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!”

Well. I finally talked Mom into realizing 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.)

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

Complete Wastes of Time

So here’s the latest Official Mom and Kimber DNF List. We ploughed through this sludge so you don’t have to. As in, don’t waste your time on the following Complete Wastes of Time (in no particular order):

DNF List 7.0

Sense of Evil

By Kay Hooper (Bantam Books, 2003)

Via: Library

Genre: Crime Thriller

Didya hear the one about the two FBI special agents who walk into a bar trying to nab a serial killer? One’s clairvoyant. The other’s a medium. It’s all downhill from there.

Picked up this puppy at a library book sale for fifty cents. Thinking of askin’ for a refund. 

Murder in the Bayou: Who Killed the Women Known as the Jeff Davis 8?

By Ethan Brown

Genre: True Crime

Pages: Way too many

With a title like that, you’d think this book would offer some answers and “cases closed.” And you’d be wrong. It’s 200+ winding, circuitous and dull-as-a-blunt-spoon pages of maybe in the murders of eight sex workers in a rural Louisiana parish between 2005 and 2009. Lotsa coulda, woulda, shouldas. Supposition. Alleged law enforcement and political corruption. But no answers. No arrests. No solved cases. So what’s the point?

Newsflash, bub: Covering the same ground over and over and over and over doth not a barn burner make. It does, however, make for a great Sominex wannabe. Zzzzzzzz.

Never Let Me Go

By Kazuo Ishiguro

Genre: Whatever

Pages: Zzzzzzz

Well. That’s half a day out of our lives we’ll never be able to get back. Talk about “over-rated.”

Don’t care what prize this hunka junk was awarded. It’s still a hunka junk. Tries so hard to be edgy. Envelope-pushy. It falls flat. Think plateful of stale kale.

Among other things, the narrator, Kathy H., has a habit of getting ahead of herself. It’s like she just can’t resist telling us about a crucial turning point or event, then realizes she’s spilling the beans too soon. And forces herself to backtrack in order to set-up the next major point – usually with, “I’ll return to that later” or “more on that later.” It’s enough to make ya want to hawk up a hairball. Or walk the neighbor’s cat.

‘Sides. If you’ve read Neal Susterman’s Unwind, you’ve pretty much already read this. Or you could just watch a test pattern. The test would be a better use of your time.

Ira Hayes:

The Akimel O’odham Warrior, Works War Two, and the Price of Heroism

By Tom Holm (Hachette Bpok Group, 2023)

Via: Library

Genre: Non-Fiction, Biography

About one of the Marines in that iconic flag-raising photo on Iwo Jima snapped by AP correspondent Joe Rosenthal. We really wanted to like this biography. Unfortunately, this isn’t a biog. It’s a sermon. A really, really long-winded one that’s as dry as burnt toast.

 

The Librarianist: A Novel

By Patrick deWitt (Harper Collins, 2023)

Via: Library

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 342

What library lover can resist a title like that? Too bad this disjointed whirl thru the blender over-promises and under-delivers. What a disappointment. Starts out strong but devolves into an As The Stomach Turns soap opera when it flashes back to retired librarian Bob Comet’s young adulthood.

Could not keep our eyes open. Limped to the finish line on this one. But only under threat of the imminent demise of Mom’s chocolate stash.

And to think we coulda been watching grass grow.

The Midnight Library

By Matt Haig

Genre: Fiction

Pages: 288

If bibliophiles built a monument to Overwrought, Over-Written and Over-Rated, this book would be the mortar.

The main character, Nora, is depressed and attempts suicide. She winds up in a limbo land of not-quite-alive, not-quite-dead called The Midnight Library. There, she gets to check out a bazillion different books and explore a bazillion different lives through each title. She’s in search of her perfect life or… something, which of course, is an illusion. Kinda like this book.

The Midnight Library is one of those books everybody and their feline is supposed to go catnip crazy over. It’s supposedly an exploration of the human condition. Right. And I’m the Cat in the Hat.

Bottom line? This book can’t decide what it wants to be when it grows up. A primer on reincarnation and existentialism with a side of Sartre, Camus and National Geographic, or a simmering brew of The Twilight Zone and Neverland with a chaser of Henry David Thoreau? It’s like the storyline was absent the day storylines were taught in high school English. Or maybe 6th grade. (We actually finished this sucker. Kept waitin’ for it to get better. Still waiting. Ha!)

For a better take on similar storylines, skip the library and head for Bedford Falls, George Bailey, and Clarence Oddbody, A.S. II. You’re welcome.

 

Tell Me Everything

By Cambria Brockman

Via: Library

Genre: Dark Academia

Pages: 351

This title was suggested as part of a Reading Challenge a la the 52 Book Club.

Malin & Co. major in getting hammered, smoking weed, partying, back-stabbing and acting like idiots in a small liberal arts college in Maine. Someone gets killed. 

There. Just saved ya about 350 pages. You’re welcome.

The Wager

A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder 

By: David Grann

Genre: Poker?

Pages: Way too many

Navigating this rust bucket through prose as dense as peanut butter is like trying to curate an intelligent thought with The Bee Gees smarming in your ear about some high-grade fever on Saturday night.

And me without my Ibuprofen. Or Dramamine.

 

Midnight in Everwood

By M.A. Kuzniar

Genre: Who cares?

Pages: Who cares again?

Well, barf.

We had such high hopes for this book. Billed as “a magical reimagining of The Nutcracker,” it takes about one plie and two gran jetes before camping in Nattering P.C.-ville. Or, as the author puts it, “an utter bore and thoroughly ill-natured.” 

Off to the Big Kitty Litter Box in the Sky with ye, and step lively!

What’s on your DNF List?