Long, log ago in a galaxy far, far away….

… One of us felt obliged to finish every book she started. Or accepted for review. (Hi, Mom.)

Not anymore.

Too Short

Life’s too short to waste valuable time on lousy books. Snoozefests. Garbage runs. Stuff you wouldn’t feed your pet rock. Especially when there are so many other worthy reads from which to choose. These days we’ll typically give a book three to five chapters to hook us and reel us in. Or about 50-60-ish pages. Kinda depends. But one thing we don’t have time for anymore is, “Wait till it gets better.” Like another 100-ish pages. 

Not playing that game anymore. We just don’t have that kind of time to burn.

So we Did Not Finish (DNF) at will these days.

You can play, too. In fact, here are a few titles we recently sampled and gagged on. So you won’t have to. Cuz your time’s valuable, too. You’re welcome:

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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.

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It’s time for another rip-roarin’ edition of DNF Nominees and the Pepto Petrol!

That’s when we dive into a well-anticipated book and go Gag Me. Like, “Good thing that dive was cushioned by a nice, thick slab of granite or I might’ve been seriously injured.” Or trying to really, really like a book only to reach for the nearest bottle of Pepto.

Well. Books are supposed to be enjoyable and engaging, capeesh? So if ya gotta force yourself to read a book, that kind of defeats the whole purpose, right?

We could not force ourselves to finish the titles below. Usually cuz they either moved at glacial speed, numbed our brain into a dopamine stupor, or could’ve doubled as a bunch of arugula.

Here are four of our latest nominees for the DNF Pepto Patrol. In no particular order:

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