DNF Mini-Review Dump💩: That Birds that Stay and The Year of the Witching

Just like my mini-reviews for books that I can’t find the will to write full reviews for, I’m going to lump together my DNF reviews, as well. Because, seriously, why would I devote a whole blog post to a book a couldn’t even devote full reading time to?

Today’s DNF reviews:

The Birds that Stay (Russell and Leduc, #1) by Ann Lambert
The Year of the Witching (Bethel, #1) by Alexis Henderson

Buckle up for snark, bitches.

🔪 The Birds that Stay by Ann Lambert (Russell and Leduc, #1)

★ | DNF @ 65%

Second Story Press | 2019

Filed Under: Treatment for Insomnia

This is, by far, the most boring book I’ve read in a very long time. My God. Like there my book nerd brain is blown by how fucking unreadable this is.

I really tried to stick it out because it was a Netgalley arc, but I just couldn’t. It was withering my soul. By the time I decided to stop reading, nothing interesting had happened at all. And I mean at all. I was well past the halfway point and yet I’m still reading about scenery and thoughts who is related to who? Fucking kill me.

Other reviews are calling this a “slow-burn” and a “psychological” mystery. Um, NO. What are you people smoking because I want some? I mean, sorry, I don’t like to shit on other people’s opinions because all of this is so subjective, but this is objectively terrible. It really is.

Slow-burn does not equal boring. It’s doesn’t mean you have to wait for-fucking-ever for something of interest to happen. And there is literally nothing psychological about this, at all. There are no mind games, there are no red herrings, there is no misdirection in the plot. There is nothing but over-description, over-explanation and way too much backstory of the town and the people, which didn’t seem to matter to the plot even a smidge. Like it was mind-numbing to the nth degree. It literally put me to sleep.

I really… I just don’t have the words to explain to you how unreadable the first 48% of this book is. You want dialogue? You don’t get any! Fuck dialogue! It’s like a ratio of 20:1 with the description and backstory. It was almost impossible for me to get through, but I don’t review books until I hit the halfway mark, so I stuck it out.

An old woman dies in a weird way in her garden. There’s a detective on the case who just seems to do whatever the fuck he feels like, when he feels like it. And there’s a nosy writer next door, who apparently gets a clue to the woman’s murder from her mother with dementia that sets out on an amateur detective quest. But at 65% into the book, I still hadn’t even gotten that fucking clue! At that point, you are still reading about who has lived in what house and for how long and how everyone knows each other…

I just…. No.

This is the worst book I’ve read this year.

The vibe for this one:

Synopsis: Goodreads

Book Source: The publisher via NetGalley inexchange for a review.

🔪The Year of the Witching (Bethel, #1) by Alexis Henderson

★★ | DNF @ 52%

Ace Publishing | 2020

Filed Under: It’s Not You, It’s Me

Alright, the Snarkfest is over. I’m not really mad at this one like I am The Birds that Stay. My DNFing this book really just comes down to the fact that it’s not for me. This is not my genre. I don’t like it. I can’t find interest in it. I find it slow and dramatic and I just can’t.

But, I think readers who are very into historical, fantasy fiction will definitely dig this, so don’t let my review stop you. Not that you ever would. I don’t have that kind of power, though I wish I did. But don’t give it to me. I can’t be drunk on that kind of power, who knows what kinds of unspeakable book nerd atrocities I might commit.

Prophets and dark woods, witches and family histories and a puritanical society that just gives me the rage vapours, is not my idea of a good use of my reading time. But it might be yours. Also, I fucking hate books that are ambiguous with the time period. Some things read “current” while everything else reads like we were in the 1800s. Is it an alternate universe or some M. Night Shyamalan shit? You have to tell me!

I really don’t know why I wanted to read this, but I’m guessing it’s that cover because damn, it’s pretty! …Also, it’s marketed as horror, but it is most assuredly not horror. Just because some witches are doing business in it? Please.

By the time I got past the halfway mark, I was so bored and slightly confused, that I just gave up.

The vibe for this one: