strength No-Doze to get through this snore-fest.

Over-written

While the writing is good, it’s so badly over-written – told from multiple points of views in different chapters – that it’s like trying to follow a bread crumb trail in a mining shaft at midnight. Without the crumbs.

This thing makes Dickens’s Bleak House look like a barrel of laughs.

7. The Retreat, by Sherri Smith 

Well, gag me with liver pâté and roughage.

This exercise in Chinese water torture is not only badly edited (see page 14, for starters), it’s also dull as dirt. And makes about as much sense.

A few chapters of the insufferable Katie Manning – former child star Shelby Spade, girl detective, and Co. – and we’re ready for detox. And a bar of soap. Talk about “limited vocabulary.” So junior high.

Adding injury to insult, Retreat characters are stilted, shallow and obnoxious. Stereotypes stick to them like fly paper on Jed Clampett’s wall. The hackneyed plot – what there is of it – is beleaguered by so many idiotic bunny trails, it lands in La La Land faster than you can say, “Camp Get Over Yourself.” (Ayahuasca tea and a “va-cay” in the Catskills? The predatory “Dr. Dave” and “Everything went Tilt-a-Whirl.” Seriously?)

A total waste of time.

***

So there you have it, Rosebud.

What’s on your DNF List?