My First DNF of 2016: INTO THE DIM

Title: Into the Dim
Author: Janet B. Taylor
Series: Into the Dim, book #1
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: March 1, 2016
Source: from publisher via Netgalley
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

When fragile, sixteen-year-old Hope Walton loses her mom to an earthquake overseas, her secluded world crumbles. Agreeing to spend the summer in Scotland, Hope discovers that her mother was more than a brilliant academic, but also a member of a secret society of time travelers. Trapped in the twelfth century in the age of Eleanor of Aquitaine, Hope has seventy-two hours to rescue her mother and get back to their own time. Along the way, her path collides with that of a mysterious boy who could be vital to her mission . . . or the key to Hope’s undoing. Addictive, romantic, and rich with historical detail, Into the Dim is an Outlander for teens.

Not gonna lie: I had some high expectations for this book, especially as it being lauded as the Outlander for the YA set. It definitely did read a lot younger than I'm used to, even for a young adult novel. But Outlander it was not. For one thing, I was almost 40% into the story before the time travelling became an actuality. And it was very much a planned trip, not a matter of accidentally touching a stone at the wrong time.

I was supposed to be buddy reading this novel with my friend Sabrina, but she was reading ahead and I was getting further behind until she texted me to say that she'd just finished and asked if I just wanted her to tell me what happened. To which my reply was, "Oh, gawd, yes!" I had already been contemplating not finishing the book, but that sealed the deal. And I was glad that I hadn't forced myself to read further once she confirmed every one of my suspicions. I don't DNF often because I like to give a story a fleeting chance to recover my attention, but there was just no way that was going to happen with this book.

Into the Dim was just sooo incredibly predictable. The obvious foreshadowing just left nothing to the imagination, and every time one of my theories came to fruition, I couldn't help but roll my eyes at the inevitability of it all. I'm just looking back at my emails and texts with Sabrina while we were reading and it's almost unbelievable how much of the story we were able to guess beforehand. I don't want to spoil anything so I won't post snippets here, but we basically called it before we even got to the 40% mark.

The main character was tragically unlikable to me. She was self-deprecating, but not in a snarky, mildly amusing way. Hope was home-schooled and socially awkward and just plain annoying. Her ability seemed to plague her constantly in the beginning but was only mentioned later when it was useful to the story. If that's what it's like to have a photographic memory, I will content myself with just having a really, really good memory.

I didn't really get to see much of the romance before I decided not to finish, but from what I discerned in my reading and from what Sabrina related after I stopped, I definitely feel like a love triangle is on the horizon, even if it didn't rear it's ugly head in this first book. One guy is the doomed love interest while the other is the brooding guy who will inevitably step in when doomed guy appears to be out of the picture. Not a fan, especially once Sabrina relayed that there was a kissing scene that involved one of the characters oozing yellow pus. No. Thank. You.

I find that I enjoy time travel novels with the simplest explanation for how the time travelling is accomplished. This was not one of those. Basically, it's described as a big mistake, stumbling on some ley lines in an underground cavern and using a friend's technology to aid in the process. It's more mystical than anything -- the travelers having no ability to control when and where they travel back to, just a computer program that predicts when they should be able to travel back to a certain time and place. And they can only travel back to a specific time and location ONCE, lest they should run into their previous selves from another trip back in time. I guess in those terms, it does seem rather simple. But maybe that's actually my issue with the time travel aspect: it was boring and I pretty much skimmed the passages about it.

As I said, I only read to about 40%, but up to that point, I found the story to read very young and to be incredibly slow-paced. I'm used to time travel novels being intense and shaking things up, but I was more likely to yawn while reading Into the Dim than be at the edge of my seat. I really, really wanted this novel to be good, but it was just too predictable for me to bother continuing. Especially since I have no plans to read the sequel now.

GIF it to me straight:

About the author:

Janet Taylor lives in such a small town in Arkansas that if you happen to sneeze when you pass by, you'll totally miss it. (Cause, you know, you can't sneeze with your eyes open. For real--try it--it's impossible)

Her debut novel, INTO THE DIM (coming 3/1/2016 from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) is about a 16 year old girl who travels through time. Totally on purpose and stuff.

