2020 Wrap-Ups | DNFs & Disappointments

I know I’ve been almost completely MIA for most of November and December, but these last two months of the year are always the busiest for me (the life of a retail worker) and I never get as much reading done. But I am excited to start some of 2020 wrap-up posts! And like last years, I figured lets get the negative out of the way first and talk about all my DNFs and disappointments of the year.

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I did have a few more DNFs & disappointments this year than last, but I’m honestly not surprised my reading mood was influenced by the wackiness that was the year 2020.

Click the title to read my reviews and the authors name to go to the book’s goodreads page! And you’ll notice a reoccurring theme of not connecting/liking characters being the biggest reason I DNF a book. The first set of books are DNFs and after the double break is books I finished, but was disappointed by in some way.

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Meet me at Midnight by Jessica Pennington | I gave this one much more of a chance than I normally do before DNFing this book. I got to about 52% before deciding this was way to slow and way too long.

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Sparrow by Mary Celia Jackson | This is a situation where my hopes for the book didn’t really match the execution. I was expecting a moving, emotional story and the stilted dialogue left me feeling let down.

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The Book Thief by Markus Zusak | This was probably one of the biggest surprises and disappointments for me because I know this book is universally beloved, and I just could not get into it. I do know I want to give it another chance in the future, and I liked what I did read, but nothing stood out to me.

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Redemption Prep by Samuel Miller | A tragedy where a boarding school story is such a let down, you can’t even finish it, but the writing was so repetitive and dialogue was stilted and the characters were flat.

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If We Were Us by R.L. Walther | I was so excited to see a story with a platonic soulmate in it – and I loved the relationship between Sage and Charlie, but even really liking the idea of the relationship, I didn’t quite connect with the characters the way I wanted too.

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My Summer of Love and Misfortune by Lindsay Wong | The story is over-the-top and outlandish, which I’m okay with, but Iris is so incredibly unlikeable that it was hard to be in her perspective.

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Again Again by E. Lockhart | While the writing was absolutely beautiful and had a graceful rhythm that pondered along with Adelaide’s thoughts. I don’t actually know what the hell was going on. So I think this cements E. Lockhart as a no-go author for me.

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Seasons of the Storm by Elle Cosimano | I just gradually started loosing interest while reading and would go out of my way to pick out another book. I was hoping/expecting a lush fantasy world with a well established environment as the setting, but the story felt much more sci-fi and definitely was a urban fantasy. Which I typically love, it just wasn’t what I was expecting going in.

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Making Friends with Alice Dyson by Poppy Nwosu |  I thought it was kinda all over the place and not very well structured or developed. The biggest flaw was that we don’t really get to see Alice and Teddy’s first interaction and there’s a lot of small time jumps in the beginning that pass over relationship development.

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The Code for Love and Heartbreak by Jillian Cantor | I found the main character, Emma Woodhouse, to be supremely unlikeable. Not because she is actively rude or antagonist toward anyone, she’s just inconsiderate to the point of selfishness and it made me not really want to send time with her.

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Super Fake Love Song by David Yoon | I think my biggest problem is that I did not mesh with Sunny, like at all. I honestly found him to be pretty annoying. And from the part I read, Cirrus had no personality at all.

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The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix | This book was so slow. I don’t know if the action moments in the first 30%  were supposed to be scary or suspenseful, but I just found them kinda gross and theatrical for the sake of page turning.

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Evvie Drake Starts Over by Linda Holmes | This was fine, but I was so utterly bored I couldn’t bring myself to finish this even though I finished half of this story. Its forgettable, and frankly I don’t care what happens.

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Admission by Julie Buxbaum |  I thought that Chloe was naive to the point of frustration so it made it hard for me to feel sorry for her even though nothing happening was entirely her fault. But her entitled parents and wishy-washy friends left a sea of unlikeable characters and no one for me to latch onto.

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A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik | If you’re looking for a dark fantasy story, I’d probably look elsewhere. There’s just not anything special enough about this to make it worth the read.

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Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan | This was an okay read – it had a lot of the fun, campy, over-the-top elements that were present in the Crazy Rich Asians trilogy, but for me, it lacked really any likable characters to ground the story.

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Well Played by Jen DeLuca | Well Played felt like such a regression in originality that the first story had.

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The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern |  I liked the writing – there was so many nice quotes, I liked the non-linear time and how interwoven the story was. But you could not pay me to tell you what this story is about.

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Honorable Mention

A Song Below Water by Bethany C. Morrow | This was a book I originally DNF’d earlier in the year, but then gave it a chance and ended up enjoying it. A Song Below Water is a breathtakingly relevant story that manages to fuse reality and fantasy in compelling ways to examine race and misogynoir through the lens of a young Siren living in Portland

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Have you read any of these books? What were some of your biggest disappointments or DNFs for the year? Share below!