Maybe I’ll just keep doing this tag every two years. I first did this tag in 2020 and then again in 2022, and now I’ve made a blog tag just for anti-TBRs for my own navigational ease. In general I have nothing against the books or the authors named below and I certainly won’t shame anyone for reading them, but obviously they didn’t work out for me. You can’t win ’em all.
Original tag by Nicole & Her Books.
1. A popular book EVERYONE loves that you have no interest in reading?
I have heard exclusively good things about Yellowface (R.F. Kuang), but I will not be confirming any of them for myself because that book is going to make me so angry. I can’t deal with a white character stealing her classmate’s manuscript and passing herself off as Asian. While Kuang is a skillful writer, that premise is going to make me crazy in the coconut. I also don’t want to know about the pitfalls of the publishing industry, which will no-joke demoralize the shit out of me. I will figure them out if and when I get there.
I’m also passing on Fourth Wing (Rebecca Yarros), which seems to be heavy on the dragons and sex but somewhat lacking on credible worldbuilding. The brief snippet I saw on goodreads was awful, and I will not be investigating anything Yarros writes.
2. A classic book (or author) you have no interest in reading?
I keep saying I’m going to eventually read 1984 (George Orwell), but this tag has made me face up to a hard fact. I just don’t care. I have no interest in this book, it sounds depressing as fuck, and I don’t actually care about the origins of the term “big brother.” I’m going to keep on trucking as that one person who hasn’t read 1984, and that’s just fine.
3. An author whose books you have no interest in reading?
I know absolutely nothing about Colleen Hoover’s 5000000000 books, except that I have no interest in finding out anything about them.
4. A problematic author whose books you have no interest in reading?
Gawd. I’d completely forgotten The Continent (Keira Drake) existed until it randomly popped into my head last night (i.e., the night before I started drafting this tag, which despite the publication date is April 13). This gem of a shitshow got tremendous backlash for its extraordinarily racist portrayal of “savage” Native American characters and its heavily stereotyped Japanese-inspired characters. I think Samantha Shannon’s ears just perked up. According to the goodreads reviews, Drake got defensive, but then agreed to rewrite the most problematic parts because “this story still needs to be told.” (Counterpoint: Why?) Long story short, it’s supposed to be less problematic now, and the story is basically about a privileged girl watching people kill each other from the safety of an airborne pleasure cruise until her ship goes down and she suddenly finds herself stranded on the continent and then she magically fixes centuries of tribal warfare, or something like that. idk, I obviously haven’t read it.
Here’s the thing: I’ve never tried to read The Continent in either of its forms. But I have read the reviews, many of which say that nothing got fixed and the book is as bad as it was in its original form. There are positive reviews too; however, as one reviewer thought the “savage” portrayal of the Native American characters was “brilliant” – their word, not mine – you will forgive me if I do not take those people too seriously. There is nothing brilliant or even new about literary racism. Why are we still trying to validate this shit? More broadly, what the hell is wrong with people? And why did this story so badly need to be told when it sounds like The Hunger Games from a helicopter? I don’t get it, and I will not be reading this book. I lost the energy for hate-reading long before I left my twenties.
Also on the list: Cait Corrain, an idiot who torched her own literary career when she got caught review-bombing the books of other debut authors, who were mostly BIPOC. I’ve seen a sample of the writing in this book, and I would not have been impressed even if she weren’t a racist diva. She already had a book deal. I’m struggling to understand why she felt the need to take such measures. Her mental illness defense is not convincing, because so many people use writing as an escape from illness and most of the rest of us have not gone around publicly shitting on our so-called rivals. I genuinely believe there is a reader for every book, and, no, not everyone would have turned into a Corrain fan overnight, but her book would still have found its way into the hands of people who would have loved it. There was no need to sabotage other authors just because she was feeling insecure. I don’t care if she’s apologized, she and her books are on my garbage list.
5. An author you have read a couple of books from and have decided their books are not for you?
The one benefit to forcing myself to finish Ariadne and Elektra is that they made any future Jennifer Saint-related decisions extremely easy, in that they were so disappointing that I feel no need to pick up either Atalanta or the newly released Hera. I will be sticking exclusively with Madeline Miller until such time as I find another Greek mythology specialist who trips my fangirl heart. I do have high hopes for a couple of the newer retellings I’ve picked up despite my overwhelming disappointment with everyone who is not Madeline Miller, because I don’t learn a damn thing.
I am also tentatively adding R.F. Kuang to this list, depending on how Babel goes. I still want to read Babel and I still want to give the Poppy War series a fair review, but she might not be my cup of tea despite her skill and intelligence. That does make me sad; however, I won’t be sorry to say goodbye to her characters, if the cast of the Poppy War is a representative sample.
6. A genre you have no interest in OR a genre you tried to get into and couldn’t?
I’ve never been interested in chick lit, though I still love Bridget Jones’s Diary (Helen Fielding). It’s just not my thing.
7. A book you have bought but will never read? (This can be a book you have unhauled/returned to the library unread.)
I bought the Magicians trilogy (Lev Grossman) several years ago on the recommendation of a Papyrus coworker, wanting to read the books and then watch the show. As of this writing, I have done neither of these things. My most recent unhaul was the toughest I’ve done in years (among other things, I realized I didn’t actually need two copies of The Song of Achilles), and the Magicians got axed along with three full boxes of books I probably was not going to read even if I had kept them. I was sort of on the fence, but then I reread the synopsis for the first book and realized I was no longer interested in the series.
8. A series you have no interest in reading OR a series you started and have DNF’d?
I have completely given up on A Song of Ice and Fire (George R.R. Martin). I don’t believe for a second that books six and seven will ever be written, let alone published, and I also don’t trust Martin not to spontaneously drag out the series into another ten books; I just barely made it through the first three books, I have forgotten everything, and I would not be able to read them a second time; I don’t care anymore if they end as badly as the show did; I don’t want to spend more money on these goddamn books, which in hardcover are about $30 a pop; and I really needed the shelf space. TL;DR: I don’t care about this series, I will rewatch the show if I really get a GoT itch. It was hard letting go of those beautiful hardcovers, but, well, I really, really, really don’t want to struggle through the first three books again.
I also made the far easier decision to discontinue J.M. Miro’s Talents trilogy, which started with Ordinary Monsters. I’m just not feeling it. I’m not attached to any of the characters, except maybe Alice, and the first book was too long, and the writing isn’t great, and Jacob just annoys the shit out of me. I don’t particularly care to find out how this story ends. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
9. A new release you have no interest in reading?
I’ve been seeing The Familiar (Leigh Bardugo) around, but my Leigh Bardugo embargo is still holding strong. I’m sorry, I really have nothing against her as either an author or a person but her books just don’t intrigue me. I was further discouraged by a reading vlog (made, I should note, by someone who really loves Leigh Bardugo and also loved The Familiar) in which the relationships between the female characters were described in fairly reasonable detail, and it really did not sound like my cup of tea.
