Review: Ghost Time by Courtney Eldridge

Title: Ghost Time (Saccades Trilogy #1)
Author: Courtney Eldridge
Release Date: June 11th, 2013
Publisher: Skyscape
Page Count: 418
Source: Literary Lush ARC Tour
Rating: DNF

Thea Denny hates the tenth grade, and her home life isn't easy. But she's passionate about making art — and about her math-genius boyfriend, Cam, a recent transfer to her upstate New York high school from California. One day Cam mysteriously vanishes — and then things really get weird. The stars on the school flag go missing, eerily cut out. Intimate videos of Cam and Thea start going viral online — videos they never took. The FBI gets involved. And Thea can hear the voice of Melody, a beautiful, disabled girl her age, whose illness has left her mute since birth. Cam once claimed to be the world's foremost hacker... Is he trying to reach her, send her a sign — or is Thea losing her mind?

[Summary Source: Goodreads]

THE REVIEW

Thea's boyfriend, Cam, goes missing. Then all this weird stuff starts to happen and Thea beings to realize that all those times Cam joked about being a world-class hacker? Well, he wasn't really joking, she just wasn't taking him seriously enough. Oh, and as all of this is happening, the reader is following the narration back and forth through time with the day Cam went missing as the stationary starting point.

Let's break this down:

Why did I DNF this book? Well, there are a bunch of reasons.

• I didn't really understand where this book was going based on the summary. Cam goes missing and then what? I'm sure if I kept reading I would have figured it out - this is a series, after all - but I'm not sure I totally care. I guess I sort of felt bad for Thea, but I got the feeling Cam wasn't coming back and so I wasn't sure if I could do anything for Thea aside form feel bad for her. That's not a story I want to read. 
• I had a hard time connecting to Thea beyond feeling bad for her because of the way the story's written. So what's wrong with the way the story's written? Well, there's no conventional dialogue. Which is to say, there are no quotations in the whole book, just Thea telling you what everyone's saying. Considering I read 80 or so pages before I gave up (I can't be sure because this book also didn't have page numbers) I think this tactic might work for a short story, but once the plot begins to thicken, this gets a little difficult to follow. Especially when you have a plot that's based on computer hacking and the nuances of the way time works. All of that is very complex and the lack of conventional dialogue does nothing to break it down for the Humanities Major I happen to be.
• THERE ARE NO PAGE NUMBERS. Maybe this is an ARC thing, but it was so annoying I cannot even tell you. I'm too neurotic to not know how many pages I've read and how many pages are left to be read.

I dunno. For a while I was intrigued by this no dialogue thing and open ended plot. I even put aside my OCD and focused on the time stamps (the moment Cam goes missing is the jumping off point. All of the chapters after that are either "1 day before" or "3 days later"). But after a while I just couldn't figure out what the heck was going on or grasp where this book might be going. So I - sadly - stopped reading. Thea, I hope you find Cam. But I just don't want to read about it, even if you do.

The long and short of it?

Plot: WHERE WAS THIS ONE GOING?
World Building: I'm not totally sure if all this weird computer stuff in this book can actually happen...
Character Development: I don't think I read long enough to see any character development...
Prose: Apparently I cannot read a whole book with no formal dialogue. A short story, maybe, but definitely not a whole book.
Would I Recommend This Book?: If you want to try something totally different in structure, this book is for you. I was into it at first, but after a while it became too much for me. YOU, however, might like it, so know yourself and read if you so desire.

Have you read this one? Could YOU read past what bothered me? Let me know in the comments below!

DNF Review: Grim by Anna Waggener

Title: Grim
Author: Anna Waggener 
Release Date: June 1st, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Page Count: 320
Source: ARCycling

Rating: DNF

When Erika wakes up after a horrific car crash, she finds herself somewhere between earth and heaven, between life and death. She doesn’t want to accept help from Jeremiah, who she’s not sure she can trust, even as she finds herself drawn to him, following him into a grim city of souls. She’s not sure who wants to help her and who wants to hurt her. And she’s desperate to get back to her children.

Shawn’s never thought about having to shoulder the responsibility of caring for his young sister Megan and his reckless older sister. And he never imagined that the three of them would find themselves in a haunted wood, sometimes chased, sometimes assisted, never sure where they’re headed.

With Grim, the terrifically talented Anna Waggener delves into the place where myth becomes reality, where family can distort you as easily as it cares for you, where death and eternity meet.

