Non-Review: Falling Under

The lovely people from Penguin, working through the lovely people from Goodreads, were kind enough to send me a review copy of Gwen Hayes' upcoming novel, Falling Under. It has a beautiful cover, which is why I entered to win a copy from Goodreads First Reads, and I only had a sort of vague idea what it was about.

I looked at the back cover and became a lot less interested in reading it. It probably speaks poorly of me that I was willing to skip over a book because the jacket copy was uninteresting, but it just isn't what I'm looking for right now. I don't want something that's another romance based on lust where the guy is totally hot and cold with the girl, which is kind of what the cover makes me think of. Harsh words, perhaps, but they're true. Right now I want something that's going to make me think. I love paranormal romance, but it's not what I want right now. But even so, I was going to give it a chance. I've been wrong before, and I'd love to be wrong about this one.

Then I read the first sentence. That sentence contains the phrase "burning man." A boy at my school lit himself on fire a week ago. I can't read about burning men right now. Even so, I kept going, finishing the first page. It was enough to kind of make me wonder what was going on, but not enough to get me past the ridiculous jacket copy and the fact that a girl who has an iPhone calls her dad "Father."

I'm sure there are people out there who will love this book (and even I think the cover is beautiful), but I don't think I'm going to be one of them. Goodreads and Penguin, thank you for sending me the book, but I won't be reviewing it.

Bloggers: Do you ever get books that you requested like this and then realize that you kind of really don't want to read them? Does it ever make you feel guilty? I got a review copy of this that someone else could have gotten, and I'm not going to read it. On the one hand, that's not good, because it feels like I'm shirking my responsibility. On the other hand, I started this blog so that I could talk about books that I want to talk about, not as something to be a chore. I'll probably pass this one along to someone else who will enjoy it and review it somewhere else. I think life's too short to spend time reading books you don't want to read when there's a pile of books you do want to read just waiting for you. What do you think?

Sorry to get all philosophical on you guys. I try to avoid getting too personal and philosophical on the internet, but it still slips out sometimes. On a lighter note, how many other student/teacher bloggers out there are now starting their winter breaks?!