TBR Declutter! – Down the TBR Hole #28

So, you may have noticed that I’ve been a little MIA when it comes to these blogs recently. My Saturday’s have just been so busy and I haven’t got round to doing more decluttering, but I’m back! And, spoilers, it’s a good week!

Credit, as always, goes to the wonderful Lia @ Lost in a Story for this decluttering idea! I’m 300+ books deep into my TBR now… find out how many books I’ve removed, so far, below!

The aim is to declutter your 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?

Synopsis: Your friend’s child is missing. It’s your fault.

No family is perfect.

A husband, three children and a full-time job, so many plates to keep spinning.

No wonder you forgot you were supposed to be looking after your friend’s daughter.

But no one has seen her since yesterday.

And she’s not the first to go missing from your small town.

So who’s hiding something?

This one sounds a little too emotional for me. The general consensus on this one is that it’s good, but I’m not feeling it.

Synopsis: Single mother Roz has a reached breaking-point. After the dissolution of her marriage, Roz’s business has gone under, debts are racking up, the rent is late (again), and she’s struggling to provide for her nine-year-old son, who is starting to misbehave in school. Roz is in trouble. Real trouble.

When Roz returns home from work one day and finds an eviction notice, she knows that it’s time for action—she has two weeks to find a solution otherwise they will be kicked out of their home. Increasingly desperate, Roz doesn’t know where to turn. Then the perfect opportunity presents itself. At her sister’s fortieth birthday party, Roz meets Scott Elias—wealthy, powerful, and very married. But the impression Roz leaves on him is indelible. He tracks her down and makes Roz an offer to spend the night with him—for money. He wants no-strings-attached intimacy and can guarantee total discretion. Could it be as simple as it sounds? With that kind of cash, Roz could clear her debts and get her life back on track. But as the situation spirals out of her control, Roz is forced to do things she never thought herself capable of. Can she ever set things right again?

This sounds like an awful book for someone like me, who hates infidelity with such a burning passion that it actually makes me feel sick lol. Pass.

Synopsis: The Massacre of Glencoe happened at 5am on 13th February 1692 when thirty-eight members of the Macdonald clan were killed by soldiers who had enjoyed the clan’s hospitality for the previous ten days. Many more died from exposure in the mountains. Fifty miles to the south Corrag is condemned for her involvement in the Massacre. She is imprisoned, accused of witchcraft and murder, and awaits her death. The era of witch-hunts is coming to an end – but Charles Leslie, an Irish propagandist and Jacobite, hears of the Massacre and, keen to publicise it, comes to the tollbooth to question her on the events of that night, and the weeks preceding it. Leslie seeks any information that will condemn the Protestant King William, rumoured to be involved in the massacre, and reinstate the Catholic James. Corrag agrees to talk to him so that the truth may be known about her involvement, and so that she may be less alone, in her final days. As she tells her story, Leslie questions his own beliefs and purpose – and a friendship develops between them that alters both their lives.

This book has 3 different titles, which is so dumb. I think I added this one because it looked creepy and had the word “witch” in the title, but in reality, this one sounds like it’s about love and friendships… yawn.

Synopsis: In June 2014, Julia White – a beautiful and intelligent young woman – blows up a coffee shop in central London, killing twenty-four people before turning herself in to the police. Apart from publishing a potentially ironic manifesto, she refuses to explain the reasons for her actions…

Clare Hardenberg, an investigative journalist, has been commissioned to write a biography of Julia but at the start of the novel she is on her way to prison herself. What has brought her to this point?

This synopsis tells me nothing about the book, it’s terrible. Way to entice the reader!

Synopsis: They said she was armed.
They said she was dangerous.
They were right.

Petty Moshen spent eighteen years of her life as a prisoner in her own home, training with military precision for everything, ready for anything. She can disarm, dismember, and kill—and now, for the first time ever, she is free.

Her paranoid father is dead, his extreme dominance and rules a thing of the past, but his influence remains as strong as ever. When his final will reveals a future more terrible than her captive past, Petty knows she must escape—by whatever means necessary.

But when Petty learns the truth behind her father’s madness—and her own family—the reality is worse than anything she could have imagined. On the road and in over her head, Petty’s fight for her life has just begun.

Well straight off, I hate the main characters name… Petty… I mean, really?

This one has a good overall rating, over 4 stars, but I have so many books that sound just like this kind of story that I’m really not that bothered about this one.

