Down the TBR Hole is a (very) bookish meme, originally created by Lia @ Lost In A Story. She has since combed through all of her TBR (very impressive) and diminished it by quite a bit, but the meme is still open to others! How to participate:
- Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf
- Order by Ascending Date Added
- Take the first 5 (or 10 if you’re feeling adventurous) books. Of course if you do this weekly, you start where you left off the last time.
- Read the synopses of the books
- Decide: keep it or let it go?
My “Want to Read” shelf on Goodreads is sitting at 805 books right now, so at the current rate of five books/month for this meme, it will take me 13½ years to get through them all.
Of course, I’ll be reading a lot of them in the meantime–I do own just over 300 of those 805 book already–but I’ll be adding more to the TBR, too.
So I’m going to start doing them 10 at a time instead, not so much because I’m “feeling adventurous” but because I need to get my TBR under control!
To keep the posts themselves from being bloated, though, I will no longer be including the synopses themselves. The titles will still link to the book on Goodreads, so if something looks interesting to you, my readers, you can hit it up there and chuck it on your own TBR if so inclined.
Let’s get started.
#1 – Tone Deaf, by Olivia Rivers
Young adult contemporary romance between a deaf young woman who used to be a musical prodigy, and the lead singer of a teenage rock band.
I remember picking this off a YA recommendation list for disabled representation, and since I’m still deep in the throes of rewriting #rockstarnovel, anything I read with a similar setup can only help me, whether it’s good or flawed–I’ve got something to learn from it either way.
This one looks like it also deals with physical abuse, and might be more angsty than I’d prefer, but it stays.
#2 – One True Loves, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
I found this one through a Goodreads giveaway, and it sounded interesting enough to stick on my TBR, in the days before that was automatic upon entering.
Woman marries her teenage sweetheart, he goes missing. Years later, she’s moved on and falling in love with someone else, and her husband reappears!
I hate bad love triangles, but I’m honestly curious about how this one goes, because what would I do if that happened to me? It stays.
#3 – Maybe in Another Life, by Taylor Jenkins Reid
One True Loves intrigued me enough to go digging into Reid’s catalogue, and I picked this out as well.
It’s not an original premise at all–Sliding Doors the movie, in book form, just like Pivot Point which came up for consideration a while back–but I cannot overstate what a sucker I am for that trope.
How does a single choice affect a life? How far can two paths diverge? Is love more fate or luck? I want to see how it plays out, so this stays.
#4 – Holding Out, by Lila Rose
A motorcycle club romance that I honestly don’t remember how I heard about. There are definite points in its favor–single-mom romance, she’s actually neighbors with the biker dude and they’ve known each other a few years–but the plot apparently revolves around him and his buddies protecting her from her ex-husband.
Meh? Also, one of my GR friends rated this as a two-star read, which doesn’t give me hope.
It’s free on Amazon now, which means I could pick it up and give it a try risk-free, but I trust my friends. It goes.
#5 – The Proposal, by Mary Balogh
This is why it’s important to go through one’s TBR list. I added this after I’d seen Balogh recommended highly, and why I picked this book in particular I don’t remember.
Since then, I’ve read two of her works from a different series, and I wasn’t overly impressed.
I think I have a few more of her books in my TBR because I’d already bought them from used sales–I like her enough to probably read those, but not any I don’t already own.
This goes.
#6 – Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman
ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS.
SEQUEL TO ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS OF HIS.
I ALREADY OWN IT.
IT STAYS.
#7 – Dreams Underfoot, by Charles de Lint
Ages ago, when I got my first adult library card after college, I had a phase of reading three or four books a week, by whoever. I know during that time I read a lot of Phillippa Gregory, for example, though I couldn’t tell you which ones, because they’ve all blended together since then.
I’m certain I read a Charles de Lint book during that phase, but I can’t recall which one, or even what it was about–just a feeling of gentle and odd magic, a kind of melancholy.
So when I ran across his name again, I added the first book of the Newford series to the list. I’m curious–so it stays.
#8 – Children of Earth and Sky, by Guy Gavriel Kay
ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS.
HE’S TACKLING RENAISSANCE EUROPE.
I ALREADY OWN IT.
IT STAYS.
#9 – When I Was Puerto Rican, by Esmeralda Santiago
Pretty sure someone on Tumblr recommended this to me, though I can’t remember exactly why.
This would be a great entry for the #ownvoices category of my personal Expand Your Horizons challenge, so it should stay.
I’m one of the many, many white Americans who until recently didn’t fully understand what a shitty position Puerto Rico was in as an unincorporated territory of the US, without full statehood rights. This would be a great first step in educating myself about its people and the struggles they faced even before the hurricane made everything worse.
#10 – Graceling, by Kristin Cashore
YA high fantasy romance, picked up from Tumblr hype. Given that the book is ten years old now but was still being hyped frequently two years ago, that’s a good sign.
I have really vague recollections of reading someone’s diatribe about problematic issues with this one, but honestly, there’s a lot of those going around, even for books I enjoyed, so without a stronger reason not to read it, it can stay.
The worst thing a skim of the reviews points to is that it might be derivative, and that’s a risk I’m willing to take for a good romance.
Have you read any of these books and want to share your thoughts? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!
elena johansen 