What Not To Read...And What To Read Instead

📚 After a string of some bad books, I’m sharing what NOT to read. So you can save your time and your money. More importantly, I have recommendations for what TO read instead!

To DNF or Slog it Out With a Bad Book

If you’re a reader, or even if you don’t consider yourself a reader, there’s nothing quite like a bad book to put you in a bad mood. That’s because for me, reading is my pleasure time, my escape, my get-out-of-my-real-life cherished time.

I go in spurts where I’ll have a half dozen good to really good books, and then 3+ duds in a row which was this month. And as another friend says, when this happens it can put her into a reading slump which can be hard to climb out of and you lose your reading mojo.

As a caveat, these are my opinions only (obviously). And of course my dud may be your rose. As they say about real estate, there’s a buyer for every house and the same could be said about every book. There’s a reader for every book. So of course, take my opinions with a grain of salt and read whatever you want!

However, for me when a book is bad, rather than suffering through it, I DNF it. (Do Not Finish, or Did Not Finish).

A recent NYT article (you need to subscribe to unlock it) discusses that it’s ok to DNF a book.

I’ve gotten to this place with bad-to-me books: “If you read for information, finishing has benefit. … But if reading is a form of escapism or entertainment or distraction from work or stress, and your book becomes another unpleasant aspect to the day, it’s time to find another book.” As quoted in the article and amen.

How To Simply Read More

In case you’re simply trying to read more, here’s a good article about how well-red people find the time to read.

Or do what I do and always have an audio book going: on your walks, runs, time at the gym, washing dishes, cleaning your house with earbuds in, in the car (or train) and for those of you with commutes this is a huge one - you can really listen to a lot if you listen while commuting!

Or listen in the checkout line, coffee pickup line, you name it, there’s always time to pop in earbuds and escape from the monotony of the life tasks and chores at hand and escape a bit and listen to a book.

Here’s What Not To Read. And What I Suggest Instead!

NO to The Lake Club - 2.5/5 stars. I had such high hopes for this but I just couldn't really get into this book and many times wanted to DNF it. Possibly a me problem because I listened to it and didn't care for either of the two female narrators so that was one aspect.

The other was simply the storyline didn't grab me and I kept waiting for it to pick up but it meh didn't really do it for. me. I was originally drawn to the book because it's a new release and the book is set in Minnesota (I grew up there, left 25 years ago for San Diego) and there are tons of references to my childhood and teenage go-to spots which was fun for me. But if you're not a MN native it's one of those who cares things, but I wanted to really love the book because it's billed as a twisty thriller with rich people behaving badly, boats, parties, summer fun, country club vibes, it has all the elements I tend to enjoy but it just didn't do it for me.

Instead Read…

YES to The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo if you want to read about rich people, juicy behavior, the upper crust often behaving badly, and with actual love stories that are just SO good. 5/5 read without a doubt! I actually need to do a reread on this because it’s been a few years and I still think about this book. It’s currently FREE with KindleUnlimited.

NO to Crash Into Me 3/5 stars. This is author Robinne Lee’s second big book, after The Idea of You a few years back, which was also made into a movie that paled in comparison to the book for me, as most book-to-movies do pale, for me.

If you’re going to pick up a Robinne Lee book, I’d go with Idea Of You rather than Crash Into Me. She narrates both of them, which I always love when authors do that. Most recently Ann Patchett narrated her own Whistler which was an easy 5 star book! See below

Crash Into Me tackles themes of race, class, privilege, inequality, sexual identity, marital affairs, motherhood, and more. It flashes back and forth between the late 90s Cabo San Lucas and 2015 Los Angeles and Paris in the world of art, fashion, and photography. One day there’s a car accident that brought the two female leading ladies together again after 20 years nearly apart and the story takes off from there. On paper, this book should have been an easy home run for me but the beginning felt a bit confusing and hard for me to get into and invested in the characters. The POV from the 2015 scenes was tricky at first for me.

There was a fair amount of French in the audio version of the book and while I don’t think understanding the French was a total deal breaker, if you do know some French, it would certainly give you much more insight into conversations. It’s getting bad reviews on Amazon and Goodreads for many of the things I think about the book (and if I were to review it at midpoint, it would have been a 3/5) but it does rally in the second half.

