Wednesday, August 16, 2006

Purging books from Mt. TBR

I'm really making an effort. Well, for me anyway.

Looked at spreadsheet: 128 categories romances. Yikes. No wonder I'm feeling guilty.

Where should I start? Alphabetically, of course. Hmmm, the A's, so that means first one at the top of the spreadsheet was Guarding Jane Doe by Harper Allen (HI). AAR gave it an A but this was an amnesia story. Ackkk! Into the purge pile it goes. Next up... Hot on Her Tail by Karen Anders. This is a Harlequin Blaze about a bounty hunter who's looking for a woman accused of embezzling from a bank. Handcuffs are involved and you know what that means *wiggles eyebrows* :) I skimmed it and it wasn't too bad so I sat down and did a fast read. The thought of sex with handcuffs makes my wrists ache. Not very sexy to me.

The problem with Blazes is that the idea of a category with HOT SEX sounds pretty good, but really most of them have been disappointing. Plots are too contrived, sex turns out not to be very hot, characters are flat. But not all of them are bad, I have 4 or 5 in my keepers.

HOHT wasn't too bad except I kept shaking my head at the fact that the heroine repeatedly escaped from the hero bounty hunter (like 3 times) and always went back to the same place where he would pick her up again. Duh! Anyway, I give it a B-.

So I have formulated a plan... get rid of all Blaze and other categories with plots I have come to hate:

Amnesia stories (tired of them, overdone)
Bodyguard stories (ditto)
Virgin sex therapists (give me a break)
Uptight businessman (yawn)
Uptight businesswoman (double yawn)
Thieves as H/H
Secret baby stories

That's just a start. I may think of more as I go along.

CindyS gave me some good advice. Anything I've been looking at for more than 3 years must GO! Okay, I'll try, but no promises. Get out the kleenex.

5 comments:

~ames~ said...

I purged my library tbr. Aside from reading four, I got rid of three I knew I wouldn't read. Yay. I'll move onto my tbr mountain tomorrow. And then trip to the UBS. Double yay. I knew we could do this!!

ReneeW said...

Kimber: Well, not a whole category :) But there was a Blaze with that character. She was one of those radio sex therapists (like Dr. Ruth) whose big secret was that she was a virgin. Blech!

Ames: Good job! I purged about 10 Blazes so far. I can't figure out why I bought so many of them, except maybe they were cheap at a library book sale. I'm going shopping soon and my mantra will be "I deserve it, I deserve it". See I'm practicing already.

Dev said...

Renee ~

Please, please buy something this time! :-)

Good for you on purging through some of the books. I did that a few weeks ago and now have a few boxes that I'll either turn in to my UBS, donate to my library, or list on paperback swap.

CindyS said...

Okay, how about an update now ;)? Are you still working on your purge or was 10 books enough.

I remember it was late at night (of course) and I was a pacing nightmare and ended up waking Bob up all teary eyed and he says (and this is why I love him) 'don't get rid of any of them if it makes you this upset. I don't care how many books you have.' I whined a bit more and then filled 4 tubs (close to 200 books I *think*) to go somewhere other than in our home. Bob was floored when he woke up in the morning.

The trick for me was to look at that book that I had started at one time but hated 3 pages in. Good-bye. Then there were the ones that I had had for years but I was never tempted to pick up. I can tell you I've never regretted the purge because I think most of the books were by authors not around anymore.

Course, that was 2 or 3 years ago and I'm sure there could be another purge session but uh, they are all in a closet and suddenly I'm very grateful they are hidden ;)

CindyS

ReneeW said...

I'm still working on it Cindy. Up to 20 books (not much but it's a start). I keep you updated. Bob is a treasure :)

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