She's a reader/fan first and a writer second. She lives with her fantastic husband, two hilarious sons, and Dorda the diabetic dog who won't win any beauty contests, but has a "nice personality".

Find Janet:

Website | Goodreads | Twitter | Facebook | Tumblr | Pinterest

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Labels: disappointments, dnf, houghton mifflin harcourt, into the dim, janet b. taylor, reviews, time travel

{DNF} Review: From What I Remember by Stacy Kramer & Valerie Thomas

Title: From What I Remember
Author: Stacy Kramer & Valerie Thomas
Series: n/a
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication Date: May 15, 2012
Source: purchased
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

KYLIE: Mexico? What a nightmare! I should be putting the finishing touches on my valedictorian speech. Graduation is TODAY! Wait! Is this a wedding band on my finger??

MAX: It started with Kylie's laptop and a truck full of stolen electronics and it ended in Ensenada. It was hot, the way she broke us out like some chick in an action movie. But now we're stranded here, with less than twenty-four hours before graduation.

WILL: Saving Kylie Flores from herself is kind of a full-time occupation. Luckily, I, Will Bixby, was born for the job. And when I found out she was stuck in Mexico with dreamy Max Langston, sure, I agreed to bring their passports across the border but there's no reason to rush back home right away. This party is just getting started.

LILY: This cannot be happening. It's like some cruel joke. Or a bad dream. I close my eyes and when I reopen them, they're still there. Max and Kylie Flores, freak of the century. In bed together. If Kylie thinks I'm giving him up without a fight, she's dead wrong.

Oh. My. Gawd. This book was bad. So bad that I couldn't even finish it, making it my first official DNF of the year. I can tolerate a lot when it comes to books, but this book pushed my limits. I was actually buddy reading this with my younger sister. It seemed perfect for us, like it was meant to be or something. We'd been at Half Price Books and they had a paperback copy for $2 and I had a finished copy already, and the book was on my Summer TBR pile -- had been on my shelf for ages -- so we thought we'd read it together, hoping it was as funny and charming as it sounded.

Nope. It was just full of stereotypes and insane situations and it was just plain awful. We kept trying to like it, to connect with the story, but it was just impossible. When I asked Mendy how she'd review the book she said, "Um, well, it was gay, and so were the characters." Now, I know that's not PC, but at least three characters in the book actually were gay, so it's a fair assessment, I think.

Considering the insanity that bled forth from the pages of this novel, I find is highly suspect that the story itself was so unbelievably predictable. Everything my sister and I anticipated happening came to pass. We stopped at the halfway point in this book, and even then we continued to entertain thoughts of what might occur in the latter half of the book, and much to our chagrin, we were pretty spot-on. I won't list examples here in case you still have plans to read this nonsense, but suffice it to say, if you envision it happening in this story, it probably will. Is the book able to read the reader's mind? Or is it just that badly written? As awesome as the first possibility is, I'm not inclined to believe that's the case here.

Initially, I had wanted to check out this novel because the main character sounded a lot like me in high school:  intelligent, introverted, hot-tempered, and a little bit weird. And Kylie is those things, but in the worst way. I hated her voice, how she treated people, how she continued to make terrible decisions. Ugh, and the movie quotes. That aspect can be fun when done right, but it was just so annoying in this book, whether the quotes were being spoken sporadically throughout the text or were the precursor to each chapter. They just felt forced and not at all entertaining. The same goes for all of the pop culture references. I mean, there was a mention of browsing in a Circuit City before they went under. That company's been gone from Texas for over a decade at least, and even the store that took over the old building it was in has since gone under and a new business has moved in. I think this mention was to make the story feel relevant and real, but none of these pop culture references worked for me. I realize that contemporary novels have a harder time standing the test of time, not dating themselves, but the mentions of brands and stores was just in overabundance in this one.

The novel as a whole -- or at least what we read of it -- was just off-putting and there are just so many other books to spend time with. I think too much time was spent getting the reader and the characters to the point that they're supposed to be at in the synopsis, and I just couldn't be bothered to care how it all came to fruition any longer. Especially once Mendy perused the last few chapters and told me that we would have been pissed had we kept reading to the end, only to discover that everything went down just as we'd guessed.

