7 Books I Didn’t Finish Recently and Why (Rapid Fire Reviews)
Reading slumps are just the worst. I think all readers can agree on that. And I just lived through one of the worst, most annoying reading slumps of my life. I spent an inordinate amount of time (and money, don’t tell anyone!) on finding the book to get me out of it, and failed spectacularly at every turn.
These are some of the unfortunate victims of she-who-shall-not-be-named. Some of them are good books that just came to me at the wrong time, but some of them wouldn’t be saved even if I was in the best of moods.
Read at your own peril — this gets pretty ranty! I just needed to get all of that frustration off my chest, and what better way to do it than screaming at innocent strangers?
Done and Dusted by Lyla Sage
This is the year I learned that cowboy romances are not for me. There’s just nothing about cowboys that screams romance to me — in fact, quite the opposite.
I’ve always seen cowboys as conservative people that hold patriarchal views and therefore hold no charm for me. Pair that with the accent and the fact they usually live somewhere hot, and I just cannot find them appealing.
But I gave this genre a go anyway, because the internet seems to love it so much.
Done and Dusted seemed like a good place to start. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into it. The first issue was the first person point of view. And it’s not that I hate all books written that way (in fact, my favorite romance ever, You Deserve Each Other by Sarah Hogle is in first POV). It’s just this particular brand of it.
But I powered through worse, so I continued. However, the moment I read a chapter from the male love interest’s point of view, I knew it was over. He gets insanely possessive and protective of the heroine, to the point of discomfort. He hasn’t even seen her in ages, but suddenly he wants her so bad he can’t stand seeing her with another man.
Add to that the nicknames that make me shrivel up inside, and you’ve got one solid DNF.
I will say that if you like cowboy romances, you might like this book. Give it a go and see how you feel!
The Ex Vows by Jessica Joyce
When I first started The Ex Vows, I actually thought it would get me out of my reading slump. It’s a second chance romance, and well-written to boot, so I was immediately charmed. (Yes, it’s in the first POV, but luckily the type I like.)
That is, until I realized this book is basically Happy Place by Emily Henry, just blander.
Hear me out — two exes have to pretend to like each other for the duration of one vacation for the sake of their friends, but they actually still have feelings for each other.
Only it makes more sense in Happy Place where the two main characters broke up only a few short months ago, no one knows, and everything is still fresh. In The Ex Vows, the couple broke up five years ago, have behaved nicely to each other many times before, and now suddenly they can’t seem to keep their hands off each other.
The friend group is practically the same as well — the blissfully engaged straight couple and a lesbian couple. They were still done better in Happy Place simply because they had more of a storyline of their own — here they’re just backdrops and serve to instigate drama.
The reason for the breakup is almost the same as well. But — yes, you guessed it — it feels more genuine in Happy Place. And getting together does as well. The couple in The Ex Vows starts having sex and behaving exactly the same as they have before, which shows they’ve learned nothing.
Overall, it’s not a horrible book — there’s just a better version of it out there. But if you’re craving more well-written second-chance romances, I would recommend you give this one a go.
Cash by Jessica Peterson
And because I learned nothing, I thought trying another cowboy romance would be a good idea. I’ll be honest — the cover made me do it. I hoped that Done and Dusted was a fluke after all, that the genre might be a new revelation for me.
Reader, it was not.
Cash was so much worse than Done and Dusted. It’s set in an actual dusty little town where the main love interest is an actual ranch foreman, and actually talks like someone pulled him out of an old cowboy movie. And again, the nicknames. Geez.
But it’s not just that — it’s the fact that both of the main characters are insufferable.
So, Mollie, the heroine, inherits a ranch and a bunch of money from her estranged father, with the stipulation that she must run the ranch for a year. She moved away with her mother when she was only a child, and never had a relationship with him. Plus, her mother never said a good thing about the ranch, or the father, or anything cowboy-related. And the father never made much of an effort, other than sending money. So, you can imagine Mollie is pretty against it all.
Cash is the foreman on said ranch, and Mollie’s father practically raised him and his brothers after his parents died.
Both of them read extremely entitled. Cash expects that Mollie just gives the ranch to him and his brothers, and it’s so insufferable, so illogical of him to expect this, that I couldn’t find him appealing. Mollie is no better. She can’t form an opinion that isn’t her mother’s, and most of the time seems to only care about the money.
