The Books I Abandoned in 2025

I think there’s an important distinction between books you abandon and books you DNF.

To me, DNF’ing is an active choice; you either dislike a book so much you can’t continue another second or there’s something you find objectionable about the book or the author. Meanwhile, abandoning a book – sidelining it? saying ‘see ya later’ to it? – means that maybe you hit a reading slump, got distracted or that it wasn’t the right book at the right time.

Now, y’all might yell at me over some of these (I’m looking at you, Atmosphere) but I think it’s better to restart a book later when you can appreciate the story rather than try to force it.

Here are the books I abandoned in 2025.

The Unsinkable Greta James by Jennifer E. Smith

I was enjoying this book, but kicking off the year with a book that heavily involves grief as a plot element just after my grandmother died probably wasn’t the best approach. I knew about the grief depictions going in, but sometimes you underestimate how something will feel until you’re in it. I wasn’t ready to handle Greta’s journey and the subject matter at the time, so I’m planning to revisit it in the future.

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

I had strong feelings about the first two books in the Empyrean series and the hype around them – good and critical – but I got about 150 or so pages into Onyx Storm and it totally lost me. I didn’t care at all about the stakes or what was going to come in the story – not a great sign. Will I pick it back up? The jury is still out. I don’t feel a tug to return to the story and I think Onyx Storm sapped any feeling of urgency I had to keep up with the series. Maybe I’ll return to Yarros’ series one day; maybe they’ll just be a couple trendy books I had fun with at peak hype. Only time will tell.

Swept Away by Beth O’Leary

This was the first book of O’Leary’s that I’ve read in hard copy. I listened to The Flatshare, The Switch, The No-Show and The Road Trip and loved them all. The only O’Leary read that hasn’t landed for me was 2023’s The Wake-Up Call; I DNF’ed the audiobook because I could not get into the story and I actively disliked the performance of the male narrator (sorry!). With Swept Away I found myself falling into the trap of skimming ahead, and once I did that I was lost. I’m hoping with time I’ll be able to revisit the book and give it its proper due. Maybe it’ll join her four big wins for me, or maybe it’ll languish with The Wake-Up Call. It’s possible that listening to her books just lands better for me; and I’d be willing to give the audiobook a chance before completely writing Swept Away off if reading the physical copy doesn’t take off for me.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Yes, I know that Atmosphere topped many readers’ best of and favorites lists for 2025 and I’m sure you’re reading this and saying, ‘Katie, how on earth were you able to put this down?’ It’s not because I wasn’t loving the book and the characters. They were wonderful, but I started listening to an audiobook or two while reading Atmosphere and then a few days went by without me picking it up. That’s often the death knell for me, even if I’m in love with a book. It starts to feel like I’ve lost too much reading momentum and picking the book back up will be forced. I liken the feeling to a sports superstition – it’s weird, but just go with it. Because of that, I’m letting Atmosphere sit for a bit so I can start again with a clean slate.

Sounds Like Love by Ashley Poston

Ashley Poston was knighted as an auto-buy author for me after The Dead Romantics and The Seven Year Slip, but I was let down by A Novel Love Story and I think that made me a little wary. I was liking Sounds Like Love but I wasn’t totally enamored; I think I was at least a little bit distracted when I was trying to read it and, like with Swept Away, I fell into the trap of skimming ahead when the story started to lose me. And by skimming ahead, I do mean skimming basically the entire book. I think I could love it though, so I’ll be letting this one sit and hopefully revisiting it in 2026 to give it another chance.

Finding My Way by Malala Yousafzai

I’ve been looking guiltily at Finding My Way on my bedside book stack for the last few weeks. I was loving and absolutely zipping through this memoir in early November, but then I got happily sucked into an audiobook spiral and also fell into the Heated Rivalry fandom. The pull of fictional stories was just too strong. This is one I really want to give its due; what I read was beautiful and so easy to connect to and see Malala in. I’m excited to pick this back up in 2026.