The Ones that Got Away: 2021’s DNFs, Most Anticipated Reads & More

I’ve not been great about keeping track of my abandoned books this year, nor have I been consistent about writing justifications. I’m particularly wary about casting aspersions on books that I know others have loved (such as the latest novels by Jonathan Franzen, Lauren Groff and Elizabeth Strout). I don’t like to belabour the matter, but every time I list my DNFs I do find that the posts are absurdly popular, so if this is the permission you need to drop that book you’ve been struggling with for months, take it! If for any reason a book isn’t connecting with you, move onto something else; you can always try it again another time.

For most I’ve given the usual (horribly reductive and unfair) two-word summaries, with longer reactions then given to the DNFs that were on my “most anticipated” list. In rough chronological order:

 

The Dickens Boy by Thomas Keneally: Too dull.

A Fire in My Head: Poems for the Dawn by Ben Okri: Too unsubtle.

Nobody Told Me: Poetry and Parenthood by Hollie McNish: Too long.

A Burning by Megha Majumdar: Too amateurish.

A Crooked Tree by Una Mannion: Too 1980s.

The Lamplighters by Emma Stonex: Too suspense-less.

The Art of Falling by Danielle McLaughlin: Too slow.

Escape Routes by Naomi Ishiguro: Too undistinctive.

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat: Too Creative-Writing-MA-alum.

The Last Migration by Charlotte McConaghy: Too overwrought.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia: Too dispersed.

Bewilderness by Karen Tucker: Too Marlena-wannabe.

Drowning Ruth by Christina Schwarz: Too early-2000s-Oprah’s-book-club.

Will This House Last Forever? by Xanthi Barker: Too Featherhood-lite.

The Union of Synchronised Swimmers by Cristina Sandu: Too vague.

The Cape Doctor by E. J. Levy: Too plodding.

Fathoms by Rebecca Giggs: Too dense.

Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen: Too wordy.

Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven: Too lyrical.

Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout: Too scatter-brained.

Dark Tourist: Essays by Hasanthika Sirisena: Too unfocused.

Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin: Too non-Darwin.

Something Out of Place: Women and Disgust by Eimear McBride: Too researched.

The Art of Reassembly by Peg Conway: Too homespun.

Coming Clean: A true story of love, addiction and recovery by Liz Fraser: Too soon.

Beautiful Country: A Memoir by Qian Julie Wang: Too child-POV.

Deadheading and Other Stories by Beth Gilstrap: Too drifting-to-nowhere.

Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid: Too soapy.

Philomath: Poems by Devon Walker-Figueroa: Too weird.

Taste: My Life through Food by Stanley Tucci: Too celebrity-rather-than-author.

 

Somewhere between 30 and 40 DNFs is not too bad for me, representing around 10% of the books I started this year, rather than my standard 15%.

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In January, I highlighted the 20 releases that I was most looking forward to reading in 2021. Here’s how I did:

 

Read and loved: 7 (4 will be on my Best-of lists for the year)

Read and found disappointing (i.e., rated 3.5 stars or below): 4

Still have a review copy to read: 1

Haven’t managed to find yet: 3

DNFs: 5 (oh so poor! – is my “most anticipated” designation actually a kiss of death?)

These were:

 

Libertie by Kaitlyn Greenidge – I was a big fan of Greenidge’s debut novel, We Love You, Charlie Freeman, but this Reconstruction-era story of an African American doctor and her daughter/protégée bored me stiff. After two attempts I could barely get past page 30.

 

Matrix by Lauren Groff – It’s as if Groff set herself the challenge of applying the most modern style possible (present tense, no speech marks, pared-back prose, sexual frankness) to a medieval setting. The result is readable, which is more than I can say for most of what’s set in that time period, but I waited 75 pages for something to happen. All we’d had thus far was people commenting on how unsuitable ungainly six-foot Marie is to be an abbess and lots of detail about the privations of life at that time unless you have money as a cushion.

 

Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley – I read the first 110 pages and felt a bit puzzled by Mozley’s change in direction: This is the sort of state-of-the-nation (via London) novel that male authors were writing a decade ago, in the Dickensian mode of broad characterization and coincidental connection. The omniscient, present-tense narration does too much skating over the surface and not enough digging into characters’ individuality and motivation.

 

An Ordinary Wonder by Buki Papillon – I read 25 pages or so. Adebayo/Adichie vibes but not the writing chops or the interesting story. Too bad, as I was interested in another intersex narrative to compare with Middlesex et al.

 

Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead – I tried this twice and found it bloated and slow; such a disappointment. Perhaps I’ll find the right moment in the future. In the meantime, I look forward to reading Shipstead’s first short story collection next year instead. Here’s hoping that her short-form storytelling will work out better for me!

 

Not a great showing, then, but I can’t seem to resist getting my hopes up each year. (My Most Anticipated Books of 2022 post will be coming up early in January!)

I regret running out of time in 2021 to finish The Final Revival of Opal and Nev by Dawnie Walton or read my review copy of Build Your House Around My Body by Violet Kupersmith. The other 2021 releases I’m most keen to get hold of are Radiant Fugitives by Nawaaz Ahmed, The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel, Seeing Ghosts by Kat Chow, The War for Gloria by Atticus Lish, What Doesn’t Kill You by Tessa Miller, On Freedom by Maggie Nelson, Names of the Women by Jeet Thayil and O Beautiful by Jung Yun.

 

What are some of the ‘ones that got away’ from you this year?