Hello, lovelies! Recently, I removed 10 popular books from my Goodreads TBR, and it inspired me to do a mass clean-out of my Goodreads TBR shelf! Naturally, if I’m going to spend the time doing it, I figured I might as well blog about it. I plan on removing a lot of books from this shelf, so I’ll probably break this up into a few posts to make it manageable.
If there’s anything in this list that you think I should KEEP on my TBR, please let me know why, and I’ll consider adding it back!
Pre-Purge TBR: 1,536
- The Disappearance — Bentley Little
❌ I like Bentley Little’s books, but this sounds boring. - Attachments — Rainbow Rowell
❌ The more I think about it, the creepier this sounds. - Ever the Hunted — Erin Summerill
- As Old As Time — Liz Braswell
❌ I think I’ve reached the point in life where it’s hard to impress me with B&TB retellings. - The Wish Granter — C.J. Redwine
❌ These retellings have a neat premise, but I have a hard time feeling like I actually want to commit to reading any of them. - The Shadow Queen — C.J. Redwine
- Passenger — Alexandra Bracken
❌ This never particularly interested me and it still doesn’t. - Paranormalcy — Kiersten White
❌ Honestly, I don’t know if it’s because I’m still so salty over Bright We Burn or what, but I’ve lost interest in almost all of KW’s books. - The School for Good and Evil — Soman Chainani
- What Price Gory? — Terry M. West
- The Fall — Bethany Griffin
❌ I don’t have the heart for what looks like a really poor take on one of my favorite EAP stories. - Zodiac — Romina Russell
❌ I didn’t even know what this was about. It just had a pretty cover so I added it ages ago, I guess. - Crawlspace — Herbert Lieberman
- The Hundredth Queen — Emily R. King
- Not Your Sidekick — C.B. Lee
❌ I love the idea of this super diverse series, but I’ve tried reading this book twice and couldn’t get into it either time, so I’m not trying again. - The Gauntlet — Karuna Riazi
❌ A steampunk MG Jumanji retelling… I’m not as interested as I was once, sadly. - I’m Traveling Alone — Samuel Bjork
- Amid Stars and Darkness — Chani Lynn Feener
- The Glass Spare — Lauren DeStefano
- The Arsonist — Stephanie Oakes
- Hunted — Meagan Spooner
- The Grave Keepers — Elizabeth Byrne
❌ Love this cover, but I’m going to trust friends’ reviews and the 3.2 average it has on Goodreads. ? - The Daemoniac — Kat Ross
- Tash Hearts Tolstoy — Kathryn Ormsbee
- Anne Frank Remembered — Miep Gies
- The Unremembered Girl — Eliza Maxwell
- Tempests and Slaughter — Tamora Pierce
❌ I didn’t realize until now that this is the 1st in its own specific series, but #8 (according to GR) in the over-arching storyverse. - Thug Kitchen
- Thug Kitchen 101: Fast as F*ck
- Thug Kitchen Party Grub
❌ Honestly, I would’ve removed these a while back if I’d remembered that they were on here, as their whole premise makes me kind of uncomfortable. As one of my friends stated in her review, “It’s a cookbook in blackface.” - Tess of the Road — Rachel Hartman
❌ I want to read the Seraphina books first. - Beanstalker and Other Hilarious Scarytales — Kiersten White
- A Tail of Camelot — Julie Leung
- The Cellar — Natasha Preston
- Hoodoo — Ronald L. Smith
❌ After reading this author’s newest book, I don’t feel like his writing suits me much. - The Bird and the Blade — Megan Bannen
❌ A lot of my friends are own-voice reviewers and hated this, which makes me hesitant to support it, plus I was spoiled for the ending and it made me much less interested in reading it. - The Sky is Yours — Chandler Klang Smith
- Blood Rose Rebellion — Rosalyn Eves
- And She Was — Jessica Verdi
❌ I’ve seen MULTIPLE trans reviewers call this book (about a trans family member!) out for being transphobic. - Sometime After Midnight — L. Philips
❌ Maybe a little too “cutesy rom-com” for me.
Remaining TBR: 1,496
Alright, there we have it — the first batch of purging! There’s a lot more left to go through; at sorting my shelf to show 50 books per page, I only made it to page 8 out of 30 on my TBR shelf. I can’t wait to dive back in soon and wipe out a few dozen more!
frayedbooks
May 3, 2019I did a TBR purge a little while ago, too! I don’t like how Goodreads now adds a book a second time if you enter a giveaway if it’s a different edition or something. The purging feels great!