[Summary Source: Goodreads]

So the summary of this book is totally up my alley. It's maybe not totally YA? But it was offered up on ARCycling and I was CURIOUS. Therefore, I grabbed it. 

I'm really sorry to say this one just wasn't for me. I liked the story with the kids, the bit in the real world. I thought the way they dealt with the grief of losing their mother was fairly brilliant. I just got really stuck on everything with the mom. She was where? Doing what? With who? I don't understand at all and I just couldn't get past that kind of confusion. 

Which is when I put this book down. I was maybe 40-50 pages in when I realized this back and forth just didn't work for me. The book distracted me and put me to sleep and I really had ZERO desire to keep going. So I finally decided to DNF this book. 

Am I still a little curious as to what the what is going on in this book? Yeah. Will I ever pick it up again? I really don't know. I really did enjoy the kids' story and would like to know what happens to them, but I'm really not sure if that'll be enough to make me give it another go.

Have you picked this one up? Yes? No? If yes, tell me what happened? Or maybe if it's worth it for me to give this one another try? PLEASE. TALK TO ME AND ALAY MY FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).

The Art of DNFing

Fact: I don't like coffee. I just like saying Coffee Clutch in my best and deepest New York accent. Considering I'm a New Yorker, I'm pretty freaking good at it. So I've got my tea and I hope you have your heated beverage of choice, because it's time to gab the day away.

I don't know if you guys know this about me, but I'm a pretty stubborn gal. Like, once I get an idea in my head, it's in there and THAT'S IT (in case you're wondering what that looks like, THIS BLOG is a perfect example).

This whole thing backfires on me sometimes, though. EXAMPLE: I'll become friends with someone and another friend will tell me it's a bad idea but I'll be like "Whatever, whatever I do what I want." Then three months later I'll be griping over how much I hate the person I was so adamant about becoming friends with in the first place. This is because I have to come to the conclusion that said person is wrong for me ON MY OWN. My friends find this whole process highly entertaining.

No, we'll be friends forever. I've gotten really good at tolerating people laughing at me.

Anyway, anecdotes aside, my stubbornness is a MAJOR problem when it comes to reading and DNFing. DNF stands for Did Not Finish. It means I've tried my best to get into this book and love it, but I just can't so I'm going to put it aside and not finish it. Why do I have a major problem with this particular book nerd term? Because I, for some reason, honestly believe that if a book SOUNDED good enough for me to pick up, it should be good enough for me to FINISH.

I just love that he's blue. Oh Arrested Development.

I know some people have POLICIES. They'll read 50-150 pages of a book and if they don't like it after that, they'll stop. But my neurotic, obsessive compulsive nature makes this very hard for me. I mean, I haven't been diagnosed with OCD or anything - but that's because I can still mostly function like a human being and only OCCASIONALLY have to stop and reorganize books at bookstores or in the library (JUST KIDDING, that's always).

But aside from the OCD, what if whatever happens after page 76.8 is THE best part of the book? What if I miss out on an amazing read because I couldn't force myself to get beyond page 94.6? You guys. I  HAVE FEAR OF MISSING OUT AND I CAN'T EVEN DENY IT.

Anyway, OCD or other, I just CANNOT DNF. Until, that is, last month, when I won this one book from ARCycling (AKA My favorite thing ever) and I started it and I just COULDN'T make myself read more than 50 pages. Like, I would fall asleep, even when it wasn't bedtime. This is when I thought to myself: "IS THIS WHAT DNF LOOKS LIKE?!" Then I proceeded to sing and dance because I'm not TOTALLY DNF-Defective.

 And while I still have the book in question (Grim by Anna Waggener), I don't think I'll ever pick it up again. It's one of those summary-misleading, confusing shenanigans that make me sad because a book that sounded like the bomb dot com is actually a book whose plot I totally can't wrap my head around. Not to mention I had a whole stack of other books I was way more interested in!

Sherlock, reading one of the aforementioned, more interesting books

So what should you have taken from all of this?

• I suck at DNFing because I am a crazy, stubborn person
• But I CAN DNF if a book honestly makes me feel like it's taking time away from really awesome books I'd rather be reading - which you'd think might happen more often... but it doesn't.

How about you guys? Do  you have a page deadline when you give up if you're not into it, no matter what? Or can  you go on and on in a hateful, neurotic, Gaby manner? Both options are legitimate and TOTALLY healthy, I promise, I just want to hear about your compulsions. A lot. In the comments below.