DNF: Wolfsong, Grass Lands, How to Train Your Dragon

[thistlechaser]

Wolfsong by J Klune. This book. I've never had a reading experience like this before.

Set in what seemed like the real world, the main character is Ox, a human who is found by a werewolf boy. Ox seemed to be mentally handicapped (or very very stupid), which let the reader see all the clues that something was off. Slowly the reader can figure out that werewolves really exist.

I loved the way the werewolves worked, I loved the pack and the world building.

The first fifth of the story or so was PERFECT for me. I love werewolf stories, but I'm picky about them. This one was like the author crawled into my head and found all the things I liked best. I loved the story. Loved the writing style. Loved everything.

Unfortunately, going in to the book blind (it's been on my Kindle long enough for me to have forgotten anything about it), I hadn't realized it was a romance. I can cope with a well-written romance story, but man, this one was just so slow slow slow slow.

Plus Ox seemed to quickly change to a normal person -- no more mental slowness. The author repeatedly said he was a quiet, mentally slow person, but there was no sign of that. (There was way too much "tell, not show" going on.)

Somewhere around the 33% mark I wanted to stop reading, but I had liked the beginning so much I forced myself to keep going. At the 60% or so mark I started skimming more than reading, so I decided to give up on it. DNF 64%

I've never had a book that went from "most perfect thing ever" to "yawn" so fast before.

Grass Lands by John S Ryan. Whatever was wrong with it must have been pretty bad since I DNFed it at 2%, but it was a while ago and I don't remember why anymore.

How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell. I loved the movie, so I've been curious about the book for years. Finally I gave it a try. Unfortunately the style didn't work for me, but more than that, the ebook version had serious formatting issues that made it really hard to read. I'll just stick with the movie. DNF 10%


Partial book credits:
Point reached in DNF books: 64%, 2%, 10%
Previous abandoned book total: 637%
New total: 713% (seven books)

Comments

[jeane nevarez (from livejournal.com)]

Aw. I read the original How to Train Your Dragon years ago- my library has plenty of them. I think the book series has ten, twelve, or even more. All short, and funny, and yeah a light reading style. Very different from the films but I found them amusing, they didn't pall on me until I was nearly done w/the series.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, HTTYD wasn't bad (other than the formatting issues), I just usually like heavier, more meaty stories. I'm glad you enjoyed the series though!