GIF it to me straight:

About the authors:

Karma Bites is a first novel by Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas. Kramer is a comedy writer, whose television credits include "Lizzie McGuire" and "Less Than Perfect." She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Find Stacy:

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

                       ----------

Karma Bites is a first novel by Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas. Valerie Thomas is a screenwriter and producer, and has overseen such films as "Adaptation" and "Philadelphia." She lives in New Jersey.

Find Valerie:

Website | Twitter | Goodreads

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Labels: buddy reads, contemporary, disappointments, disney hyperion, dnf, mendy, reviews, stacy kramer, summer, valerie thomas

Top Ten Tuesday: Books We Almost Put Down But Didn't

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by the awesome ladies at The Broke and the Bookish. Apparently, they are overly fond of list-making and love to share their bookish lists with the rest of us book nerds.  =) We're game.

This week's list features the Top Ten Books I Almost Put Down But Didn't:

April's picks:

I'm pretty quick to put a book down if I'm not feeling it but sometimes you just have to push through. And a lot of times I'm glad I did, but then there are those times I'm not so glad and I have a mixture of both in this list. lol. After the End wasn't what I was expecting but I'm glad I kept reading because I did really like it. Being Sloane Jacobs was mostly an issue with one of the Narrators, but also it was a bit cheesy and predictable. The Secret Diamond Sisters was one of those I wish I had put down. I kept waiting for a plot but nothing came. Crash, well that was a buddy read, and so we made fun of it together. That's the only thing that kept me going. Holy Moly was the guy love interest a tool. Ahhhhh The Host!!! This is one of my favorite books ever, so I'm glad I hung in there. A friend told me before I picked it up that the beginning was a little slow, but to keep going because its amazing. I actually re read it last year and loved it even more the second time. Warm Bodies was weird. It just was.. the movie is so much better. All the crap that almost made me put it down was cut. Shark Bait was tough in the beginning. I eventually got into it, and really loved the story. I wish I could say the same for the following books though. They get way too long winded. Forbidden doesn't need much of an explanation. Incest... there are times I thought.. "I don't know if I can do this" But I'm so happy I did. Now I want to boink my brother. ( totally kidding ) Loving Summer, ugh... I picked it up out of curiosity. Everything about this book screamed "The Summer I Turned Pretty". Boy was I right, worst knock off ever. I only kept reading so I could list all the similarities in my review. And last of all, Blood Red Road.. what an awesome book. The dialect threw me a little early on, but after going back and re-reading the first 2 chapters I was able to get into it.

Jen's picks:

First things first. You should know that I rarely continue reading a book these days if it hasn't captured my interest early on. Ain't nobody got time for that. But when I first started blogging, I read a ton of crappy books just because I didn't know how to not finish them, ya know? The idea of DNFing a book -- and using DNF as a verb! -- was so foreign to me back then. Now, not so much. Here are the books that I struggled with but eventually finished, whether I ended up liking them or not:

The ones I loathed -- and will not be continuing the series, no matter how far I might already be into it:


The ones that were disappointing but my curiosity won't let me NOT continue the series:


The ones that got off to a bad start but that I more or less ended up enjoying:



What books did you almost put down?  :)  Share the link to you TTT post so we can visit!

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Labels: dnf, i almost didn't finish, top ten tuesday

DNF books thus far - 2014

This past week I've been away, totally off the grid. So I figured I would do a different kind of post this Sunday instead of STS. Since I have no idea what I've gotten this week review wise and I won't be one-clicking out in the middle of the ocean.

DNF'ing a book sucks. I hate to do it, but I'm a reader by mood and if I'm not feeling it, it's getting put down. Because I think we can all relate when we say our TBR list's are massive. Here are a few books I put down this year so far.

Three girls, two guys, five secret journals.

The five most popular students at Noble High have secrets to hide; secrets they wrote down in their journals. Now one of their own exposes the private entries...

I am leaking these because I'm tired and I know you are too. The success bar is too high and pretending has become the only way to reach it. Instagrams are filtered, Facebook profiles are embellished, photos are shopped, reality TV is scripted, body parts get upgraded like software, and even professional athletes are cheating. The things we believe in aren't real.

We are pretenders.

This book, I'll be honest, I did not get too far. I knew right from the start that it wasn't going to be for me.

