The DNF Report #18 – May 2023

Continuing this as a monthly post, even if I end up with none. This month though I ended up with a few, although technically some were barely started.

We Don’t Swim Here by Vincent Tirado

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

We Don't Swim Here by Vincent Tirado
Published by Sourcebooks Fire on May 2, 2023
Genres: YA Horror, YA LGBTQ
Pages: 320
Source: the publisher
Format: ARC
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

She is the reason no one goes in the water. And she will make them pay. A chilling new novel for fans of Tiffany D. Jackson, Lamar Giles, and Ryan Douglass
From the author of BURN DOWN, RISE UP comes a chilling novel told through alternating voices that follows two cousins as they unravel their town’s sinister past, their family’s complicated history, and the terrifying spirit that holds their future captive.
Bronwyn is only supposed to be in rural Hillwoods for a year. Her grandmother is in hospice, and her father needs to get her affairs in order. And they're all meant to make some final memories together.
Except Bronwyn is miserable. Her grandmother is dying, everyone is standoffish, and she can't even go swimming. All she hears are warnings about going in the water, despite a gorgeous lake. And a pool at the abandoned rec center. And another in the high school basement.
Anais tries her hardest to protect Bronwyn from the shadows of Hillwoods. She follows her own rituals to avoid any unnecessary attention—and if she can just get Bronwyn to stop asking questions, she can protect her too. The less Bronwyn pays attention to Hillwoods, the less Hillwoods will pay attention to Bronwyn. She doesn't get that the lore is, well, truth. History. Pain. The living aren't the only ones who seek retribution when they're wronged. But when Bronwyn does more exploring than she should, they are both in for danger they couldn't expect.

My thoughts:

I was a little disappointed in this one, as I had enjoyed the other book I read by this author, Burn Down, Rise Up. But I just couldn’t really get into this one. It was kind of boring, I needed more to happen to grab me. And what was happening was kind of confusing, and didn’t make enough sense to get me on the edge or wanting to know more. I gave up at about 49 pages in.

Bone Weaver by Aden Polydoros

Bone Weaver by Aden Polydoros
Narrator: Emily Woo Zeller
Published by Harlequin Audio on September 20, 2022
Genres: YA Fantasy, YA LGBTQ
Length: 13:13
Source: the library
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

"A heart-pounding adventure. Magic and monsters lurk in every corner as a headstrong trio search for their place in Aden Polydoros's haunting world." ––Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights
From the author of The City Beautiful comes a haunting fantasy following Toma, adopted daughter of the benevolent undead, making her way across a civil war-torn continent to save her younger sister as she discovers she might possess magical powers herself.
The Kosa empire roils in tension, on the verge of being torn apart by a proletarian revolution between magic-endowed elites and the superstitious lower class, but seventeen-year-old Toma lives blissfully disconnected from the conflict in the empire with her adoptive family of benevolent undead.
When she meets Vanya, a charming commoner branded as a witch by his own neighbors, and the dethroned Tsar Mikhail himself, the unlikely trio bonds over trying to restore Mikhail’s magic and protect the empire from the revolutionary leader, Koschei, whose forces have stolen the castle. Vanya has his magic, and Mikhail has his title, but if Toma can’t dig deep and find her power in time, all of their lives will be at Koschei’s mercy.

My thoughts:

This was on the list for possible Gateway committee. I started listening, but just couldn’t keep my attention on it. I also feel it had a bit of a SteamPunk vibe with balloon type of ships. Anyway, it didn’t get rated high enough for the final 50, so I quit at 10%.

Deep In Providence by Riss M. Neilson

I received this book for free from the library, the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Deep in Providence by Riss M. Neilson
Narrator: Cindy Kay
Published by Henry Holt & Co. BYR on May 31, 2022
Genres: YA LGBTQ, YA Magical Realism
Length: 12:52
Source: the library, the publisher
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

For best friends Miliani, Inez, Natalie and Jasmine, Providence, Rhode Island has a magic of its own. From the bodegas and late-night food trucks on Broad Street to The Hill that watches over the city, every corner of Providence glows with memories of them practicing spells, mixing up potions and doing séances with the help of the magic Miliani’s Filipino grandfather taught her.
But when Jasmine is killed by a drunk driver, the world they have always known is left haunted by grief...and Jasmine's lingering spirit. Determined to bring her back, the surviving friends band together, testing the limits of their magic and everything they know about life, death, and each other.
And as their plan to resurrect Jasmine grows darker and more demanding than they imagined, their separate lives begin to splinter the bonds they depend on, revealing buried secrets that threaten the people they care about most. Miliani, Inez and Natalie will have to rely on more than just their mystical abilities to find the light.

