Happy Tuesday, friends! 👋🏻
One of my goals for this year is to really make the effort to clean up my bookshelves. I have so many books that I have either lost interest in and will never read, or have read and didn’t like. I only want to keep books that I do have an interest in or will likely read again so that I can keep my shelves looking nice and neat. Because right now, my poor shelves are suffering with how cluttered they are.
I tend to have two reasons as to why I remove a book from my TBR without reading it: I’m just not interested in the book anymore, or the author and their book are irredeemably problematic. I know that everyone talks about “separating the art from the artist” but if the author integrates their awful views into their book, I’m not going to give them my money or my support.
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee – I feel like I shouldn’t have to explain why I’ve removed this book from my TBR if you’re up to date on the situation surrounding Mackenzi Lee signing books by POC authors. This would be bad enough if she were signing books by other white authors because why would you sign someone else’s book, but doing it to POC authors that she’s not friends with is just unacceptable. Plus, I’m over reading M/M books that are written by women.
Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige – I originally put this book on my spring TBR but then took it off when I realised that I’m just not interested in it anymore. I’m kind of bored of “fairytale” retellings, and even more sick of retellings that are retellings of books that used to be copyrighted. The Wizard of Oz, Peter Pan, Tarzan, Alice in Wonderland, Frankenstein? Yeah, none of those are fairytales and two of those aren’t even children’s books.
Abandon by Meg Cabot – I constantly forget that this book exists and that I even have a copy. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Meg Cabot anymore, so I’m definitely going to unhaul this one.
The Shining by Stephen King – I have tried twice to read this book and both times I didn’t finish it because the beginning is unbearably slow. I’ll probably just stick to the movie for this one, despite everyone’s protests.
2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke – As much as I love sci-fi, this is the book that taught me the difference between hard and soft sci-fi. And believe me when I say that this is hard sci-fi. I’m not well-versed in the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, geoscience) so books that realistically depict machinery and space travel down the most minute detail are not for me.
Sweet Peril by Wendy Higgins – When I was 16, I really enjoyed the first book in this series and I’m pretty sure I bought the second book as soon as it came out, but somewhere down the line, I really fell out of love with YA paranormal romances, especially those of the steamier variety, like this series. I’m going to be 25 this year and reading books where teenage boys’ bodies are described in loving detail makes me feel a little gross.
The Iron Fey by Julie Kagawa – Yes, the whole series. After not finishing The Cruel Prince, I’ve realised that fairy books are really not for me. Plus, this series seems pretty long and I’m not one for neverending series.
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi – I know that this series is still extremely popular among book bloggers, but I put it on my TBR way back in 2012 just because everyone else did and then just forgot about it. Plus, a lot of the quotes I’ve read are so purple and flowery that I know I’d find myself yelling “just get to the damn point”.
Heist Society by Ally Carter – Do you ever buy a book and then get home to realise that it’s not the first in the series? That’s what I did with this series. I bought the final book in the trilogy without knowing that it was part of a series and it’s just sat on my shelves ever since. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll ever get around to reading this series so off the TBR it goes.
Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – I don’t give money to homophobes.
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How often do you clean up your TBR? What books have you removed from it lately?
I enjoyed The Shining, but you’re absolutely right that it has a slow beginning. I don’t blame you at all for sticking to the film for that one. 🙂
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I might pick it up again and really try to get through it some day but that might be a long time.
I also need to focus on cleaning up my TBR! Goodreads currently lists it at 402 books which is just not realistic to get through when I’m constantly adding new books! 😅
And oooh, I’ve also heard lots of critiques of Mackenzi Lee, which is why I’ve also held off on reading The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue despite hearing great things about the actual book. I didn’t hear about the signing drama tho! What exactly did she do?
The story is that she’s been signing books that aren’t by her, and mainly by POC authors, which has rubbed a lot of those authors a wrong way, and I really don’t blame them.
Like going into bookstores and signing others’ books? Or at book events?? But either way, that’s insane
I admit, faery books can be hard to get into at times. You either love em or not. Though I’m kinda sad to see other faves here! Lol. Abandon was a unique retelling of the Persephone myth, Shatter Me is another love it or not kind of read that I almost didn’t get into until I saw it in the bargain section at a bookstore and thought, why not try it for $3-4? Dorothy Must Die started out on a pretty strong note, but I felt like the middle books were a tad “middle” like but the series wasn’t too bad overall.
And then the rest are ones that were never on my radar! I think I almost picked up Wendy’s series but then another unfavorable review had me changing my mind and set it back on the bookstore shelf. Lol.
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Have a GREAT day!
