76a.
Author: Garth Nix
Title: Abhorsen
Publication: Paperback, 2003.
Pages: 102 pages out of 512 completed
Genre: YA Fantasy
Acquisition: Intended as a teaching text for 8th grade
Date Completed: never
Rating: 1 star out of 5

It is rare that I abandon a book, but after 102 pages I am putting down Abhorsen for good. It is in no small way my own fault; I did not realize that it is a later novel in a series, and I picked it up because I had heard wonderful things about this volume in particular.

After 102 pages I still had very little idea what was going on, and absolutely no emotional or intellectual attachment to any of the characters. Making it through a handful of pages felt like a chore, and just looking a the cover leaves me feeling annoyed.

My rating of the book is based purely on my present experience, and is in no way indicative of whether or not I feel others should pursue Nix's series. Reading time is too precious to waste on unappealing books, so I will be moving on to other things.

Grahame-Smith, Seth. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 25 pages. 10.4.09.

I have been resisting the occasional urge to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies since it first hit shelves, but decided to pick it up recently because I thought it might be a fun work to include in a class on satire. However, within just a few pages I realized that Grahame-Smith's atrocity is never something I would want to introduce in the classroom - not because of the content, which is about what you can expect from the title - but because the writing is so atrocious. While I expected a quirky tongue-and-cheek rewriting of Jane Austen's novel what I found was a dull, repetitive, and obnoxious farce. The writing is so poor that it is impossible to even see the humor that the author supposedly intended; the original material is awkward and tedious, and Grahame-Smith is in desperate need of a decent thesaurus.

I had every intention of seeing the thing through to the end, whether or not I decided to include the work on my syllabus, but I just can't force myself to do it.

84. Harris, Charlaine. Dead Over Heels. 272 pages. 7.3.09.


85. Harris, Charlaine. A Fool and His Honey. 272 pages. 7.3.09.

Incomplete Reads of 50 pages or more:

1. Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Hummingbird's Daughter. 10 chapters (approx. 118 pages). 7.3.09.

I am sorry to say that after ten chapters I am putting down Luis Alberto Urrea's The Hummingbird's Daughter. The novel itself is beautifully written and promises to be incredibly powerful and meaningful for those who are able to make it to the end. I picked up the novel at the suggestion of several LibraryThing members, and I do not deny that their praise is well-deserved.

So why am I abandoning the book before I finish it? Personal difficulty - I find myself less and less able to focus on the narrative itself as I trip over foreign dialog, words I don't understand, and names I'm afraid I'm mispronouncing. While I am confident that Urrea's use of native dialog is quite appealing to many readers, I personally find it to be a stumbling block that has grown harder to ignore as I continue the book. However, because I recognize that as a flaw in myself, as opposed to a flaw on the part of the author, I still feel confident giving (what I read of) The Hummingbird's Daughter four stars.