My Thoughts:

Another Gateway book. I got a copy of it in hardback from the publisher, but decided to try to listen to it on audio from the public library. I actually again was kind of bored and gave up very quickly. To be a little fair, it was during the time my parents were in the hospital. Fortunately for me this one also did not get a high enough rating from the other members of the committee who had read it, so it is not on the final 50 to get through.

You Should Have Seen This Coming by Shani Michelle

I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

You Should Have Seen This Coming by Shani Michelle
Published by Swoon Reads on April 12, 2022
Genres: YA Contemporary Thriller
Pages: 368
Source: the publisher
Format: Hardcover
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

A teen girl who sees visions of the past must use her gift to save a kidnapped classmate in Shani Michelle's high-stakes YA thriller You Should Have Seen This Coming!
Hayden sees the past. Just touching an object will occasionally give her flashes of the previous owner's memories. And if that memory happens to be a deeply hidden secret, then she has no problem making you pay for your crime, in cash.
Cassie sees the future, and it sucks. She will randomly wake up from dreams filled with disasters that she feels compelled to stop, and she would really like to stop watching her boyfriend fall in love with someone else!
But when Cassie tries to warn Hayden that her latest blackmailing scheme is a trap, she knows she's really in trouble. All her visions warn her of the upcoming kidnapping, nothing she does stops it. And it's all Hayden's fault!
Can Hayden's gift help her find Cassie before it's too late?

My thoughts:

I was reading this in the spare minutes I would have every once in a while at work, again for the Gateway list. It was okay. But when it didn’t make the top 50 list, I put it down at about 20%.

The Ivory Key (The Ivory Key Duology #1) by Akshaya Raman

I received this book for free from the library, the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman
Series: The Ivory Key Duology #1
Narrator: Dilshad Vadsaria, Anushka Rani, Pej Vahdat, Ariyan Kassam
Published by HMH Books for Young Readers on January 4, 2022
Genres: YA Fantasy, YA LGBTQ
Length: 11:19
Source: the library, the publisher
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

Magic, a prized resource, is the only thing between peace and war. When magic runs out, four estranged royal siblings must find a new source before their country is swallowed by invading forces. The first in an Indian-inspired duology.
Vira is desperate to get out of her mother’s shadow and establish her legacy as a revered queen of Ashoka. But with the country’s only quarry running out of magic–a precious resource that has kept Ashoka safe from conflict–she can barely protect her citizens from the looming threat of war. And if her enemies discover this, they’ll stop at nothing to seize the last of the magic.
Vira’s only hope is to find a mysterious object of legend: the Ivory Key, rumored to unlock a new source of magic. But in order to infiltrate enemy territory and retrieve it, she must reunite with her siblings, torn apart by the different paths their lives have taken. Each of them has something to gain from finding the Ivory Key–and even more to lose if they fail. Ronak plans to sell it to the highest bidder in exchange for escape from his impending political marriage. Kaleb, falsely accused of assassinating the former maharani needs it to clear his name. And Riya, a runaway who cut all family ties, wants the Key to prove her loyalty to the rebels who want to strip the nobility of its power.
They must work together to survive the treacherous journey. But with each sibling harboring secrets and their own agendas, the very thing that brought them together could tear apart their family–and their world–for good.

My thoughts:

Another Gateway nominee. It wasn’t bad, but once it was dropped from the list, I had to go ahead and move on because it wasn’t grabbing me that much and I have so many other books to read!