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Ahh, I didn’t know that Abandon is a retelling! I picked it up a really long time ago without looking into what it’s about other than it being a Meg Cabot book.
Love your comment on Ender’s Game! Short and succinct!
It was all I had to say on the subject!
I haven’t taken books off my TBR lately. I did read the final book of a series once and I loved the book so much that I went and read the series from the beginning. The first book wasn’t as good as the last book, which helped me see that sometimes one’s debut book is not as good as their subsequent ones.
I feel that way about going back to debuts sometimes. I read The Near Witch last year, which is VE Schwab’s debut, and it’s nowhere near as good as her more recent stuff.
I actually quite liked Shatter Me, which I just read about a month ago for the first time, though I don’t read much YA usually. It’s worth a try, I think!
I keep going back and forth between wanting to read it and not being that interested, but I think at the moment I’m probably not that interested.
Shatter Me is THE WORST! You’re not missing anything by skipping it.
That does make me feel a little less guilty about taking it off my TBR.
First off, love the name and the graphics.
Also, Dorothy Must Die was such a disappointment. The concept is really interesting but the execution ugh!
Thank you! 🥰 I keep picking up Dorothy Must Die and looking at the back of it and putting it down again, so I think it’s about time to unhaul it.
I read the Mackenzi Lee book (actually just before all that signing stuff came out) and it was really disappointing. I won’t be reading any of her other books.
I read Shatter Me but quit that series after that book. I just found the way it was written so irritating.
I’ve read a few quotes of Shatter Me with the crossings out and it would definitely get on my nerves a whole lot.
I read The Shining for the first time last year, and while I thought it was good, I actually liked the movie better. Which I know is an unpopular opinion. 😉
Nothing wrong with having an unpopular opinion! I probably will try The Shining again some time in the future but for now I’m fine with just knowing the movie.
Such a shame about Mackenzi Lee!! I rather enjoyed her books but ugh… what is she thinking?! I have read a few of these when they came out but not sure I would like them today!!
That was definitely a bad call on her part.
I was very irritated with Dorothy Must Die – let’s just say it takes forever to actually get to the what is on the back of the dust jacket…
I can’t deal with books that take forever to get to the actual plot 😫
Except for Arthur Clarke’s book and The Shining, these are all new books to me. And that reminds me I couldn’t finish King’s IT and completely forgot to put it on my list. I think you are very brave to declutter your shelves without having read the books. I simply can’t do it.
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Every time I look at IT I completely chicken out of even trying to read it because it would take me so long to finish it.
… oh wow. I had to google what Lee did and just… WOW. My mind isa blown that she thought this was okay.
Same here. I just don’t understand why an author would sign and doodle in a book that isn’t theirs, especially if it’s a book by a POC author, and then think that there’s nothing wrong with that.
I have the same problem with Mackenzi Lee. Her Loki book is waiting on my shelf and I was so excited about it. But after reading that she signs POC authors’ books, I’ve lost interest.
I don’t blame you for losing interest in her Loki book, what she did has completely killed any interest I had in Gentleman’s Guide.
I DNF’d both Shatter Me and The Gentleman’s Guide. You aren’t missing out on anything there in my opinion.
I totally get you not wanting to support authors who are doing or supporting things you think are problematic. I read Ender’s Game as a child and I still love it — but I won’t read more of Card’s works now. It’s a weird place to be in.
I don’t clean up my TBR often. I use Goodreads and my TBR is far too long to manage well. Perhaps I’ll start a meme on my blog about removing things from that list… It’s over 1500 books right now. Yikes.
Good to know I won’t be missing out on much! There are a couple of authors who I loved when I was a child but I won’t read any of their books anymore because of being problematic.
I’ve never unknowingly bought a book that was part of a series. That must be so frustrating!
I also haven’t read The Shining by Stephen King. I’m sticking to the movie.
It really is frustrating! It doesn’t happen much now that I know to check Goodreads, but it has happened a lot to me in the past.
I’m still hopeful I’ll someday read Ally’s just because they sound like lots of fun! 🙂
Thanks so much for the visit to Finding Wonderland last week.
They do sound fun but I think I would have enjoyed them more when I was younger. I hope you get to read them 🙂
Totally agree about Gentleman’s Guide, that is gone from my list too! And I’d not buy a Card book if it was the literal last book on Earth because HARD same there. I also very much agree about hard sci-fi, I just can’t wrap my head around those!
I like to think that they call it hard sci-fi because it can be so inaccessible for those of us who can’t wrap our heads around it. I don’t want to read a bunch of statistics, I just want a cool space adventure!