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
July 7, 2019Late reply but I feel you on the GR giveaway thing, it’s such a pain how they add a second edition to your TBR shelf! :/ I usually use the “find duplicates” tool once every few month and always find a ton on there.
booksintheskye
May 3, 2019Ever the Hunted and the Ravenspire series you must keep! They are both two of my favorite series, I love them
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
August 6, 2019I’ll give them another try! 😀
booksintheskye
August 6, 2019I hope you love them!
Diana @fortunatelythebook
May 3, 2019The gauntlet was so disappointing, I agree with you removing from your TBR.
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
August 6, 2019I’m sorry it disappointed you, but glad to hear I’m not missing much!
tasya @ the literary huntress
May 3, 2019This is a great idea, and I think I should do a purging of my own too! I was disappointed with Paranormalcy, I think it was very juvenile (even back then) and nothing special tbh. I don’t think you miss anything by skipping it!
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
August 6, 2019Oof, thanks for the heads up on Paranormalcy!
malanielovesfiction
May 3, 2019I just went on a Goodreads TBR purge as welll, but I think I overdid it???? I now only have 8 books on my goodreads tbr shelf, i don’t know what I was thinking sldkfjlskdjf
+ you made a great call with Tash Hearts Tolstoy, I tried reading it but it was a boring plot-wise, which was so disappointing because I’m always searching for my ace rep
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
July 7, 2019late reply but WAIT how did you get your TBR down to 8 books?! ?
Malka @ Paper Procrastinators
May 3, 2019Oh wow! I love the idea of this! I do mini Goodreads purges from time to time, because I dislike if my TBR gets higher than 50. I just get too stressed! So every month or two I make sure that there are no books on there that I’m no longer interested in.
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
July 7, 2019Oh wow, less than 50?! 😮 That’s amazing, I can’t imagine!
evelynreads1
May 4, 2019There are definitely some books that I agree with you to remove haha. I wasn’t a big fan of passenger, the glass spare and hunted!
(www.evelynreads.com)
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
August 6, 2019They all just strike me as books that I expect to be mediocre, which I know isn’t fair since I haven’t read them, but… ??♀️
alisbooks
May 4, 2019I just cleaned my TBR out, too. I took it from 200+ to 20 something. I only have books on it now that I’ll be reading in the very near future. I took off all the ones that I just wasn’t sure I’d ever get to. I see some on your list that I removed from mine, but none that I’ve actually read.
Avery @ RedRocketPanda
May 5, 2019Holy Frak, so many TBR books! I have a little heart attack every time mine goes over 200 books on my GR TBR shelf and obsessively work through it twice a month for Down the TBR Hole now to keep it in order.
With Tempests and Slaughter I didn’t realize it was part of a wider universe when I requested an ARC of it, so I read it completely as a standalone book with no prior knowledge of the world or any of the other characters and still absolutely loved it. I think it’s definitely possible to read it as a standalone (especially as its #1 in its own little arc) if you did ever want to consider reading it. I wrote a review of it if you ever wanted to skim through and decide if it was worth your time (https://redrocketpanda.com/2019/02/23/arc-review-tempests-and-slaughter-an-unexpected-favourite/).
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
August 6, 2019I had no idea you could read T&S by itself! Thank you for this info, dear! <3
Kelly | Another Book in the Wall
May 5, 2019I recently did a mass purge for the books on my tbr as well, and it felt SO NICE afterwards! I haven’t read any of these books yet, though I did read half of the School for Good and Evil a few years ago. I remember enjoying it a lot, but unfortunately had to return it to the library before I could finish it. Haha.
Sarah
May 11, 2019I’m basically cheering at your removal of Attachments, I tried to read it to see if it was as bad as it sounded and it was, uh, Bad. And Tempests & Slaughter probably won’t be as enjoyable without the context of the rest of the books although it is kind of a prequel!
Destiny @ Howling Libraries
August 6, 2019I actually didn’t know Tempests & Slaughter was a prequel! Hmn… I might have to rethink that one (though for my own weird obsessive sake when it comes to series, I’m still not sure I could bring myself to read it out of publication order lmao).