DNF Review: Denton Little's Deathdate by Lance Rubin

Quick Facts

My Rating: DNF

Series: N/A

Date Read: March 30, 2015

Source: Free review copy from Netgalley

Publication Date: April 14, 2015

Publisher: Random House Children's

Genres: Young adult, science fiction

Goodreads | Author's Website

Review

Denton lives in a world where everybody knows what day they will die. His own is only one day away. But the day before his funeral, Denton's life seems to speed up - he's suddenly involved in a love triangle, recieves a death threat, has a purple rash on his leg that might be the disease that will kill him, and meets a strange man at his funeral who claims to have known his dead mother. He has many questions that he fears will go unanswered, because tomorrow he will be gone.

While the premise seemed interesting, this one just wasn't for me. A big piece of Denton Little's Deathdate relies on the humor, and I did not find it especially funny.

The story started off well, and I thought it would be a quick, light read. I laughed a few times, and definitely saw where people were coming from when they called it funny. The story began to fall short for me around Denton's funeral, which was a little more than 10 percent through. There was a chapter told in second-person that felt awkward to me, and I did not enjoy the love triangle that was developing - to me, it seemed like both girls would be far better off without Denton. 

The more the story progressed, the less I found myself caring about how Denton would die or what would happen next. After making it about a third of the way through the book, I decided to put it down and find something different to read.

I think you really have to connect with the humor in order to enjoy this one, and probably like Denton himself a little more than I did. Based on what I read, I would probably give the book about three stars - it was well-written, and there were aspects of the story that I enjoyed. I just didn't like it as much as I had hoped to.

How to Climb the Eiffel Tower by Elizabeth Hein

 I received a free review copy of this book through Netgalley.

When I first joined Netgalley, I was excited. I didn't look into some of my requests as closely as I should have. Maybe if I did, I wouldn't be faced with the challenge I have now. Or maybe I would have misinterpreted this book anyway - I really did think I wanted to read this one.

But I'm not here to tell you it's a bad book. It's not. How to Climb the Eiffel Tower isn't my type of book, but it's extremely well-written. It flowed nicely and I enjoyed the somewhat slow pacing as it helped the reader understand the characters and situation. 

Immediately starting the book we find out the main character, Lara, has been diagnosed with cancer. She's a closed-off woman with a difficult past to work through. She is also constantly exercising and part of her workout is "climbing the Eiffel Tower" through a setting on a machine at the gym. She would never think of climbing the actual Eiffel Tower, but her diagnosis and her new friend Jane change her perspective and make her realize that sometimes difficult things can be worth it.

I'm telling you about the book because I think it would be wonderful in the hands of the right reader. I think it would be touching and heartfelt and everything it was written to be.

If you're looking for complete honesty, I did not finish this book. But I didn't want to call this a DNF review, because I don't want to give the wrong impression. I went into this expecting a light chick-lit, although I knew it involved cancer from the start. I looked at the title and was excited about the Eiffel Tower, which as far as I can tell is not actually visited in the novel.

Readers who don't have these same expectations will probably love this book. Those who read more adult contemporary will probably love this book. It's one of those that I'm not sure exactly why it wouldn't click for me; it just didn't. But I encourage you to give it a chance if it interests you. And if I haven't done a great job convincing you, check out the reviews on Goodreads. So many people loved this.

DNF Book Review - Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

I don't mark many books as DNF (did not finish). Usually I either force my way through them or forget about them all together, deleting them from Goodreads like I never began reading in the first place.

The real reason for this is that I don't feel right rating books I haven't finished. But, I recently realized, that doesn't mean I can't review them.

I'm not sure how many of these there will be, but I felt my opinion for this one should go someplace - most reviewers seem to love this one, and I've heard over and over how great it is, so I figured it would be nice to share a different opinion.

Onto the review:

I just don't see what made everyone love this one. I didn't relate to Greg in the slightest - which in itself isn't a bad thing. I enjoy reading about characters I disagree with and even dislike. Getting different viewpoints and reading from new perspectives is what reading is about. The thing is, I just didn't like his voice.

I read on hoping I could connect to one of the other characters, but I didn't enjoy Earl either from what I read of him (although I didn't get far enough to see how he was in person). And Rachel annoyed me a lot, probably more than Greg.

Many people have found this book funny, but I don't relate to the sense of humor. I'm not offended by it or anything - I just don't find it hilarious. A couple of times I smiled, but nothing more.

The script format threw me off as well, even though I've read books written that way and loved them. The writing style as a whole was repetitive and too flawed for me (although I recognize that these flaws are due to Greg's inexperience and the fact that this is supposed to be a book written by him).

Overall, this one just wasn't for me. And so many things didn't work for me that I had to write them here, because I feel like they aren't really mentioned in reviews - or at least not the ones I've seen.