Author Topic: Silly reasons you didn't finish a book  (Read 709 times)

Offline Tisiphone

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Re: Silly reasons you didn't finish a book
« Reply #30 on: July 03, 2018, 01:47:42 pm »
The silliest reason I put down a book and never picked it back up again was that in the middle, I reached an ending that satisfied me.

I don't remember the title or author, unfortunately.

The book had an amazing premise. it was novella length and was about a time travel tourist agency. There are more books in the series and I grabbed the one about the US Civil War.

I hated the protag on page one. He was seventeen years old, his uncle was the big boss, and he worked for his uncle as a tour guide. He had two PhDs, neither one of them in history. Of course he's a genius. Question from reader: Why is this kid being given a potentially dangerous job that ought to require shadowing a more experienced guide for several missions? Answer: See character description. His uncle is the big boss and he has ancestors that came from the area they're touring.

He breaks a major rule of time travel in Chapter One, gets slapped on the wrist by his uncle the boss, then sent to guide another tour the Confederate States of America.

In Chapter Two, he meets the guide who's supposed to keep tabs on him, and he deliberately undermines the other guide's authority in front of the paying tourists. And he ogles the only female tourists, a teenage girl and her mother. The author probably didn't intend the narrative to ogle the mother, but it read that way and doesn't say anything good about the writing.

Kid time travels, messes up big in front of the locals, and then gets back to the story present, at which point his uncle reassigns him.

DONE. Good ending.

Of course there is half a novella to go, but that ending satisfied me and I don't want to keep going only to find out the kid's a hero.