Ditched Books Post

Here are the books that I started but wound up ditching half way for various reasons during the months of October/November.

TITLE: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Book 1 in the Mara Dyer series
AUTHOR: Michelle Hodkin
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Mystery, Paranormalish
PREMISE: Mara wakes up with no memories of the night before to find that her friends are dead and she doesn't remember how they died.
WHY I DITCHED IT: Ever have a book start out so promising but then quickly fall into what the hell category? That was me and Mara Dyer. I liked the idea of the mystery. But that was about all I liked. Mara herself drove me up the wall with her angsting, her characters were just so unlikable that I quickly grew to not care about them. Didn't help that the mystery part quickly got pushed aside for predictable, cheesy romance with the douchebag love interest. I will say it's a readable book. I get why people may be into it but it simply was not for me and I can't really recomend it except for maybe a library read.

TITLE: Romeo Redeemed
Book 2 in the Juliet Immortal series
AUTHOR: Stacey Jay
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Retelling, romance
PREMISE: Romeo gets a chance at true love and tells his side of the tale.
WHY I DITCHED IT: About the only thing more annoying then when a author takes a perfectly decent villain like Romeo and decides to "redeem" him is when the author uses true love to redeem the character and act like that erases every bad thing the person has done in the past. To add further insult to injury, the love story is utterly cliche and spoils the clever and thoughtful part of Juliet Immortal. Yeah, no thanks.

TITLE: Hanging by a Thread
AUTHOR: Sophie Littlefield
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Mystery
PREMISE: Girl gets murdered in a small town, teen fashionista investigates.
WHY I DITCHED IT: I have a rule with mysteries: If the murder/mystery part hasn't started by page one hundred, I'm done. I got through one hundred and ten pages and the murder STILL hadn't even happened. But the main character found plenty of time to throw together fabulous outfits and snag a love interest. I'm sorry I don't pick up mysteries to read what everyone is wearing. If I want that, I'll pick up an old Baby-Sitters Club book which has more fun fashion anyway.

TITLE: Shadows Cast by Stars
AUTHOR: Catherine Knuttson
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Dystopian? Fantasy? I don't know!
PREMISE: Honestly, not sure.
WHY I DITCHED IT: See above, I got through a hundred pages and was utterly lost. Confusing book is confusing. Not sure if it's me or the book all I know is this book was not for me.