Two books I did not finish

I am starting to get my butt kicked by the Goodreads challenge. I said I would read 100 books this year. The first half of the year, I was pulling ahead. Now I'm lucky to be hovering at "on-track" or "1 book behind".

I blame two recent selections. They didn't hold my interest, and I couldn't finish them. If it takes me 2 days to read 30 pages, it makes me wonder how the thing got published in the first place. I realize doing reviews for books I didn't finish isn't fair, but wouldn't you want to know if something is that bad?

First up, To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. It took me a few days before I gave up on this one. I don't think it's about dogs at all. The protagonist is a historian that works for a time traveling company. His client is having him rebuild some English cathedral, so he travels back in time to collect artifacts or data, I'm not sure what.

It has amusing parts, but it kept reminding me of that high school implement of torture, Waiting for Godot. That is about two men sitting on a bench waiting for third man, Godot. Endless conversation with very little plot. I was three chapters in To Say Nothing of the Dog when I realized we knew nothing of the protagonist. Only that his name was Ned Henry, he was a historian, and suffering from time travel effects. Did he have family? Why did he choose this career? What did he think about his job?

Nothing. Just endless chatter and odd references to the Victorian era that I didn't understand.

This is a book for stay-at-home moms who want to read about other stay-at-home moms. That's not a bad thing. All I'm saying is there is an audience for it, but I'm not it.

A book should not start off with the trials of grocery shopping. That is what annoyed me the most. There were pages and pages of domesticity - shopping, driving the kids around, cleaning, cooking, laundry. I get this woman has lots to do. So when she sees a demon at the store, she barely takes notice because she's so busy.

And then her husband calls, who is running for state attorney. He wants to throw a dinner party in 2.5 hours and does she mind to cook and clean for 8 lawyers and judges? He offers to call a caterer to help her.

But that makes her feel GUILTY so she agrees to make appetizers, cocktails, an entree, and clean the house in 2 hours.

ZOMGTHISISTHEWORSTCHARACTEREVAR!!!!!!!

Actually, to make it even worse, the demon follows her home from the store, launches through her kitchen window and tries to kill her. She kills it, stuffs it in the pantry, and is more concerned with the state of her rigatoni than what just happened. The clean-up details of the scene takes up more pages of the book than the actual attack. Like how to pick up glass is what I'm interested in.