Instead Read…

YES to The Idea of You also by Robinne Lee but this is a 5/5 for me! Maybe it’s because it’s the story of a divorced mother approaching 40 who wasn’t in a relationship (very relatable for me as I raised my daughter alone and built my business alone from my early 30s to mid 40s) but then finds herself in a relationship. With a much younger man. Who’s in a band. If you ever wanted to pretend you left your life and your problems and were carrying on with a young popstar, read this. Book is far better than the movie. Robinne Lee narrates her own book on the audio which she nailed 10/10 and it’s FREE with KindleUnlimited to read.

NO to Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams. This is a 2.5-3/5 stars for me because she narrates her own book and let’s just say she she’s no Julia Whelan. Even at 2x speed I found it hard to listen to both the narration and to the subject matter.

The subject matter at hand is Facebook and she’s a former employee who wrote this tell-all about how bad corporate culture is there, how the crazy Mark Zuckerberg is, how misogynistic other upper management is. While I do not disagree with this or if I had to guess what it would be like to have worked there a decade ago during Facebook’s rise to glory and become a household name around the world, nothing she wrote surprises me in the least. And it felt like it just went on, and on, and on, with one prolonged bad story after the next.

I’d liken it to a friend (spouse, significant other, etc.) complaining about their job over and over, and over and over, and repeat. After awhile you’re just like, yep, got it. I hear you, sorry about that, wow that sounds awful, but since it’s not your life and not your job, it can be challenging to have tons of empathy when you’ve been listening to the same ‘ole my job sucks, my boss is awful, my coworkers are crazy stories. That was this book for me; less would have been more. But you can decide because it’s FREE with KindleUnlimited.

Instead Read…

Any of the other memoirs I’ve written about! Two for example are outlined here.

YES to Educated by Tara Westover In Educated, Tara Westover chronicles her journey from an isolated, survivalist childhood where she was mentally, emotionally, and physically abused. It’s a story of triumph and not being chained by our upbringings. She educates herself in a big way, going to a globally prestigious university, while shedding the craziness of her upbringing in the process. Her storytelling is both razor-sharp and deeply emotional, capturing the tension between loyalty to family and the pursuit of self. This memoir is as intellectually compelling as it is profoundly moving.

Her actual life story reminds me so much of Kristin Hannah’s, The Great Alone, because of the crazy, erratic, mentally ill father. I read the two books in close proximity to each other - with the Great Alone being first - and I had to stop and remind myself that Educated is real, the other was fiction!

OR YES to Strangers by Belle Burton A haunting and quietly intense memoir, Strangers is a #1 NYT bestseller right now and is on all the cool kids’ TBR lists. It hooks you in immediately because it’s a tell all of a woman who’s husband of 20 years and 3 kids later just leaves her, unexpectedly, out of left field, no signs, no warning. To add insult to injury, he did it in March 2020 and we all know what was breaking out globally then. So she weathered the pandemic AND her divorce, alone.

I’ve been divorced, it’s an awful time, even in the most amicable of divorces. And what I applaud the author for doing is being brave enough to tell her story with unflinching honesty and with 3 teenage/young adult children, and doing it in front of very privileged (and very judgy) friends and peers onlooking. I couldn’t ever be the one to put all my dirty marital and divorce laundry on a page, for all the world to read about, so I really give her props for telling this story that blind-sighted her - she truly did not see it coming, that is very clear.

It also makes me question a lot about marriage, and people in general: how is it possible to not know that your husband of 20 years is going to walk in one day and just leave you? How is it possible to be be so caught off guard? How is it possible for someone to live a double life of sorts, and to not be the person at all you thought you were married to? Very thought provoking book! It’s a short read and even shorter audio when you listen at 1.9-2.0x speed like I do, just under 4 hours.

NO to So Old, So Young by Grand Ginder was a DNF for me. It was just so bad. I was a good 2/3 of the way through, maybe almost 75% of the way and it just never made a point and I couldn’t continue wasting my precious free time on it so I DNFed it. I wouldn’t have ever picked it up own my own, but it was a book club pick. I just never got into it, I don’t even know what these characters were doing, they were young and going out, then they got older, but my God we don’t need a book about that. We all do it, it’s called life. One woman in my book club said she read 90% of it and the last 10% she had to listen to in order to finish in time for our meeting and she said she thought the audio was horrendous and that if she would have started with that rather than reading it, she never would have gotten through it.

Instead Read…

YES to The Correspondent easy 5/5 stars if you want to listen to the story of a woman’s life unfolding over time. Incredible book, listen to the audiobook because it makes it even better. We follow the story of a woman’s life, as told through the correspondence and letters she has written over the course of her life, and we learn about her, her relationships, her character, and her interactions with those around her as we “eavesdrop” into her life through these letters. Phenomenal.

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