Maybe I’m becoming more discriminating in my reading tastes – or maybe I’m just getting cranky in my old age. Over the last week, I’ve started three books that I didn’t finish.

Taking a page from Jackie over at Farm Lane Books, I’m throwing this out to you, my dear readers. Is there some compelling reason I should finish any of these books? Do you agree with my decision that my reading time is better spent elsewhere? I’d love to hear from you either way.

1. The Magnificent Spinster: A Novel by May Sarton

Sarton published over a score of novels and nearly four dozen collections of poems between 1938 and her death in 1995, including The Magnificent Spinster in 1985. I found the premise of a “novel within a novel” intriguing and enjoyed reading this for a while. But at about page 200, the exploits of Jane Reid began to feel mundane. At page 220, just over half-way through this book, I quit.

So tell me, is there a plot twist – or even just a plot? It’s going to take more than just well-expressed prose and the rest of the “fifty-year friendship between two women” to keep me reading the last 160 pages.

P.S. This book did yield one of the best cat names I’ve ever heard: Snoozle. Love it!
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2. The Other Life by Ellen Meister

Quinn Braverman has “two lives that run in parallel lines, like highways on either side of a mountain. On one side, the Quinn who stayed with [an ex-boyfriend] is speeding through her high-drama, childless life in Manhattan. On the other, the Quinn who married Lewis lives in the suburbs, drives a Volvo, and has an adorable young son and another baby on the way.”

Although I don’t read anything to do with the paranormal, I can very occasionally be tempted by science fiction that plays into everyday life. Since I enjoyed the movie Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow, I was intrigued by the premise of this book.

In the movie, the Paltrow character finds herself in one of her two parallel lives when the doors of the subway train slide open, with no control over which she happens upon. In The Other Life, Quinn finds ‘portals’ behind the antique ironing board in her basement, and at the bottom of the green beans bin in her local supermarket (!) – and who knows where else in the pages I didn’t read, and the choice seems to be hers to make. A ‘high-anxiety’ day for Quinn, one that might cause her to make the decision to ‘slip away’ into her other life is one in which her toddler has a runny nose (which her husband offers to take care of), and she can’t find a comfortable shirt to wear without resorting to ironing or wearing maternity clothes (which she’ll probably be doing in a couple of weeks anyway). Get a life – (pun perhaps intended)!

So, is there anything in this book that digs down into the nitty-gritty of human emotions? That would cause me to really agonize with Quinn about her ‘choices’? That would be worth spending a day or two reading The Other Life? Let me know.

3. The Sandalwood Tree by Elle Newmark

I love letters, and books that are based on, or include letters. I’ve been intrigued lately books about India. I love reading about the middle decades of the twentieth century. And I love mysteries. So what could go wrong with a book that promises “A sweeping novel that brings to life two love stories, ninety years apart, set against the rich backdrop of war-torn India…In 1947… Martin and Evie find themselves stranded in a colonial bungalow in the Himalayas due to violence surrounding the partition of India between Hindus and Muslims. In that house, hidden behind a brick wall, Evie discovers a packet of old letters, which tell a strange and compelling story of love and war involving two young Englishwomen who lived in the same house in 1857.”

I should have looked more closely at the genre classification for this, because I DO NOT like romance novels, and this is without a doubt a romance novel. I didn’t get beyond the first chapter before the overly-sweet names, abundant co-incidences and cloying prose stopped me cold.

So, what do you think? Can the power of India overcome the romance premise of this story? Is there depth to any of the emotion felt by either Evie OR Felicity?

There you have it, dear readers: three non-finishers . Should I change my mind on any of them?

Links for my Canadian readers:

The Magnificent Spinster

The Other Life

Sliding Doors / Les Portes du Destin

The Sandalwood Tree