Thief of Songs

DNF - PG 8

Why?

Oh my. Okay. I originally attempted this book about three years ago. I wrote a very brief DNF review (which follows) and basically only said that it wasn't what I wanted to read right now and would try again next time I looked at my DNF books. That time this year. (And last year. But mostly this year.)

I would list Hogarth as a favorite author of mine due to her Earthrise and Dreamhealers series'. I bought this book un-previewed on that basis. (And also because I am only now learning that previewing books before I buy them can save me lots of money.) I could tell within two pages of this attempt that it wasn't working for me.

[...]I turned to face my beloveds, my musicians, the actors who gave voice to the manifestations of magic that filled my head. They reflected my joy back to me: did we need to smile? We knew one another too well to need it, but I saw among them the scattered curving of mouths and, dearer still, the lifting of bow and bending of head.

...That is too wordy and purple for me. It just is. I was plugging along, going to give a real attempt to this when:

I could just see the back of his neck beneath the hair he'd gathered into a tail with a gray ribbon...such light skin, as if he'd powdered it. I wanted to kiss it, to know what the sweat there would taste like.

Put in perspective, the main character hasn't met this man yet, hasn't talked to him, hasn't learnt his name, has merely seen him across a crowded room while they sang and now wants to lick him. I know romance novels, okay. They already move too fast for me like 95% of the time. I don't need this.

I love the idea's that are here, but this book is just not for me.


Original Review

I'm not going to mark how much I've read so far, because when I do another look through of the DNF books - this time the ones on my kindle, probably sometime next year - I will give the book another shot. Right now, if I don't mark it as DNF, I'm afraid I'll force myself through it at a time when this isn't at all what I want to read.

Because, honestly, the book was complicated enough and I had an extremely steep learning curve to figure out what was going on and who these people were, and that was even before discovering that it is told in alternating first person - which complicates everything even more. So, for now, I'm going to shelve it with the intention of going again at a later date.