The Books I Wish I Had Not Wasted My Time on in 2018

 For the record, the sight of discarded books pain me... but the books in this post can happily go live with someone else that will have decidedly more pleasure of them than I did!

1. The Crucible - Of all the books on the list, this one wasn't a bad book per say. Instead, it was a book I needed to read within the context of a class. I struggled to keep the characters straight and lost much of the symbolism.

2. The Dinner - I kept reading this book because it kept hinting at an interesting reveal, but all I got were despicable characters.

3. Dunbar - It is with great regret (maybe chagrin?) that I admit that I used this book in a class. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but there was nothing for the students to grab hold of and really discuss. It has since been retired from the syllabus.

4. Ethan Frome - This book should have a warning label on it. I felt cheerier reading The Bell Jar. It didn't exactly drive me to despair, but there's a little too much of ashes-in-winter-wind in this one.

5. Lincoln in the Bardo - My poor, wonderful sister suffered through this book with me because I kept reading rave reviews of it and wanted to try it. MISTAKE! There were clever moments. There was even a touching moment. But "may the gods of literati strike me dead," as one Law and Order episode says, this is trash.

6. Missing Presumed - I had high hopes for this book because it started with a strong female character... and then just fell into a slump.

7. Night Country - This book is still on my mind, so maybe it isn't a bad book... but I don't ever want to read it again. I picked it up because the author claimed to be paying homage to Ray Bradbury and I love nothing so much around Halloween as a Bradbury book. But this was just unsettling.

8. Under the Harrow - Sometimes my instincts are right. I borrowed this from the library twice before I got through. I should have stuck with my initial decision to stop. Uninteresting.