Bookish Musings - 05.06.26

This week has been a strange one to say the least, and my reading has been all over the place as I will explain below. I hope this weekend finds you well and with a cosy place and time to fit in a good read. Happy Reading 📚⭐

The Anatomy of a DNF…

I think it is perfectly acceptable to not finish or DNF a book and that’s something about that I have spoken about before (see below). However, I had an experience so strange this past week and it was around a DNF’ing a book that I was reading. As this isn’t a comment around the author of the book I won’t identify it, but you are welcome to read back and work out what it was. This is more about how I ended up in such a bad place with a book that I gave up at 81% read. A brief background, this was an MM Romance brother’s best friend with one character out, already confident in their sexuality and their experience (character A) and a slightly younger character who was finally getting their opportunity to explore their sexual preferences (character B). It was written by a new to me author.

Based the blurb this was a low angst sweet story and that’s what I went expecting to read. The main issue for me, was there was a complete disconnect between what I expected to happen and what happened, and as I continued to read the disconnect got worse. Character A was just really infuriating, he is the aforementioned best friend of character B’s brother, and would repeatedly draw character B in and then force them away after any kind of physical or emotional intimacy. The book, to me at least, presented this as being not malicious but a consequence of the character A being too kind, slightly possessive towards character B and emotionally scarred from a previous failed relationship. Fair enough, the author is entitled to write their story as they envision. However what I read not low angst, nor was it really sweet because of the repeated mistreatment. This pattern kept happening and by around 50%, I went to GoodReads to see broadly what other people thought. A number of people gave solid reviews but amongst them were a few reviews that the felt the same as I did. This idea that the book was presented as one thing but how it was read was almost the complete opposite. I still don’t fully understand why the perception seemed to vary so much between those who read it and it this point I should have called quits. However, although I did not like character A, within the friendship group there were other interesting characters and the world building was strong as this is probably the first book in a series. So I continued to push through. And the pattern continued and the disconnect got wider and then I started getting annoyed. Until I got to 81% and just I could not take it anymore. Character A rejected Character B again and this was not a neutral act. I was so annoyed that it made the decision for me. I returned the book immediately and closed my Kindle for the next two days. I couldn’t read anything as I was fuming.

I should caveat this with, I thought the book was well written and I will likely return to read other books in this series. The issue for me, I would not have read this story because I don’t like this type of story, but the description/blurb did not match what happened and I don’t know why. I don’t have a problem with being critical and honestly, if I had gone in blind I probably would have finished the story because I would have no expectations and there would have been no disconnect for me. And I have never had an experience where a book affected me so much, and that surprised me a lot. Essentially, I felt manipulated into an experience I didn’t willingly choose and I just didn’t want to read for a bit, until I was sure I could trust my own judgement again. That said, I do have a number of ARCs waiting so I couldn’t stop for too long!

I think reading is such a personal experience and when participating in it, you are letting someone else’s artistic vision into your personal space and it may or may not be compatible. I have no ill will towards the author at all. The fault is mine, I knew this book would not work for me and I should have stopped as soon I realised. So a cautionary tale perhaps, if something is not working, accept it is not working and leave. For it is better to leave early with no regrets rather than later with nothing but regrets.