All the while, they’re attracted to each other a wild amount for two people with nothing in common and with a grudge between them. I don’t know about you, but I could not find someone attractive enough to want to sleep with them if I disliked them so much.
By the way, this is not a slow burn. I thought the whole thing would happen over a year but instead only happens over two months.
Still, I will say that it’s better written than Done and Dusted, and that the setting seems more authentic, so you might end up liking it!
Binding 13 by Chloe Walsh
And then! And then! Two horrible decisions brought me to this book and consequent DNF.
One, I decided that if ever there was a time to read a TikTok sensation, it would be now. I had nothing to lose (or so I thought) and everything to gain because those books are usually, if nothing, bingeable.
Simultaneously, I’ve sworn off Goodreads. Mostly because if I enter it to read a synopsis, I stick around for reviews, and those usually color my opinion of the book. And I wanted the raw, immediate experience.
And so I went into Binding 13 knowing nothing about it. In my mind, it was a sports romance of some sort and that was enough.
…
Who was going to tell me this book is about teenagers?! And is a part of a duology?! And has about a million pages?! Excuse the yelling — it’s mostly at myself. No one was going to tell me because I wasn’t ready to listen and that’s on me.
But I swear, if I never have to read a 17 year old boy talk about his private parts and how hot he finds the 15 year old girl (who looks like a tween at best), it will be too soon. I held so much hope that the first few chapters are just a prologue of sorts and we’ll move on to them grown up, but alas.
And you know what — if someone had given this book to me when I was 15, 16 or 17, I would have loved it. It would have been my Bible. That is, if I wasn’t an extremely pretentious teenager who only read books and poetry released at least 25 years ago.
Now, I’m not saying that you should give this to your teenager. It’s full of violence, extreme bullying, domestic abuse, and the type of stuff I wouldn’t let my daughters read until their frontal lobes were fully formed. This is the type of stuff teens find on their own and read in secret.
It doesn’t help that it’s written with no nuance, no subtlety. Everything is told to you plainly, the romance is instantaneous (even though there’s no spice in this book, thank the book gods), and the characters are, as expected, very juvenile. And yes, they talk about sex a lot. And yes, the main character is described many times as tiny, not fully developed, child-like. And yes, her looks are sexualized.
So, would I recommend Binding 13? No, I would not. Unless you’re really curious or influenced by the hype, there are far better books (for grown ups) with similar themes out there.
Holiday Romance and Snowed In by Catherine Walsh
To bleach my eyes the only (safe) way I knew how, I decided to read a romance that’s definitely adult, and definitely light on sex talk. What better than a Christmas romance, then? Especially one by Catherine Walsh, who seems to veer more towards rom-coms of the old (more charm, less spice).
And I honestly can’t say anything bad about either of these books. Yes, I tried both Holiday Romance and Snowed In. Both are charming, with great writing, fun characters and dynamics. Plus, the Christmas vibes are there without being oppressive.
Unfortunately, neither of them managed to keep my attention. I blame the reading slump which I only made worse by choosing horrible books to read. I’ll definitely come back to these, it was just a case of right book, wrong time. Definitely check them out, especially if you’re craving cozy Christmas rom-coms!
Written by a Woman by Andrea Andersen
This one came to my attention thanks to the author’s thread (on, you know, Threads, the slightly less hellish Twitter — pardon me, X). It was written quite creatively, in the style of a Reddit confessional or a news report, I can’t remember exactly, but it worked.
I was already exhausted from having nothing to read — you know that almost itchy feeling when nothing you read works exactly, but you need to read — and was ready to pull out the big guns (aka, my favorite fanfics). Then this came along and I thought yes, perfect, just what I need.
I’ll give props where props are due, it’s a very fun concept. A woman writes a smutty romance book where the love interest is very obviously inspired by her boss, and now it’s getting published. Oh no, she has to quit her job! But oh, no, now he’s acting all friendly and flirty and she simply can’t resist!
The execution was a bit more lackluster. The boss, for one, barely speaks to her for years until he finds out about the book. And yes, he finds out, from his sisters. The whole internet finds out. And the heroine isn’t attracted to the boss specifically, other than being extremely attracted to his looks. At the same time, the hero dreams about having children with her (while she oogles his rear area and tunes out the moment he starts talking about his work).
It was clearly not my favorite thing in the world, and I obviously didn’t finish it (as the title promises). But I think if the concept sounds fun to you, you should give it a go. It could be a fun, entertaining experience for someone not in a reading slump!
