Down the TBR Hole #3

Down the TBR Hole was originally created by Lost in a Story! It’s supposed to help make your TBR list a little more manageable and allow you to get rid of books that you don’t have interest in anymore.

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How it works:

• Go to your Goodreads to-read shelf.
• Order on ascending date added.
• Take the first 5 books
• Read the synopses of the books
• Decide: keep it or should it go?

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Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster

Bringing together Jane Austen’s most beloved characters and storylines-a clever, playful, interactive, and highly entertaining approach to the wildly popular novels in which you, the reader, decide the outcome.

Name: Elizabeth Bennet.
Mission: To marry both prudently and for love.
How? It’s entirely up to the reader.

The journey begins in Pride and Prejudice but quickly takes off on a whimsical Austen adventure of the reader’s own creation. A series of choices leads the reader into the plots and romances of Austen’s other works. Choosing to walk home from Netherfield Hall means falling into Sense and Sensibility and the infatuating spell of Mr. Willoughby. Accepting an invitation to Bath leads to Northanger Abbey and the beguiling Henry Tilney. And just where will Emma‘s Mr. Knightley fit in to the quest for a worthy husband? It’s all up to the reader.

A labyrinth of love and lies, scandals and scoundrels, misfortunes and marriages, Lost in Austen will delight and challenge any Austen lover.

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The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

Insecure siblings fighting for their parents’ attention; bickering spouses who can’t stand to be together or apart; adultery and sexual experimentation; even the struggle to balance work and family: These are themes as much at home in our time as they were in the twelfth century. In James Goldman’s classic play The Lion in Winter, domestic turmoil rises to an art form.
Keenly self-aware and motivated as much by spite as by any sense of duty, Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine maneuver against each other to position their favorite son in line for succession. By imagining the inner lives of Henry, Eleanor, and their sons, John, Geoffrey, and Richard, Goldman created the quintessential drama of family strife and competing ambitions, a work that gives visceral, modern-day relevance to the intrigues of Angevin England.

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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Middlesex tells the breathtaking story of Calliope Stephanides, and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family, who travel from a tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit, witnessing its glory days as the Motor City and the race riots of 1967 before moving out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Pointe, Michigan. To understand why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal, one of the most audacious and wondrous narrators in contemporary fiction. Lyrical and thrilling, Middlesex is an exhilarating reinvention of the American epic.

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The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

The shocking thing about the girls was how nearly normal they seemed when their mother let them out for the one and only date of their lives. Twenty years on, their enigmatic personalities are embalmed in the memories of the boys who worshipped them and who now recall their shared adolescence: the brassiere draped over a crucifix belonging to the promiscuous Lux; the sisters’ breathtaking appearance on the night of the dance; and the sultry, sleepy street across which they watched a family disintegrate and fragile lives disappear.

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Speechless by Hannah Harrington

Everyone knows that Chelsea Knot can’t keep a secret.

Until now. Because the last secret she shared turned her into a social outcast—and nearly got someone killed.

Now Chelsea has taken a vow of silence—to learn to keep her mouth shut, and to stop hurting anyone else. And if she thinks keeping secrets is hard, not speaking up when she’s ignored, ridiculed and even attacked is worse.

But there’s strength in silence, and in the new friends who are, shockingly, coming her way—people she never noticed before; a boy she might even fall for. If only her new friends can forgive what she’s done. If only she can forgive herself.

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Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure by Emma Campbell Webster

Umm…Jane Austen and Choose Your Own Adventure? Yes, please!! How have I not bought and read this already?! Well, I am definitely going to in the near future. I’m so excited I re-found this now.

Verdict: Keep (I actually just bought it lol) √

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The Lion in Winter by James Goldman

I can honestly say I don’t know why this is on my TBR. It doesn’t sound like anything I like to read. Royalty and complex relationships can definitely be interesting, but whatever made me want to read this has long since passed.

Verdict: Delete ×

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Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides

Hmmm. This does sound really interesting and I know it’s a classic. I don’t even know if I read the synopsis when I first put this on my list. I might have just saw classic and added it.  It may not be a book I read right away but it does seem like it would be a great read.

Verdict: Keep √

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The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

LOL. The same author twice in a row. That being said, I don’t think this is my kind of book. While I know this book is a bit of a classic, I am not thrilled that these girls’ story is being told through the eyes of the boys’ point of view. The fact that it’s a male author doing it doesn’t make me feel any better about it either. I’m all for being proved wrong, but this book isn’t for me right now.

Verdict: Delete ×

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Speechless by Hannah Harrington

THIS SOUNDS AMAZING!! I’m pissed I waited so long to rediscover this book. This will be going on my Amazon wish list immediately. I love the idea of silence bringing people together and I’ve known about the power of silence for some time. I was a very quiet kid and it was easy to see how it made people uncomfortable at times. I will be reading this really soon!

Verdict: Keep √

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What do you think? Can you convince me to put one of the books I deleted back on my list? Head to the comments!