There's quite a long list. I have less patience these days with things that don't grab me, so, unless it's for one of my book groups, I read anywhere from 50-150 pages and then let it go.
Slammerkin by Emma Donaghue: slammerkin is an 18th C English term for a loose dress or a loose woman. Mary Saunders is raised in poverty and when her step-father throws her out of the house because of a rape pregnancy, she is taken in by a prostitute and learns the ways of the streets. When she gets sick, she goes into a religious institution for women who want to reform, works on her seamstress skills and then goes to work in a small Welsh town as an apprentice. Based on an actual murder. But I gave up before that happened.
Amnesty by Aravind Adiga: Danny, an illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka, is working as a house cleaner when he discovers a murder. If he reports it, he'll probably be deported.
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd: I actually read quite a bit of this book before giving up. I actually liked Bridie Divine, an unusual woman detective in the underbelly of Victorian London. She has been hired to find a 6-year-old kidnapped child. Evidence accumulates that the girl, Cristabel, is no ordinary girl but rather vicious type of sea creature. Bridie is determined to find the girl, even if she thinks Cristabel may be part of Sir Edmund Berwick's "collection" rather than his actual daughter. Bridie is assisted in her investigations by the ghost of a recently deceased boxer, Ruby Doyle.
Paul Simon: The Life (biography) by Robert Hilburn. Just read a couple chapters.
Naked Came the Florida Man by Tim Dorsey: Apparently this is the 23rd installment in the "Serge Storm" series so some people must like it. I couldn't get past the first few chapters of a road trip to take tombstone rubbings in the run-up to a hurricane.
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Casiopea (yes, named after the constellation) and her impoverished widowed mom live with a brutal grandfather who treats Casiopea like a slave. On a day when the rest of her family are away, Casiopea opens a forbidden trunk in her grandfather's bedroom and accidentally fres the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who forces her to help him regain his throne from a treacherous brother. If they succeed, Casiopea can escape her miserable life; if they fail, Casiopea will die. Intriguing premise but the writing and storyline just didn't hold me. Nevertheless, she has some other interesting sounding fantasy and thrillers which I will investigate.
Slammerkin by Emma Donaghue: slammerkin is an 18th C English term for a loose dress or a loose woman. Mary Saunders is raised in poverty and when her step-father throws her out of the house because of a rape pregnancy, she is taken in by a prostitute and learns the ways of the streets. When she gets sick, she goes into a religious institution for women who want to reform, works on her seamstress skills and then goes to work in a small Welsh town as an apprentice. Based on an actual murder. But I gave up before that happened.
Amnesty by Aravind Adiga: Danny, an illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka, is working as a house cleaner when he discovers a murder. If he reports it, he'll probably be deported.
Things in Jars by Jess Kidd: I actually read quite a bit of this book before giving up. I actually liked Bridie Divine, an unusual woman detective in the underbelly of Victorian London. She has been hired to find a 6-year-old kidnapped child. Evidence accumulates that the girl, Cristabel, is no ordinary girl but rather vicious type of sea creature. Bridie is determined to find the girl, even if she thinks Cristabel may be part of Sir Edmund Berwick's "collection" rather than his actual daughter. Bridie is assisted in her investigations by the ghost of a recently deceased boxer, Ruby Doyle.
Paul Simon: The Life (biography) by Robert Hilburn. Just read a couple chapters.
Naked Came the Florida Man by Tim Dorsey: Apparently this is the 23rd installment in the "Serge Storm" series so some people must like it. I couldn't get past the first few chapters of a road trip to take tombstone rubbings in the run-up to a hurricane.
Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Casiopea (yes, named after the constellation) and her impoverished widowed mom live with a brutal grandfather who treats Casiopea like a slave. On a day when the rest of her family are away, Casiopea opens a forbidden trunk in her grandfather's bedroom and accidentally fres the spirit of the Mayan god of death, who forces her to help him regain his throne from a treacherous brother. If they succeed, Casiopea can escape her miserable life; if they fail, Casiopea will die. Intriguing premise but the writing and storyline just didn't hold me. Nevertheless, she has some other interesting sounding fantasy and thrillers which I will investigate.
Red Dress in Black and White by Elliot Ackerman.
Woman 99 by Greer Macallister. Although I liked the historical aspect of it, the protagonist, Charlotte Smith, just didn't engage me. She seemed flat and the plot device, to get herself admitted to an insane asylum in order to get her sister out, felt overdone. It was well reviewed by another author, Fiona Davis, who also talked about the use of such places to sideline inconvenient women in her book, The Address.
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