I picked out several, stepping out of my comfort zone a bit. One was You Are Here, by David Nicholls, billed as a funny love story. I read several pages and found the vibe not to my taste. Plus, it is set in the present day, which is a setting I have no interest in. What was I thinking? I'm not even going to count that as a DNF. I also picked up the book below, mostly on its title.
My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.
Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.
What comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown DNF 55%
From the title I thought it might be a cleverly written book, which is what I love in books. From the title, it appeared to be a light fantasy romance novel. Still, I thought it might be worth my time, of which I have plenty. However, as I started reading it, it became increasingly clear that not only was I not the target audience, which I knew going into it, but that it was far from clever. It became ever more simple and boring as the story went along. No stakes. The characters were pretty basic. The plot, rather silly. YA.
Still, I suppose I should review it.
The female protagonist, Hester, is a spunky hick from the sticks, who decides to attend, without an invitation, the "Commoners Ball" at the palace with an eye to getting a good meal. At the door she is told that without an invitation she can't get in. Commoners means non-royalty, not any old riff-raff subject.
Enter the two princes. Lucas, the elder and serious one who is expected to marry a princess, and Hugh, the carefree and mischievous one. Hugh, as a joke, saves Hester from being kicked out of the ball. They then run into Lucas at the ball. Lucas falls for Hester, and she for him... but of course, she's just a farm girl in the big city, and he's the crown prince whose duty is to marry the princess his father wants him to.
Later, Hugh has fun taking Hester, against her will, around town and to the palace. However, he sees that his serious older brother is attracted to Hester, and seems to be trying to get them together, for some purpose of his own. Which I'll never find out, since I couldn't get to the end of the book.
While it isn't listed as an young adult book, it certainly is. If not a middle grade book. While I know a lot of adults read young adult books, I'm not one of them. So, as you can see, while I gave it a chance, the longer I read it (it's a fast read) the more juvenile and tedious the story becomes. And I simply decided that neither the characters. story, nor the writing had anything to offer to me, so I called it a day.
Now, if you discount the fact that I'm not its target audience, the author has succeeds in what she likely set out to do - in her debut book even! - which is to write a lighthearted retelling of Cinderella that has managed to find its audience. Which is very impressive. It was released this past September, (2024) and in March 2025 it has a 4.5 star rating with 1,800 ratings and is currently the 2,928th best selling book on Amazon, This ranking means that the book is selling over 1,200 copies a month. This is an impressive debut for a self-published author. Hats off to Mrs Brown.
Oh well, I had been only reading this to keep me from finishing the Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion, too fast. Nothing but a few hours lost. I can afford them.
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