Top 5 Wednesday – Books I’ve Removed From My TBR | Mini Update

I’m back from my unannounced mini-hiatus! I’ve been mentally-exhausted for the past week and a half due to health issues and a fiasco involving a missing passport, so I just stepped away and did everything but read and blog, including tennis-watching, nature-trailing, art-drawing…er, dark-short-story-writing. All of which helped quite a bit! So take breaks when you need to, folks.

The site is also going through a mid-life crisis right now, so I apologize for any erratic changes that may or may not hurt your eyes.

“Top 5 Wednesday” is a weekly meme currently hosted on Goodreads by Sam of Thoughts on Tomes, where you list your top 5 for the week’s chosen topic. This week’s theme is: Books You’ve Removed From Your TBR

I don’t remove books–especially SFF books–from my TBR often; I hoard them like a greedy little dragon-in-training. But when I do, it’s usually for one (or more) of three reasons:

1) I read reviews that pointed out how some of the themes in the book were handled very, very problematically.

2) The author turned out to be a Milkshake Duck–someone whose work is attractive but has the moral compass of an evil honey badger. I’m currently writing a post on the idea of separating a writer’s work from the writer and I’ll discuss it in further detail then.

3) The book is a part of a series that I’ve fallen out of love with.

Let’s get cracking.

1. Lady of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Imagine being fifteen and discovering a female-centric retelling of the King Arthur legend–one that reimagines Morgan le Fay as a complex, sympathetic character. Imagine falling headlong in love.

Then imagine finding out five years later that your teenage idol had had sexually abused her daughter for nearly a decade. I’m not the only one who threw away their copy of The Mists of Avalon at the news, and my journey through the Avalon series came to a stop right before Lady of Avalon. I just can’t, in all good conscience, read a series of novels that champions feminine strength while knowing the author’s actions were a complete antithesis of those themes.

 

2. Inheritance (Inheritance Cycle 4) by Christopher Paolini

I was obsessed with Paolini’s Inheritance series back in middle school. I named MMO characters after his characters. I had debates over it with a classmate throughout the entirety of lunch. Then years later, Brisingr dropped and I thought it was…okay. Several more years later, I picked up Eragon again to prepare myself for Inheritance, and I found myself unable to finish it. I think it was a combination of me being exposed to er, better-written fantasy books and a shifting of tastes, but whatever the reason, I was suddenly seeing flaws everywhere in the story. So Inheritance currently resides alongside Breaking Dawn and the Mortal Instruments books in the graveyard of series I never got to finish. Sorry, Chris.

 

3. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

The Hazel Wood was a case of me expecting something completely from what the book actually turned out to be. The blurb sold it as a portal fantasy of sorts, but then I found out that most of the story was set in the contemporary world. Which is fine–just not what I had in mind. I’ve also heard complaints about the terrible treatment of a PoC character, so this one’s a pass for me.

 

4. Ship It by Britta Lundin

This is a case of Number 1, where I’d been eagerly waiting to get my hands on a story that explores fandoms and all they entail–fanfics, comic cons, shipping–and queerness to boot. But apparently Ship It explores all the wrong, toxic avenues of fandom culture, including shipping of real-life people and ambushing creators to try to get what you want. I don’t need to see that in fiction; I have Tumblr for that.

 

5. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

When I’d first heard of Thirteen Reasons Why, it was getting showered with critical acclaims, and I got rather curious. But my personal experiences since then combined with all that I’ve heard of the book and TV show from people have considerably soured my interest.

The idea of a story about someone who lists out all the reasons that led to them committing suicide feels exploitative. Cold. Gilded in angst and profundity to attract awards while doing nothing to address suicide and depression in a respectful or meaningful way. I’m pretty sure I’ll find the book triggering and angering, neither of which I’m keen on experiencing anytime soon.

And on that cheery note, let’s here from you!