Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog after a two week hiatus. I wish I could say I was well rested for the break or that I had read a lot while I was gone, but neither is true and we’ll get into the latter point with another edition of Reasons I DNF This Book.
As always:
This week’s DNF: Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo; DNF at 13%
Okay so I actually feel really bad for DNFing this one, because the writing is good and the plot has appeal, however there is a major mood killer for me that is in no way the book’s fault and, actually, the blame is entirely on me for not… well, checking what genre it is.
The first two editions of the DNF series had themes, and this one is no different. This week it’s all about a matter of taste. And I know I’ve said I really don’t know what my taste is exactly, but it turns out there is at least one thing I know for sure about it and that is: I’m not a fan of YA.
No shade to anyone who prefers to read or write YA, but I anytime I attempt a YA book that is otherwise very much in my lane (like this one is), I get overwhelmed by the feeling that this is not meant for me.
I am an impulse buyer when it comes to books, mostly because I am a picky reader and I don’t want to give myself any more reasons to not read a book. So when something is recced to me I just snatch it up without thinking about it. Which is what I did in Six of Crows’ case. I legitimately did not know it was YA until I read the first chapter, thought to myself ‘this is really juvenile,’ pushed through two more chapters, then finally checked the damn metadata.
All at once, many of the criticisms I had evaporated. How could I be mad that the tone of the novel is distinctly teenaged when the book itself was written for a teenage audience? This presented a dilemma for me, because, tone and average age of the main cast aside, the plot was something I was interested in. However, while I’m aware that a large portion of YA readers are firmly adult white women like myself, I just could not get past the fact that I wasn’t able to immerse myself with the young adult characters. Though the story is, in all likelihood, something I would enjoy with an adult cast, reading it through the eyes of children felt… icky. The darker elements felt brushed over and those that weren’t felt… wrong.
Again, this entirely a personal perspective. I simply do not enjoy YA. The last YA book I read cover to cover was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows when I was 19, and even then I felt like I had already aged out of the genre. Which sucks because I know I’m missing out on a lot of great fantasy out there, but… it is what it is. I can’t
So while I could not finish Six of Crows, to my regret, I encourage those who are fans of YA, particularly YA fantasy, to give it a look, if you already haven’t.
Yall I just checked my Kindle library and I have like 3 other YAs in there that probably aren’t gonna get read now. Oops.
Anyway, that’s it from me this week. I’ll be back on Thursday for your regularly scheduled blog post, then again on Sunday when I will finally, hopefully get this Short But Sweet prompt filled. Thanks so much for reading, see you next time, and until then may your writing be plenty and your struggles be few.
Kerry Share
or
Just Another Struggling Writer 
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