Welcome folks to the twenty-fifth round of Down the TBR Hole! For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, check out the previous posts via the tag or check out Lia at Lost in a Story who is the creator of this wonderful meme/project.
I’m trying to make this a regular feature of my blogging schedule because it’s good to regularly reevaluate if/why you want to read a book – that way you don’t come back to your TBR years later and have no clue why a title piqued your interest in the first place. I’ve also added a summary of results bit at the bottom of each round so I can track how many books I’ve kept and ditched from my TBR shelf in each round and overall.
Just a reminder of how this works:
- Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
- Order on ascending date added.
- Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books
- Read the synopses of the books
- Decide: keep it or should it go?
Outside of doing these posts semi-regularly I have also been culling my TBR list at random points when I’m bored – all of this is good in terms of getting my TBR to a reasonable amount of books but it also means that these posts are getting harder for me to do as I’m beginning to really agonise over whether to ditch or keep books on there. Not that any of this is a bad thing! Let’s get going on the 10 books under scrutiny today…
1. Afterworlds by Scott Westerfeld
Why is it there? The concept of this was too good to pass on: it tells of a young, aspiring author who gets a book deal for her YA novel, moves to New York, and ends up in the world of publishing and maybe falling in love along the way? Meanwhile, in alternate chapters, her YA novel is told to the reader too. And I presume there’s some kind of connection and parallel to be drawn etc. etc. and it all sounds so very meta. I haven’t read anything Scott Westerfeld before and I’m sure this would be a good way for me to get into trying his writing out as I love books about books.
Do I own it? Yes
Verdict? Keep
2. The Bookshop Book by Jen Campbell
Why is it there? I absolutely adore Jen Campbell’s Booktube so it’s no surprise that when she said she was writing a book about bookshops, I jumped at adding this to my TBR list. I still haven’t read it, mostly because I have to be really in the mood for anything non-fiction, but this definitely feels like a book I will pick up and put down when the moment strikes and I’ll love hearing about some of her favourite bookshops.
Do I own it? Yes
Verdict? Keep
3. The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg
Why is it there? A while back, this first book in a series was always either cheap or free on Kindle, so it kept popping up on my Amazon lists when I scrolled through the ebooks on offer. I briefly looked into it and, from the blurb, was told it was about paper magic. That seemed like a damn good enough reason for a book-obsessed girl to add it to her (at the time) not very large TBR. However, since then, I’ve read books with out-of-the-box magic systems and enjoyed them so, as harsh as this sounds, I feel like this book looks like a case of a great concept but perhaps (maybe possibly) with not good enough writing to pull it off. That sounds way harsh but yeah I think that’s what has put me off picking this one up for all this time… eek!
Do I own it? No
Verdict? Ditch Continue reading →
