{"id":223,"date":"2006-04-09T10:40:40","date_gmt":"2006-04-09T17:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/?p=223"},"modified":"2021-06-04T12:40:37","modified_gmt":"2021-06-04T16:40:37","slug":"abandoned-books-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/223","title":{"rendered":"Abandoned Books"},"content":{"rendered":"

More on books I’ve started to read, and just couldn’t get into. Typically, if I abandon a book, it’s within the first fifty or so pages.<\/p>\n

Again, feel free to tell me if I should continue on, because the book gets better. There are several books that I’ve had a hard time getting into, but really enjoyed once they got going. For example, it took me several months to get through the first several chapters of A Conspiracy of Paper<\/em>, but about a quarter of the way in, something finally clicked, and I devoured the rest of the book in a couple of hours. <\/p>\n

So, again, I’m not unwilling to be proven wrong.<\/p>\n

Cloud of Sparrows<\/a><\/em> (2002) Takashi Matsuoka<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am partiularly fond of fantasies set in Asia, or with an Asian theme. I loved Lian Hearn’s Tales of the Otori<\/em><\/a> and Sean Russell<\/a>‘s The Initiate Brother<\/em>, and everything I’ve read written by Amy Tan. So I was very interested in Cloud of Sparrows<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The book started off interestingly enough, but then suddenly shifted to a group of Western missionaries traveling to Japan to convert the heretics. Rather unlikable missionaries at that.<\/p>\n

Not at all what I was in expecting or in the mood for. <\/p>\n

Daughter of Fortune<\/em><\/a> (1999) Isabel Allende<\/strong> <\/p>\n

My thoughts on this book are that perhaps I read too many fantasies and mysteries, so I have certain expectations about how a story should start. I’m still waiting to see if something is going to happen. There’s been nothing yet to really pull me into the story. I’m to page 31, and mostly I’ve just gotten background on Eliza (the main characters) childhood. No one has been murdered or robbed or kidnapped or stabbed (not that I was necessarily expecting any of those things), however, the back cover promises a “rough-and-tumble world of panhandlers, prostitutes, immigrants and aristocrats…” Maybe those bits come later, once I get through learning about Eliza’s childhood.<\/p>\n

So really, I haven’t completely abandoned this book yet, but at the rate of reading only a page or two before falling asleep, I can see it might take me awhile.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More on books I’ve started to read, and just couldn’t get into. Typically, if I abandon a book, it’s within the first fifty or so pages. Again, feel free to tell me if I should continue on, because the book gets better. There are several books that I’ve had a hard time getting into, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[15,14,291,38],"tags":[404],"class_list":["post-223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disliked-or-abandoned","category-fiction","category-paper","category-translated","tag-isabel-allende"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/piQkW-3B","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4196,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4196","url_meta":{"origin":223,"position":0},"title":"Bad Blood","author":"Michelle","date":"November 25, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Bad Blood (2013) Dana Stabenow So, I was contentedly reading along, noting the parallels between part of this story and Romeo & Juliet, reading, reading, reading, and then I reach the last page. \"What? What the hell?\" (Looks for another chapter) \"What the hell?\" Is this the end of the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dislike\/Abandon"","block_context":{"text":"Dislike\/Abandon","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/disliked-or-abandoned"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/bad-blood.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11031,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/11031","url_meta":{"origin":223,"position":1},"title":"Six Impossible Things: DNF","author":"Michelle","date":"August 26, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Six Impossible Things (2017) Elizabeth Boyle I get a LOT of sale books for the kindle, so in self-preservation I'm learning to give up on books I'm not enjoying. This was one of those books I should have loved, since it's a mystery AND romance. \u201cGirls cannot join the Foreign\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "British"","block_context":{"text":"British","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/british"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/138","url_meta":{"origin":223,"position":2},"title":"The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives","author":"Michelle","date":"October 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives (1994) Neil Gaiman In Brief Lives Delirium decides that she wants to search for her brother Destruction, who abandoned his job 300 years earlier. She goes first to Desire and Despair, both of whom tell her to abandon her idea of finding Destruction. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Graphic Novels"","block_context":{"text":"Graphic Novels","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/graphic-novels"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/10\/Sandman-Brief-Lives.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":920,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/920","url_meta":{"origin":223,"position":3},"title":"Dead Lagoon","author":"Michelle","date":"January 19, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Dead Lagoon (1994) Michael Dibdbin Aurelio Zen is a Criminalpol police officer who has wrangled his way to Venice in search of a case so he can cover his real pretext for being in Venice--to reopen a missing persons file because the family is offering him large sums of money\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dislike\/Abandon"","block_context":{"text":"Dislike\/Abandon","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/disliked-or-abandoned"},"img":{"alt_text":"dead_lagoon","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/dead_lagoon.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4731,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/4731","url_meta":{"origin":223,"position":4},"title":"Local","author":"Michelle","date":"July 19, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Local (2008) Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly There is absolutely nothing wrong with this story, it just is not my thing. Published by Oni Press","rel":"","context":"In "Dislike\/Abandon"","block_context":{"text":"Dislike\/Abandon","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/disliked-or-abandoned"},"img":{"alt_text":"local-brian-wood","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/local-brian-wood.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2104,"url":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/2104","url_meta":{"origin":223,"position":5},"title":"Sins & Shadows","author":"Michelle","date":"November 28, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sins & Shadows (2009) Lyn Benedict If this hadn't been my carry around to read during lunch book, I probably wouldn't have finished it. But having nothing else to read, I slogged through and finished. But I didn't like it. Where to begin with what I didn't like? First and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Dislike\/Abandon"","block_context":{"text":"Dislike\/Abandon","link":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/archives\/category\/disliked-or-abandoned"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/11\/sins-and-shadows.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klishis.com\/reading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}