TBR Declutter! – Down the TBR Hole #7

Credit, as always, goes to the wonderful Lia @ Lost in a Story for this decluttering idea!

The aim is to declutter you tbr shelf. To do this:

• Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on 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 should it go?

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Here are the next 10 books on my tbr shelf! Again, I did a terrible job of decluttering this week! Hehe, oops!

The Bachman Books by Richard Bachman (pseudonym of Stephen King)

Synopsis: Written under the nom de plume “Richard Bachman”, here are four early novels by bestselling author Stephen King: RAGE, a story of stunning psychological horror; THE LONG WALK, the tale of a macabre marathon; ROADWORK, a variation on the theme of “Home Sweet Home”; and THE RUNNING MAN, a nightmare vision of a ghoulish game show in which you bet your life–literally.

This sounds really good. I’m totally into short stories at the moment and Stephen King is the real life walking & talking fire emoji, so I’m definitely keeping this one!

Verdict: KEEP

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Synopsis: First published in 1959, Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House has been hailed as a perfect work of unnerving terror. It is the story of four seekers who arrive at a notoriously unfriendly pile called Hill House: Dr. Montague, an occult scholar looking for solid evidence of a ‘haunting’; Theodora, his lighthearted assistant; Eleanor, a friendless, fragile young woman well acquainted with poltergeists; and Luke, the future heir of Hill House. At first, their stay seems destined to be merely a spooky encounter with inexplicable phenomena. But Hill House is gathering its powers – and soon it will choose one of them to make its own.

I am determined to become a Shirley Jackson fan girl, OK? I’ve gotta really love one of her books, right? So this might be it!

Verdict: KEEP

20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill

Synopsis: Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She’s also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945….

Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn’t easy to make friends when you’re the only inflatable boy in town….

Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he’s an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing….

John Finney is locked in a basement that’s stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead….

The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past..

This is a collection of short stories from Joe Hill, who is not only supposed to be an amazing writer, but is also Stephen King’s son, so I’ve always been attracted to his work (haven’t read any of it yet tho!)

Verdict: KEEP

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Synopsis: fter the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own.

Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn’t live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod’s family…

I was all reading and willing to remove this from my shelf and then a review that said this is a gothic retelling of The Jungle Book and so I just HAD to keep it!

Verdict: KEEP

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Synopsis: Susie Salmon was fourteen years old when she was murdered by a man from her neighbourhood. Now in heaven, she can have whatever she wishes for – except the one thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth. Susie watches from above as her suburban family is torn apart by grief; as her friends grow up, fall in love, and do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. In time, Susie will realise that even in death, life is not quite out of reach . . .

No, I haven’t read this book. Why? I don’t know.

Verdict: KEEP

11.22.63 by Stephen King

Synopsis: On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed.

If you had the chance to change history, would you?

Would the consequences be worth it?

This is such a cool idea for a book and HELLO AGAIN Stephen King.

Verdict: KEEP

Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes

Synopsis: When young, pretty Catherine Bailey meets Lee Brightman, she can’t believe her luck. Gorgeous, charismatic, and a bit mysterious, Lee seems almost too perfect to be true.

But what begins as flattering attention and spontaneous, passionate sex transforms into raging jealousy, and Catherine soon discovers that Lee’s dazzling blue eyes and blond good looks hide a dark, violent nature. Disturbed by his increasingly erratic, controlling behavior, she tries to break it off; turning to her friends for support, she’s stunned to find they don’t believe her. Increasingly isolated and driven into the darkest corner of her world, a desperate Catherine plans a meticulous escape.

Four years later, Lee is behind bars and Catherine—now Cathy—is trying to build a new life in a new city. Though her body has healed, the trauma of the past still haunts her. Then Stuart Richardson, her attractive new neighbor, moves in. Encouraging her to confront her fears, he sparks unexpected hope and the possibility of love and a normal life.

Until the day the phone rings . . .

Goddamn it. This book sounds so cliche and not worth reading but the reviews and ratings say otherwise so I’m really intrigued!

Verdict: KEEP

We Were Liars  by E. Lockhart

Synopsis: A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

So I bought this not realising it was YA but I liked the sound of it, so I have it, so it would be stupid to get rid of it off my shelf. I see this brings about lots of mixed reviews… I’m interested to see what I’ll think about it.

Verdict: KEEP

The May Queen Murders by Sarah Jude

Synopsis: Stay on the roads. Don’t enter the woods. Never go out at night.

Those are the rules in Rowan’s Glen, a remote farming community in the Missouri Ozarks where Ivy Templeton’s family has lived for centuries. It’s an old-fashioned way of life, full of superstition and traditions, and sixteen-year-old Ivy loves it. The other kids at school may think the Glen kids are weird, but Ivy doesn’t care—she has her cousin Heather as her best friend. The two girls share everything with each other—or so Ivy thinks. When Heather goes missing after a May Day celebration, Ivy discovers that both her best friend and her beloved hometown are as full of secrets as the woods that surround them.

YA, YA, YA. Soz but no.

Verdict: REMOVE

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

Synopsis: Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to. Then they go back to those jobs with blackened eyes and loosened teeth and the sense that they can handle anything. Fight Club is the invention of Tyler Durden, projectionist, waiter and dark, anarchic genius. And it’s only the beginning of his plans for revenge on a world where cancer support groups have the corner on human warmth.

Do we even need to discuss this one? Of course I’m keeping it! I should have already read it by now, really.

Verdict: KEEP

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I’ve added way too many good books to my tbr thay I’m having difficult removing any of them lol!

Have you guys read any of these and think it was a bad decision to keep or remove it? Let me know!