Down the TBR Hole #1

Down The TBR Hole is a meme that revolves around cleansing your TBR of all those books you’re never going to read and sort through it all to know what’s actually on there. The meme was created by Lia @ Lost in a Story.

It works like this:

• Go to your goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 (or 10 (or even more!) 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?

I have been seeing this meme going around and have been meaning to do it! It is very much needed since my TBR is out of control. I’ve had my Goodreads account since 2014 which has caused me to have close to 600 on my “Want to Read” shelf. I would love to cut this in half! I am going to start with the suggested 5 books. Here we go…

The Books

1. Gemma Doyle Series by Libba Bray
^{[Published December 9th 2003]}

It’s 1895, and after the suicide of her mother, 16-year-old Gemma Doyle is shipped off from the life she knows in India to Spence, a proper boarding school in England. Lonely, guilt-ridden, and prone to visions of the future that have an uncomfortable habit of coming true, Gemma’s reception there is a chilly one. To make things worse, she’s been followed by a mysterious young Indian man, a man sent to watch her. But why? What is her destiny? And what will her entanglement with Spence’s most powerful girls—and their foray into the spiritual world—lead to?

We are starting off with a trilogy so I am going to count this as one. I can’t believe I still haven’t read these. I absolutely adored The Diviners last year, so I definitely still plan to read this. KEEP.

2. A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly
^{[Published April 1st 2003]}

Sixteen-year-old Mattie Gokey has big dreams but little hope of seeing them come true. Desperate for money, she takes a job at the Glenmore, where hotel guest Grace Brown entrusts her with the task of burning a secret bundle of letters. But when Grace’s drowned body is fished from the lake, Mattie discovers that the letters could reveal the grim truth behind a murder.

This claims to have romance, history, and a murder mystery so this is originally why I was so interested! Plus, Jennifer Donnelly is an actress from one of my favorite films, Labyrinth. I forgot this was on my TBR and I am actually interested to read this in the fall now. KEEP.

3. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor
^{[Published October 15th 1955]}

This now classic book revealed Flannery O’Connor as one of the most original and provocative writers to emerge from the South. Her apocalyptic vision of life is expressed through grotesque, often comic situations in which the principal character faces a problem of salvation: the grandmother, in the title story, confronting the murderous Misfit; a neglected four-year-old boy looking for the Kingdom of Christ in the fast-flowing waters of the river; General Sash, about to meet the final enemy. 

I honestly have no recollection of why this is on my TBR. I have a feeling it must have been mentioned in my college days. Since I didn’t even know it was there, I am tempted to take it off. I really need to be brutal and just do it. I decided that everything I am “deleting” will be going to a 2021 Clear-Out shelf in case I ever catch up on my tbr and want to give some books a second chance, so for this title.. DELETE.

4. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
^{[Published May 5th 2011]}

An unflinching, darkly funny, and deeply moving story of a boy, his seriously ill mother, and an unexpected monstrous visitor.

At seven minutes past midnight, thirteen-year-old Conor wakes to find a monster outside his bedroom window. But it isn’t the monster Conor’s been expecting – he’s been expecting the one from his nightmare, the nightmare he’s had nearly every night since his mother started her treatments. The monster in his backyard is different. It’s ancient. And wild. And it wants something from Conor. Something terrible and dangerous. It wants the truth.

From the final idea of award-winning author Siobhan Dowd – whose premature death from cancer prevented her from writing it herself – Patrick Ness has spun a haunting and darkly funny novel of mischief, loss, and monsters both real and imagined.

This has been recommended by multiple friends and it is so bad that I still haven’t read it. Definitely keeping so they won’t disown me. KEEP.

5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
^{[Published August 1938]}

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again…

Working as a paid companion to a bitter elderly lady, the timid heroine of Rebecca learns her place. Life is bleak until, on a trip to the South of France, she falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower whose proposal takes her by surprise. Whisked from Monte Carlo to Manderley, Maxim’s isolated Cornish estate, the friendless young bride begins to realise she barely knows her husband at all. And in every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca.

Rebecca is the haunting story of a woman consumed by love and the struggle to find her identity.

I am definitely keeping this. I plan to read it this fall, in fact! I did watch the adaptions and have been meaning to read the original classic for years. KEEP.

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And this concludes the first installment of Down the TBR Hole! It was fun and I hope I can be more cut throat in the future. Have you read any of these? Let me know!

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_{we are all stardust and stories…}