Uniflame Creates: Three books I did not finish

Most of the times I try to finish what I read, but I am not going as far to finish a book no matter what. I have learned that life is too short to read bad books and if I still don't enjoy a story after x pages, I just let it go. Sometimes I do intend to finish a book, but then it has to be returned to the library before I could finish it. That are my mean reasons, why I sometimes don't manage to finish a book. Today I do want to write about 3 books that I didn't finish and why.

The Wilderness by Samantha Harvey

Summary from Goodreads:
"It’s Jake’s birthday. He is sitting in a small plane, being flown over the landscape that has been the backdrop to his life – his childhood, his marriage, his work, his passions. Now he is in his mid-sixties, and he isn’t quite the man he used to be. He has lost his wife, his son is in prison, and he is about to lose his past. Jake has Alzheimer’s. As the disease takes hold of him, Jake struggles to hold on to his personal story, to his memories and identity, but they become increasingly elusive and unreliable. What happened to his daughter? Is she alive, or long dead? And why exactly is his son in prison? What went so wrong in his life? There was a cherry tree once, and a yellow dress, but what exactly do they mean? As Jake fights the inevitable dying of the light, the key events of his life keep changing as he tries to grasp them, and what until recently seemed solid fact is melting into surreal dreams or nightmarish imaginings. Is there anything he’ll be able to salvage from the wreckage? Beauty, perhaps, the memory of love, or nothing at all?"

Personal opinion:
I choose this book for the what's in a name challenge and I often like to read about subjects like these. Unfortunately this book was incredibly boring. Jake as a main character couldn't interest me the least. The story as he told it wasn't interesting either. Maybe I should have read more until the real developments started, but by that time I had lost all curiosity to know.

The Privileges by Jonathan Dee

Summary from Goodreads:
"Smart, socially gifted, and chronically impatient, Adam and Cynthia Morey are so perfect for each other that united they become a kind of fortress against the world. In their hurry to start a new life, they marry young and have two children before Cynthia reaches the age of twenty-five. Adam is a rising star in the world of private equity and becomes his boss's protégé. With a beautiful home in the upper-class precincts of Manhattan, gorgeous children, and plenty of money, they are, by any reasonable standard, successful. But the Moreys' standards are not the same as other people's. The future in which they have always believed for themselves and their children—a life of almost boundless privilege, in which any desire can be acted upon and any ambition made real—is still out there, but it is not arriving fast enough to suit them. As Cynthia, at home with the kids day after identical day, begins to drift, Adam is confronted with a choice that will test how much he is willing to risk to ensure his family's happiness and to recapture the sense that the only acceptable life is one of infinite possibility. The Privileges is an odyssey of a couple touched by fortune, changed by time, and guided above all else by their epic love for each other. Lyrical, provocative, and brilliantly imagined, this is a timely meditation on wealth, family, and what it means to leave the world richer than you found it."

Personal opinion:
I got this book for review so I actually tried a little harder to finish it than I would have if it was my own copy but I didn't succeed in doing so. This book is told from a lot of different perspectives and the first 30 pages discribe just one wedding day where you hop into another persons head about every few sentences. It was very annoying to me to switch so often. After the wedding we jump about 7 years forward in time. And while things started to get interesting towards the end of that second part, I didn't feel like trying to like it anymore. This is too bad though because the concept does sound promising but it just doesn't deliver for me.

Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Summary from Goodreads:
"Grace and Sam share a kinship so close they could be lovers or siblings. But they also share a problem. When the temperature slips towards freezing, Sam reverts to his wolf identity and must retreat into the woods to protect his pack. He worries that eventually his human side will fade away and he will be left howling alone at the lonely moon. A stirring supernatural teen romance."

Personal opinion:
This is actually one of the library victims. I wasn't able to finish it in time before I had to return it. I am sure that I would have finished it eventually otherwise. This book wasn't bad but it just didn't kept me engaged enough to read it in time, like I do with other library books. There wasn't enough going on that convinced me that I had to finish it in time and I don't feel the need to borrow it again either. I don't have a really strong opinion about this book like with the previous two, it just left me rather indifferent.