My two reading projects this year, such as they are, were to finish The Wheel of Time and Temeraire, both of which are … lots of books. Both projects are on track; I have three books left in both series, and I’m going into the first Brandon Sanderson WoT book after I finish The Rouse (77%!) and may just blow through all of the rest of them in October if I find Sanderson’s version more palatable. I was also going to get further into Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings this year; that’s been put off to 2027.

The second project is going to be second chances for books I feel like I should have liked. This is going to be books that I picked up but didn’t finish and feel bad about, whether I liked them the first time through or not. I may still not like them! I may discover I just wasn’t in the mood for that series at the time. I don’t know how many books I want to include here, especially since several of them are book one of a series, but I have three in mind immediately:

The Terra Ignota series is finished now; I DNFed this in December of 2016 and to be completely honest I don’t remember why. (EDIT: I called it “too precious and proud of itself for me” on Goodreads!) Every other person I’ve talked to about this series has loved it. Maybe I just wasn’t in the mood? I dunno. Either way, it’s first on the list of books I’m going to give another shot.

This is Book 1 of a trilogy; the second book is out (and I, uh, have it, despite not having finished this) and the third one is nowhere on the publishing horizon as far as I know. I may hold off on this until the end of the year and hope that the third book is at least announced by then. I like Marlon James, but I bounced off this book really hard in April of 2019. It’s kind of stuck in my craw ever since. I know writers I like can produce stinkers every now and again, but damn it, a fantasy novel by Marlon James should be my thing. I want it to be my thing. I’m trying again.

Stephen King is a liar, because I picked this up on January 21 of 2020 and put it down on January 22 of 2020. Did you know Leigh Bardugo went to Yale? Because Leigh Bardugo totally went to Yale, guys, and the first 75 pages of this reminded me of that so many times that I couldn’t tolerate it any longer. I have since read and enjoyed two other Bardugo series, and I have friends who like this series a lot, so I’m giving it another shot. Hopefully if I go in expecting a little Ivy League snobbery I’ll be okay.

That’s what I’ve got so far. There will be more, I’m sure, but those jumped out immediately when I started thinking about this. Maybe I’ll consider House of Leaves the unofficial first book; I’m planning on tackling that over winter break (Why? Dunno, but it’s the plan) and that’s close enough to 2027 to count.

Have you ever hated something on the first read and gone back to it?