Love is awkward, Amelia should know.

From the moment she sets eyes on Chris, she is a goner. Lost. Sunk. Head over heels infatuated with him. It's problematic, since Chris, 21, is a sophisticated university student, while Amelia, 15, is 15.

Amelia isn't stupid. She knows it's not gonna happen. So she plays it cool around Chris—at least, as cool as she can. Working checkout together at the local supermarket, they strike up a friendship: swapping life stories, bantering about everything from classic books to B movies, and cataloging the many injustices of growing up. As time goes on, Amelia's crush doesn't seem so one-sided anymore. But if Chris likes her back, what then? Can two people in such different places in life really be together?

Through a year of befuddling firsts—first love, first job, first party, and first hangover—debut author Laura Buzo shows how the things that break your heart can still crack you up.

I've heard so many wonderful things about Love and Other Perishable Items. It's originally an Aussie book I believe. Good Oil, I had requested the netgalley for our US version ages ago and finally decided to give it a try. I had trouble with it. I wasn't all that interested in what was going on. I can't really put my finger on just what it was, but I couldn't pick it back up. Maybe I'll try again someday, but for now it's been shelved.

The first in a series of four epic tales set in the depths of the ocean, where six mermaids seek to protect and save their hidden world.

Deep in the ocean, in a world not so different from our own, live the merpeople. Their communities are spread throughout the oceans, seas, and freshwaters all over the globe.

When Serafina, a mermaid of the Mediterranean Sea, awakens on the morning of her betrothal, her biggest worry should be winning the love of handsome Prince Mahdi. And yet Sera finds herself haunted by strange dreams that foretell the return of an ancient evil. Her dark premonitions are confirmed when an assassin's arrow poisons Sera's mother. Now, Serafina must embark on a quest to find the assassin's master and prevent a war between the Mer nations. Led only by her shadowy dreams, Sera searches for five other mermaid heroines who are scattered across the six seas. Together, they will form an unbreakable bond of sisterhood and uncover a conspiracy that threatens their world's very existence.

This one makes me sad, and I know some people liked it, but it wasn't what I expected it to be from the trailer. It came off as kind of kiddish in the beginning and all the made up words were making me crazy. If I didn't have so many review books right now, I would have pushed through it, but every page was annoying me.

Find out what happens when you fall for your best friend's worst enemy in this timeless and hilarious story of a forbidden first love and forever friendship.

Lucy can't wait to spend the summer at the lake with her best friend, Mikayla. But when Jackson, the boy she's been avoiding ever since he rejected her, reappears in her life, Lucy wonders if this summer to remember is one she'd rather forget.

Mikayla's never had much luck talking to boys, but when she (literally) runs into the cutest guy she's ever seen, and sparks fly, she thinks things might be looking up...until she realizes the adorable stranger is the same boy who broke her best friend's heart.

As things begin to heat up between Mikayla and the one guy she should avoid, will Lucy be able to keep her cool or will the girls' perfect summer turn into one hot mess?

Catherine Clark, the author of beach-read favorites Maine Squeeze and Love and Other Things I'm Bad At, has once again crafted a hilarious and spot-on portrayal of what it's really like to be a teenager. Readers will love this irreverent coming-of-age story…and will be breathlessly turning the pages to find out what happens next.

The character Lucy.. I didn't like her, she was so immature. The story in itself seemed so unrealistic too. I love young adult, but this girl was so childish I rolled my eyes through the whole 25 % I read.

Some sixteen-year-olds babysit for extra cash. Some work at the Gap. Becca Williamson breaks up couples.



After watching her sister get left at the altar, Becca knows the true damage that comes when people utter the dreaded L-word. For just $100 via paypal, she can trick and manipulate any couple into smithereens. With relationship zombies overrunning her school, and treating single girls like second class citizens, business is unfortunately booming. Even her best friend Val has resorted to outright lies to snag a boyfriend.

One night, she receives a mysterious offer to break up the homecoming king and queen, the one zombie couple to rule them all: Steve and Huxley. They are a JFK and Jackie O in training, masters of sweeping faux-mantic gestures, but if Becca can split them up, then school will be safe again for singletons. To succeed, she'll have to plan her most elaborate scheme to date and wiggle her way back into her former BFF Huxley’s life – not to mention start a few rumors, sabotage some cell phones, break into a car, and fend off the inappropriate feelings she’s having about Val’s new boyfriend. All while avoiding a past victim out to expose her true identity.