Synopsis: Lacey Miszlak grew up homeless; her crazy mother dragged her from one terrible living situation to the next. But now she thinks the pieces of her life have finally come together. She’s pregnant with her first child, and she and her husband Eric have moved into the home of their dreams. She knows soon its beautiful sunlit rooms will be filled with the joy of the new family she will build there.

But there’s a strange darkness on the stairway and an odd little boy who won’t leave Lacey alone, and soon she’s forced to realize that a danger she never suspected is lurking in the hallways of her beautiful new home. She’s going to have to solve a decades-old mystery to save her family from an evil that has lingered in wait for them for years.

Yes, this one totally sounds like my kind of book, but the rating on it is very mediocre and I want good horror novels! Not mediocre ones!

Synopsis: In the subsidiary offices of a major Latin American corporation, the power suddenly goes out: the lights switch off; the doors lock; the phone lines are cut. The employees are trapped in total darkness with only cryptic, intermittent announcements dispatched over the loud speaker, instructing all personnel to remain at their work stations until further notice.

This one sounds hella cool. It’s all written out in stamps, so it’s a bit of an experimental book. However, the reviews for it are abysmal. People have said the idea is a good one, but you get about 200 words in the entire book, not much of a story, and it costs you a small fortune.

Since I’m trying to be good with my spending on books, I’m going to pass this one. If I could find it cheap on the web somewhere, I might be more inclined to purchase it, but for now, it’s a book to be removed off my terribly long TBR shelf.

Synopsis: It’s early autumn 1964. Two straight-A students head off to school, and when only one of them returns home Chesney Yelverton is coaxed from retirement and assigned to what proves to be the most difficult and deadly – case of his career. From the shining notorious East Side, When You Are Engulfed in Flames confirms once again that David Sedaris is a master of mystery and suspense.

Or how about…

when set on fire, most of us either fumble for our wallets or waste valuable time feeling sorry for ourselves. David Sedaris has studied this phenomenon, and his resulting insights may very well save your life. Author of the national bestsellers Should You Be Attacked By Snakes and If You Are Surrounded by Mean Ghosts, David Sedaris, with When You Are Engulfed in Flames, is clearly at the top of his game.

Oh, all right…

David Sedaris has written yet another book of essays (his sixth). Subjects include a parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law’s leg, an encounter with a dingo, and the recreational use of an external catheter. Also recounted is the buying of a human skeleton and the author’s attempt to quit smoking In Tokyo.

Master of nothing, at the dead center of his game, Sedaris proves that when you play with matches, you sometimes light the whole pack on fire.

I originally added this one because I loved the title and the cover art, but I’ve listened Sedaris do some “comedy” pieces on the radio and I never found him that funny, so I don’t think I’d enjoy this book.

Synopsis: Thirty-four-year-old marine biologist Kyra Winthrop remembers nothing about the diving accident that left her with a complex form of memory loss. With only brief flashes of the last few years of her life, her world has narrowed to a few close friendships on the island where she lives with her devoted husband, Jacob.

But all is not what it seems. Kyra begins to have visions—or are they memories?—of a rocky marriage, broken promises, and cryptic relationships with the island residents, whom she believes to be her friends.

As Kyra races to uncover her past, the truth becomes a terrifying nightmare.

I HATED another of A. J. Banner’s books, but I wanted to give her a second chance so added this novel to my TBR, aren’t I so nice? But, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not that interested in this book.

Synopsis: The Eusistocratic Republic of Finland has bred a new human sub-species of receptive, submissive women, called eloi, for sex and procreation, while intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labor and sterilized so that they do not carry on their “defective” line. Vanna, raised as an eloi but secretly intelligent, needs money to help her doll-like sister, who has disappeared. Vanna forms a friendship with a man named Jare, and they become involved in buying and selling a stimulant known to the Health Authority to be extremely dangerous: chili peppers. Then Jare comes across a strange religious cult in possession of the Core of the Sun, a chili so hot that it is rumored to cause hallucinations. Does this chili have effects that justify its prohibition? How did Finland turn into the North Korea of Europe? And will Vanna succeed in her quest to find her sister, or will her growing need to satisfy her chili addiction destroy her?

I read an extract of this book, way back when, and I quite enjoyed it. It sounds like a really strange read, but that can be good sometimes! That being said, I’m not really bothered about this one so I’m going to remove it from my shelf for now.

Hey, after missing this out for 2 weeks, I’ve come back strong! All 10 books removed this week, heck yeah!

How many of these books do you know and want to read? Do you disagree with any of my verdicts? Let me know!