Oh look, two Top Five Wednesday videos in two weeks! This week’s topic is DNFs. For those of you not in with the lingo, that’s “did not finish”. I originally didn’t plan on doing this topic, but then I realized that doing it would give me the chance to talk about two of my FAVORITE (sarcasm) books ever. How could I possibly pass up the opportunity?
Anyway, take five minutes to watch and tell me what you think of the books I started for some reason, but never got around to finishing.
Which are the most notable of the books you’ve started and not finished?
Top Five Wednesday was started by Lainey at GingerReadsLainey.
The official Goodreads group is here.
Johnny Reads 
I actually originally quit Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone because of the tiny print! So that’s not too weird. I will also say that Gone Girl’s first 10 pages are considerably weak compared to the rest of the book, but I can sympathize with the lack of suspense if you already know the ending.
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Ooh. Good. Glad I’m not the only one with the print size. Maybe I’m just going blind. I’ll buy large print or something. Ha. Gone Girl got too much attention with the book and the movie to leave very much to learn. But eh, I’ll see.
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I adore Madeleine L’Engle, so I won’t get into that conversation. And my favorite Roald Dahl book is Matilda, though I don’t hate Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as much as you.
Some of my top DNFs (in no particular order):
The Book Thief–everybody raved, but it was the style of writing that drove me nuts. I’m going to try again because that’s the book I have earmarked for your reading challenge concerning a book I didn’t like the first time around.
Twilight–‘Nuff said.
Les Miserables–I’m still huffing through this one. It’s SOOOOO long!!! And although Hugo was a master of plot and language, it drags on so much in each section/chapter that I can only read snippets at a time before needing a break.
The Girl Who Could Fly–It’s a MG fantasy/superhero type book, and it received a lot of great reviews, but I just couldn’t connect with the characters and there wasn’t enough tension or plot to drive the story forward.
I can’t think of any else, but I know there are more DNFs in my long, long book history.
The book I disliked the most that I forced myself to finish was Egg & Spoon, which was written by the guy who wrote Wicked, and so many people adore him, but GAAHH!!! It should have been labeled literary fiction for all the snootiness it carried and the glacial pace and poetic language. Now, I’m all for creative language and verbal skills in books, but holy cramuckas… tone it down!! I’m definitely on your side with that–people try way too hard to sound poetic in non-poetry works and it drives me bonkers.
I haven’t read Gone Girl or Fahrenheit 451 or Blue Screen so I have nothing to offer there.
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I know your thoughts on Dahl and L’Engle. You’ve also told me about The Book Thief. I’ve never read Les Miserables, but that book is a mammoth! I don’t really know anything about it besides you could seriously injure someone with that thing. I don’t know about the others you mentioned. Except that I think Wicked is a play or musical, right?
“Holy cramuckas” Hahaha! My thoughts exactly on the poetic prose of some writers.
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