Abandoned by Booklikes

I DNF at 11 percent. I don't hate myself that much to continue to read this.

I have no idea what the hell was going on for most of this book. I finally threw in the towel at 11 percent because I couldn't bear to keep reading "Bathsheba" over and over again. This is the worst name I can think of for any character in a book I have read before. I mean I had to sit and think for 10 minutes to see if I could come up with a worst name and finally just threw in the towel and gave up.

I read this book as part of the Dead Writers Society Literary Birthday Challenge for June 2016. Apparently Hardy and I are not going to be a thing and I am going to stay the heck away from his works in the future.

The book starts off with a snail pace and never does pick up. Saying one thing nice that I can find is that at least the chapters are short though. And I cracked up that the headings to each chapter just clued you in with what was going to happen. Other than that, I got nothing.

Reading about Farmer Oak (Gabriel) and how he came to meet the mysterious female that he sees (yes apparently even Hardy believed in insta-love) named Bathsheba Everdene. Since I read "The Hunger Games" about a dozen times every time the book would have Bathsheba talking I would picture Katniss doing it with a bow and arrow and her hair in a braid.

There's not much there here for me to want to continue to read. Gabriel is not developed at all. And though I guess I am supposed to care that Bathsheba spurned his marriage proposal, I got wonder what kind of fool was he to propose to someone he talked to once at this point.

The meet cute between this couple just turned me off of Bathsheba completely. I wish I would even think of trying to talk to someone after they kept messing with me about what their name was. Or maybe she's just as embarrassed of her name as I am and didn't want to say it out loud.

The writing was okay. I don't know. I found the whole book awkwardly paced and the description of every freaking thing had my eyes glazing over.

So glad to put this down and move onto another book.