Top Ten Tuesday – The Last Ten Books I Abandoned

Welcome to this week’s edition of TTT (Top Ten Tuesday)! Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly bookish prompt run by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl!

This week’s prompt of Books Abandoned could lead us to list books that we haven’t finished, can’t bring ourselves to pick up, or books that we intended to read at one point but no longer will. Heidi and I have a mix of all of those with why we’ve abandoned them.

Heidi

1) The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte – This was loaned to me by a coworker, but I just can’t get drawn in to it. I will definitely attempt again, if for no other reason than I respect him and his opinion!

2) Overcoming Overwhelm by Dr. Samantha Brody – I saw Dr. Brody speak at a conference and loved her presentation, so I pre-ordered this as soon as I could. I started it, but ironically, I got overwhelmed with life and set it down. I haven’t picked it back up in over 18 months, but now that life is slowed down I plan to try again!

3) Girl, Wash Your Face by Rachel Hollis – I started the same time as Overcoming Overwhelm, but it was not long after I lost my grandma and I couldn’t focus on self-help. I was too sad to process what was being said, so I plan to start over. I even bought the second book recently to try as well. I am a little scared because it’s a controversial read, but we shall see…

4) Gone With the Wind – It’s one of my mom’s favorite books/movies, and I started is as my “safe to read in the bathtub paperback” – but, again, life got heavy and I couldn’t handle the problematic characters of the time. Hopefully I can resume it, but it’s not a high priority.

5) Elinor Oliphant is Completely Fine – My parents bought this for me as a Christmas gift, and I am very interested, I just can’t seem to focus on it.

Weirdly enough, all 5 of these are physical copies. I haven’t NOT finished an eBook in I don’t know how long!

Becca

1) Would Like to Meet by Rachel Winters – I enjoyed what I read but got distracted by other books. Hopefully I’ll get to finish this one in the next few months.

2) The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern – Please don’t hate me. I loved The Night Circus but the beginning of this didn’t capture me. So, I set it aside for another time.

3) Home Work by Jule Andrews Edwards – I love Julie and really enjoyed her previous memoir, Home. This one had a name in it that I couldn’t read without feeling sad. So I will return to this in the future because Julie is one of my favorite people.

4) Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough by Lori Gottlieb – I read her most recent book and really enjoyed it. This one I started and just couldn’t get into it. I ended up setting it aside about 15% in.

5) The Kissing Game by Marie Harte – I wanted to like this, I really did but I couldn’t. The characters didn’t grab me and really irritated me within a few chapters. I don’t plan to try again.

It’s taken me a long time to come to the conclusion that there is no weakness or failure in abandoning a book that doesn’t suit you at that moment (or ever). If you’re not feeling a book and need permission to set it aside, consider this your permission slip. Don’t make yourself miserable by finishing that book.