This Place Is Still Beautiful by XiXi Tian

This Place Is Still Beautiful by XiXi Tian
Narrator: Katharine Chin, Cindy Kay
Published by HarperCollins on June 7, 2022
Genres: YA Contemporary
Length: 10:15
Source: the library
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

A sweeping debut novel about first love, complicated family dynamics, and the pernicious legacy of racism. Perfect for fans of Tahereh Mafi, Jandy Nelson, and Emily X.R. Pan, with crossover appeal for readers of Brit Bennett’s The Vanishing Half and Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You.
The Flanagan sisters are as different as they come. Seventeen-year-old Annalie is bubbly, sweet, and self-conscious, whereas nineteen-year-old Margaret is sharp and assertive. Margaret looks just like their mother, while Annalie passes for white and looks like the father who abandoned them years ago, leaving their Chinese immigrant mama to raise the girls alone in their small, predominantly white Midwestern town.
When their house is vandalized with a shocking racial slur, Margaret rushes home from her summer internship in New York City. She expects outrage. Instead, her sister and mother would rather move on. Especially once Margaret’s own investigation begins to make members of their community uncomfortable.
For Annalie, this was meant to be a summer of new possibilities, and she resents her sister’s sudden presence and insistence on drawing negative attention to their family. Meanwhile Margaret is infuriated with Annalie’s passive acceptance of what happened. For Margaret, the summer couldn’t possibly get worse, until she crosses paths with someone she swore she’d never see again: her first love, Rajiv Agarwal.
As the sisters navigate this unexpected summer, an explosive secret threatens to break apart their relationship, once and for all.
This Place Is Still Beautiful is a luminous, captivating story about identity, sisterhood, and how our hometowns are inextricably a part of who we are, even when we outgrow them.

My thoughts:

And another Gateway nominee, this one not from a publisher, just recommended by a committee member. So I got the audio from the library. Again my brain wasn’t really able to concentrate for long, so I gave it 3 trips in the car to listen and give it a chance, got to 10% and quit. It also did not make the final 50.

Direwood by Catherine Yu

I received this book for free from the library, the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Direwood by Catherine Yu
Narrator: Cindy Kay
Published by Page Street Kids, Tantor Audio on September 20, 2022
Genres: YA Horror, YA Paranormal
Length: 08:21
Source: the library, the publisher
Format: Audiobook
My Rating: DNF
Goodreads

In this velvet-clad 1990s gothic horror, Aja encounters a charming vampire who wants to lure her into the woods—just like her missing sister.
No one ever pays attention to sixteen-year-old Aja until her perfect older sister Fiona goes missing. Inthe days leading up to Fiona’s disappearance, Aja notices some extraordinary things: a strange fogrolling through their idyllic suburban town, a brief moment when the sky seems to rain blood, and ahost of parasitic caterpillars burrowing their way through the trees. Aja’s father, the neighbors, andeven her ex-friend Mary all play down this strange string of occurrences, claiming there must be somenatural explanation. It seems everyone is willing to keep living in denial until other teens start to gomissing too.
Aja is horrified when she meets Padraic, the vampire responsible for all the strange occurrences. Hishypnotic voice lures her to the window and tells her everything she’s longed to hear—she’s beautiful andspecial, and he wants nothing more than for Aja to come with him. Aja knows she shouldn’t trust him,but she’s barely able to resist his enthrallment. And following him into the woods may be the only wayto find Fiona, so she agrees on one condition: He must let her leave alive if she is not wooed after oneweek. Though Aja plans to kill him before the week is out, Padraic has his own secrets as well.
In the misty woods, Aja finds that Padraic has made his nest with another vampire in a dilapidatedchurch infested by blood-sucking butterflies. Within its walls, the vampires are waited on and entertained by other children they’ve enthralled, but there is no sign of Fiona. Before her bargain is up, Aja must find a way to turn her classmates against their captors, find her sister, and save them all—or be forced to join the very monsters she wants to destroy.

My Thoughts:

Another Gateway nominee that we got at the last moment from the publisher. And I thought I would like it, so I got the audio from the library to listen to. It had some creepy stuff imagery and things going on, but the writing was just not good, so I gave up on it about 12% through. It also didn’t get enough readers or high enough marking to make it to the final top 50.

Final Thoughts

So there were a lot of DNFs this past month. But mostly because they just weren’t ones I could get into. Some actually started in April, but I tried to give them another chance at least one listen once the craziness with my parents in the hospital kind of calmed down. For the most part I am not saying don’t read these, because like I said, I may have just quit because they didn’t grab me right away, and then since I didn’t have to read them for the library committee, I moved on to others that I did still need to read.