Did I Read Any Fiction in 2024?
You’d hardly know it since my only related posts last year were:
Those Pesky Stewarts: commenting on two of the only four I made it through.
And It’s Not You. It’s Me: wherein I comment on some of the books listed below.
It was not for lack of trying. Most of the books I started landed in the Did Not Finish Pile.
Here’s a list of my 2024 efforts:
Completed:
The Rose and the Thistle - Laura Frantz - I wrote about this one in the article linked above.
A Column of Fire - Ken Follett - I wrote about this one in the article linked above.
King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard - May write about this one.
Sailing to Sarantium - Guy Gavriel Kay - May write about this one.
DNF:
It was the best of times, and the worst of times. I won't rehash 2024 here, but my brain was more distracted than usual, so I did poorly with intentionally reading.
Even so, each DNF is a disappointment. I try to choose stories based on my unusual period, geographic, or subject matter interests, so I open them all with high hopes.
These are not obscure books. Most were significant hits. I suspect my general mood limited my patience for some. For others, the subject matter was too close.
Beneath a Marble Sky - John Shors: Abandoned 30 pages from the end. I enjoyed it, until one scene did me in.
The Ghost Theatre - Mat Osman: Gave up halfway through. I couldn't see the point, didn't much care, and couldn't suspend disbelief any longer. I probably quit just before it was all going to come together.
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell: Abandoned at about 80%. Brilliant writing. Terrible timing for me. (Death of a loved one). Exhausting.
The Fox Wife - Yangsze Choo: I love this writer's first two novels (see these posts here and here) and want to love this one. It may be an issue of subject matter timing, (death of an animal), so I've set it aside to try again later.
This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone: Couldn't get my brain to lock on. Probably just a genre issue.
The Last Rose of Shanghai - Weina Dai Randel: Gave up about halfway through. Characters making obviously disastrous choices and I wasn't in the mood to live through them.
Flame Tree Road–Shona Patel: Was taking too long to get started. I’m increasingly impatient.
In the Region of Summer Stars - Stephen Lawhead: It’s been many years since I read most of Lawhead’s early novels and yet this one felt like I was about to reread an old one. Abandoned within ten pages.
There's a lesson here that even the most popular books are not for everyone. A book may get an opposite response from the same person, depending on when they encounter it.
And this confirms: I'll never again be that reader who finishes every book she starts. In today's deluge of reading material and my ever-shortening lifespan, I'm making a personal value decision to be as ruthless as I like in choosing whether to complete a book.
That's zero reflection on that book, only on my response to it.
I hope to be more intentional in my fiction reading for 2025. If that results in a longer DNF list, so be it. I'll find my gems along the way.
Next up for 2025:
Underway:
Take Me There: A Speculative Anthology of Travel (published by Winston Malone of Storyletter Xpress Publishing LLC). This is a collection of short stories written by Substack writers). It is way out of my normal genre reading, but I am enjoying the experience.
The Armor of Light - Ken Follett - About to start reading.
Creeping up the TBR Stack:
More reading of Substack fiction
Cloud Cuckoo Land - Anthony Doerr (I think I started and immediately abandoned All the Light We Cannot Sea. Great example of me ditching a Pulitzer Prize winner. Sigh. More importantly, I recognize that subject matter is critical to my staying with a story. Cloud Cuckoo Land looks more suited to my interests.)
A bunch of novels downloaded to my Kindle which I forget I have because I prefer dead trees.
30 pages from the end? You’re a stronger woman than me! And Stephen Lawhead is still writing? I wonder if his Arthurian series survived my trans-Pacific move. (So many books didn’t.)
Honestly, This is How You Lose the Time War is a strange beast - I did finish it, and I could follow the story without any problems (unlike others) but the thing that grated on my nerves was the prose. I was thinking way too often that maybe less focusing on the words and more on the story would have made a better book.