No one said being the Break-Up Artist was easy

This one I think was strictly just a "Not in the Mood" type of book. I just wasn't in the mood for this story. I plan on trying it again at a later time. What I did read was cute, but it just wasn't keeping my interest.



So there you have it, my current DNF List and I'm ashamed to say this list will probably grow through out the year. And I'm not saying these book aren't good. But they just weren't good enough for me.

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Labels: 2014, dnf, Not good enough

{DNF} Review: Taken by Erin Bowman

Title: Taken
Author: Erin Bowman
Series: Taken, book #1
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: April 16, 2013
Source: ARC from publisher
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends…and he’s gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

**Fair warning:  this review will contain spoilers, ranting, and likely some swear words.**

I was excited to get my hands on an ARC of this book.  It had some serious potential, and I couldn't wait to find out what that whole Heist situation was about.  But I quit reading at page 132, so I guess someone's just going to have to tell me.  Nothing major happened on that particular page, and I hadn't yet thrown the book across the room, but I'd had enough.  The throwing fit was coming, and I could've used an outlet for my frustration at that point, but instead, I decided to cut my losses.

I was so pumped to read another novel from the male perspective, but this doesn't read like that at all.  It reads like a male POV written from a grown woman's perspective.  And the dialogue!  It was cringe-inducing at best and left me feeling like I was reading about 12-year-olds instead of kids who were supposedly considered adults in their community:

     "No, that's not what I meant."..."I'm trying to say that I think doing what you feel can't always be easy, but at least you're being true to yourself."
     "It's okay, Emma, you don't have to try to make me seem like a better person.  You don't have to justify why it's all right to spend time with me."

     "I ...I wanted...Well, fine, Gray!  It's nice to see you, too."

And then there's the way sex is [mis]handled in this book.  I get it:  adulthood has to come a lot earlier when all boys are Heisted on their 18th birthdays.  But that does not mean all kids over the age of 15 should have to consent to the Slating.  For those of you not in the know, Slating is a system of matching up boys and girls for a month at a time in hopes of procreation and growing the population so that these people don't dwindle away into nothingness.  Fine.  But there are some kids who don't like this arrangement.  And others who only agree to it because it's what's expected of them.  Blaine's situation, fathering a child knowing that you're going to be Taken from them, is all the more reason to avoid the whole thing.  Gray does just this, possibly the only thing I liked about his character.  Sure, he's completed Slatings, but he assures us he's done everything to avoid becoming a father only to have to leave his child behind when the time comes.  But no one else, save for Emma, seems to have this aversion to the Slatings.

As I said, I didn't even get halfway through the book.  But I've been informed by other readers that the romance gets a little convoluted, as well.  It's not a love triangle but a freaking rectangle.  Why am I not surprised?  Apparently, sometime after Gray and Emma make it over the wall and are picked up by those other guys, Gray goes missing.  While he's gone -- my friend Em tells me he was missing for approximately a month -- Emma reunites with that one guy that she actually completed a Slating with and they have sex.  And I believe Gray meets Bree while he's missing and there's something between them, too.  Just knowing this makes me glad I stopped reading when I did.

Also, all those boys who were Heisted?  They're in a community on the other side of the wall.  Including Blaine.  And also, apparently their father.  How the hell can these guys not go back for their families?  I flipped through the pages and saw something about a resistance.  Is that what they're fighting?  Were there ever any freaking monsters on the other side of the wall?  Do I really care anymore?

I could rant forever on this.  In fact, Em was hoping I would finish so we could rant together for hours.  But I just couldn't put myself through that torture.  Needless to say, I will not be picking up further installments in this series.


Rating:  DNF - But I think Joaquin more adequately expresses my feelings on the matter...



But there are plenty who have really enjoyed this book.  Check out some positive reviews below:

The Book Hookup
Finding Bliss in Books
Step into Fiction

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Labels: book trailers, disappointments, dnf, dystopian, erin bowman, harper-collins, post-apocalyptic, sci-fi, taken