Anti-TBR

So I was surfing ‘the Youtubes’ looking for something to watch and I came across a tag from October of last year where people were talking about books that they will not read and it made me smile. I love talking about things that bother me and so I decided to do my own anti-tbr.

You can find the original video here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j_11fD44EU&t=823s

These are my own personal opinions. If you don’t like them then you are certainly entitled to your opinion.

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1. A popular book EVERYONE loves that you have no interest in reading?

Carry On or Wayward Son by Rainbow Rowell. I’ve heard so many people rave about these. But as far as I can tell it’s a Supernatural knock-off and tbh I’d rather stare at Jensen Ackles in Dark Angel.

Also, and this is YMMV, but I’m not really into m/m stories. They are just not my thing at all. Especially when written by a female author. I feel like it’s more slash-fic wish fulfilment than actual own voices and I’m not here for that either.

If I want to read a queer m/m fantasy romance I’ll check out an LGBTQ Male author.

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2. A classic book (or author) you don’t have an interest in reading?

Charles Dickens. Good Lord this man was depressing. Everything from Bleak House, Oliver Twist and Little Dorrit (I heard she dies), like, seriously dude. Give him some Prozac and a nap.

I know he was supposed to be a champion of writing about the underclasses and bringing awareness of their plight to the masses but he also slandered his wife, calling her insane, so that he could get with a girl the same age as his daughter.

If you want to know more about his wife then click the link below.

Catherine Dickens finds a 21st century ally in Lillian Nayder

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3. An author whose books you have no interest in reading?

Tomi Adeymi

When I first saw the cover of this book, I was super intrigued as I loved the dark-eyed stare the character was giving and I hadn’t read many fantasy books based around African culture so I was really willing to give it a whirl. And then… sigh.

She called out Nora Roberts for stealing her book title.

Firstly, if you search for ‘blood’, ‘bone’ and ‘children’ you are going to get thousands and thousands of titles by all kinds for authors.  You can’t own a particular title.

Secondly, if you claim to be an author or you want to be an author, surely you’d do some research on who are the big names? You glance at the New York Times Best Seller list? You check out ‘bestselling authors’ on google? Hell, you might even go into a shop and see the rows and rows of books written by a single author. Basically, what I’m saying is that if you don’t know who Nora Roberts is; then you’re probably in the wrong career.

Thirdly, and what really did it for me, she accused or got people to accuse N.R of stealing her title and getting away with it because she is white. People were jumping on the bandwagon by saying it was another white woman benefiting from a POC.

Bollocks. She made it about race in order to either jump on Nora Roberts’ popularity or, if she truly didn’t know who Nora Roberts was, then she accused someone without doing any research into them whatsoever.

I don’t have time for that kind of manipulation or stupidity and so her books get a hard pass.

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3.2 A problematic author whose books you have no interest in reading.

Cassandra Clare.

I was around the Buffy and Harry Potter fanfiction fandom when the whole thing about her plagiarising huge chunks of other writer’s work came out. Thankfully I was never into Harry/Draco or Draco/Ginny so I missed most of the actual fistfights. But I had friends who she “allegedly” stole from. (she totally did but she sics her lawyers on anyone who claims this).

I never had a problem with her using lines from different shows, since we all did that, but I didn’t like that she never credited them to where they came from. (At the time I didn’t know about the massive amount of ripping off she did from The Hidden Land by Pamela Dean- which was a RIDICULOUS amount!) if you want to see some of her blatant plagiarism then check out

 https://web.archive.org/web/20080304021437/http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/10481.html

Which has side by side comparisons of ‘her’ work verses those she was ‘inspired’ by.

What I hate, most of all, is her cyber-bullying. I’m not going to get into it all because the list was huge but her Wiki page is locked because she stamps down anyone who tires to remind her of her past. She found people’s RL addresses and tried to destroy them. AFAIK she has never apologized or even admitted her fault.

https://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/73559683.html

This is ignoring the fact that she tried to throw an incest storyline in there.

Hard pass.

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4. An author you have read a couple of books from & have decided their books are not for you?

Christine Feehan.

I was shelving and I picked up Vendetta Road and thought it needed discarding (removing from the shelf) because it was a bit tatty. I flicked through the pages and suddenly found myself reading it. Half an hour went by and I was kind of, sort of, enjoying it. I think. It was about a group of bikers who had been tortured as children in Russia who now broke up paedophile rings and saved children. I was down for that sort of action but the men (and women) all had severe trauma and it affected their sex life, as you would imagine. In this book the guy could only be satisfied with public sex, knowing other people were watching. Fair enough, to each their own.

It was pornographic but I was engrossed in the side plot so I skipped most of the sex scenes. Then a while later I saw another one, Desolation road, and read it and ick ick ick ick ick.

In this one, the guy had a Kitty cat kink and there were furry-tail butt-plugs and crawling around the floor and jewelled collars and nope. NOPE. I DNFed put it back on the shelf and think I’m mentally scarred by it.

If you like BDSM and kinks then, by all means, go forth and enjoy but, sadly, I like my sex a little more vanilla. (and my animals not in the mix at all.)

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5. A genre you have no interest in OR a genre you tried to get into & couldn’t?

Historical Fiction.

I love Regency romances and have vastly enjoyed Call the Midwife.

Sadly, that is as far as my interest in History goes. I cannot bring myself to read anything even vaguely historical unless it’s a steampunk AU. I blame this entirely on my teachers at school making history so very, very boring.

I’ve often seen interesting covers at work and I pick up the book to read the blurb and “In 1756-” boom, book goes down.

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6. A book you have bought but will never read? (this can be a book you have unhauled/returned to the library unread)

The Cursed Child.

I have it. I pre-ordered it but I am not going to read it.

As far as I’m concerned, the Epilogue in Book 7 didn’t happen either.

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7. A series you have no interest in reading OR a series you started & have dnf’d?

Laurel K Hamilton. Anita Blake

In book one Anita is a devout Christian virgin who believes in the sanctity of marriage and detests Vampires and all things supernatural. By book 4 she is sleeping with every single dead and furry dude she can lay her hands on. She has a harem of submissive, damaged shapeshifters and she’s banging them all.

No slut-shaming.

You do you, or in Anita’s case, you do everyone. But the juxtaposition between “I’m a good Christian girl” to being laid more than a carpet fitter was way too quick, unexpected and downright implausible. I dnfed the series when she was screwing one of her ‘pets’ and he was crying.

I’m OUT!

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8. A new release you have no interest in reading?

A Dark and Hollow Star By Ashley Shuttleworth.

The cover looks beautiful. A powerful fae on the cover wielding a sword. Yes please. Then the synopsis called it a Six of Crows meets Mortal instruments. (see my above rant on Cassandra Clare).

So I looked into it and found the content warning on the authors home page.

“Content Warnings include: anger, arson, blood/gore, body horror (minor), death of a child, depression, disownment, divorce, drug use/addiction, grief/grieving, human trafficking, poverty, psychopathy, stalking, suicide (past, off-page), suicidal ideation, toxic relationship/manipulation, trauma/PTSD, racism, violence/gun violence.”

https://ashleyshuttleworth.com/projects/

Suicidal ideation? Human trafficking? Death of a child?

Yeah. 2021 is going to suck enough without reading that too. I’m going to pass.

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This post was a lot of fun. I really got to let my sass out. She has to hide because I tend to work in customer service and have to hide the part of me that hates the general public.