Books I Stopped Reading

Purpose of This Page

While there might be a double meaning to the page title, we are referring to books that we began reading, but then put down before we finished reading. We won't say much about them, but it seems like a better place to do it here.

Empress

Author: Karen Miller

First chapter contains some fairly graphic sexual comments. Given the story line and how it began, I can only imagine it will get worse.

The Thirteenth Tale

Author: Diane Setterfield

This book began as one of the best written books I have read. I loved the prose, the descriptions, and felt a close tie to the main character since I am a reader myself. About 50 pages or so into the book, there are some siblings introduced that have no morals and seem to look for pleasure in any form without a care for appropriateness, in a case or two where the experimentation is described.

Wizard's First Rule (Sword of Truth Series #1)

Author: Terry Goodkind

There is quite a bit of graphic sexual content. This was the first book I had ever read that I put down. I started to read this years ago and thought it might just have been specific to this book so I flipped through the pages of one of the other books in the series. It was the same there.

Rainbow Six

Author: Tom Clancey

Book was very interesting as far as I read (about a third to a half), however the language was too much for me. I realize this was a military type novel so you would expect some language, but there were just too many f-bombs for me to enjoy.

Bourne Ultimatum

Author: Tom Clancey

My major problem with this book was the language as well. Again, too many f-bombs. It was interesting that I don't recall the first two books being so bad. Might be that I didn't care so much. I did enjoy the first two and did finish them. Just not this one.

Sunshine

Author: Robin McKinley

I picked up the book because I loved some of her books that had won Newberry awards, "The Hero and the Crown," and "The Blue Sword." I was expecting to find something along those lines. I did find good writing. I was becoming very engrossed in the book. But about two thirds through the book, there is a chapter that has a very explicit sex scene. I put the book down at that point.

Wicked

Author: Gregory McGuire

Within the first 50-100 pages, there was a play put on that was very sexually explicit. It has been a while since I have read this, and I have had someone tell me there are some bad scenes even before that. I returned the book once I reached that point.

I haven't read any of his other books, but from what I have been told, at least a couple of the others would rate an R in the sex content area, so I just avoid this author.

Note: I have seen the play based on the book and it was cleaned up to be more appropriate for a larger audience. There is no sexually explicit content. There is one point where Elphaba kisses a man who finally professes his love for her and she exclaims that she is feeling very wicked, and kisses him passionately again, but that is most explicit it gets. I don't remember anything offensive by way of language. There was some violence, but most of that was off stage. I would recommend the play to anyone and fully loved it. My wife and I saw it for an anniversary, or we would have taken our daughter to see it.