Hi guys, I hope you are all well. I haven’t had a lot of luck with reading over the last month or so, which has resulted in me DNFing a fair books. I think I’m in a bit of a reading slump and I’ve just not been loving alot of the books I’ve been picking up. So today I’m sharing some of my thoughts on the books that I’ve recently DNFd. Let’s get started.

Tides of Mana / Matt Larkin
Heirs of Mana series – book 1
Publisher: Incandescent Phoenix Books
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Length: 462 pages
This is the first book in a fantasy series that is set in a fictionalized Hawaii. While I loved the setting of this book, I wasn’t a fan of the two main characters. The two sisters are so full of pride and arrogance, which I found incredibly frustrating. Consequently, I couldn’t become invested in the characters or the plot. I really wanted to like this one and it started out quite promising, but in the end I just couldn’t get behind the two main characters. The plot and world building had potential, but overall I wasn’t invested enough to finish reading this one. I seem to be in the minority with this one though – there are a fair few good reviews of this book in Goodreads.

Heartstone / Elle Katharine White
Heartstone series – book 1
Publishers: Harper Voyager
Genre: Historical fantasy
Length: 352 pages
I was looking fore more historical fantasy to read and I was intrigued by the premise of this one – a Pride and Prejudice retelling but with dragons. The reason I stopped reading this one is once again down to the characters. To me, they lacked depth and so I wasn’t invested in any of them. I also found the writing to be quite clumsy at times and the plot dragged in places. This one just didn’t work for me.

Dragon in Chains / Daniel Fox
Moshui series – book 1
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 399 pages
This is a multiple perspective fantasy story that is influenced by Chinese culture and mythology. I had quite a few issues with this one. Firstly, I just wasn’t a massive fan of the writing – something about it didn’t really work for me. Secondly this book is almost gratuitous in the level of violence it contains – it holds nothing back when it comes to horror, blood, rape etc. I understand that it is supposed to show the bleakness of the world but it felt too heavy handed. Thirdly, none of the characters were likable and they weren’t interesting enough to keep me reading. What I read of this book was quite rambly and the plot was stretched pretty thin. Overall this one really didn’t work for me and I stopped reading around 15% in.
That’s it for today. Hopefully I’ll get back into a reading mood soon and find some fantastic books to lose myself in. Have you guys DNFd any books recently? Let’s chat in the comments below. I hope you are all having a wonderful day and I will see you next time.
Pippa
I think I’ve only ‘officially’ DNF’d one, which was Gideon the Ninth. I did start and then not finish a few others, but I never got round to updating my Goodreads to say I’d started reading them 😂
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I read all of Heartstone and it was pretty terrible.
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