Rarely do I take the time to write about books I didn’t finish reading. These books aren’t terribly written or anything, they’re just not for me.
Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk
I’ve always been a huge fan of Chuck Palahniuk. I never got around to reading Fight Club (enjoyed the movie), but devoured and loved Survivor, Invisible Monsters, Choke, Lullaby, Diary, and Haunted.
Pygmy is pretty gritty and hardcore. It’s narrated in first person by an unnamed “Agent number 67,” a young man whose mission is to blend in as an exchange student in America while carrying out a major act of terrorism. This theme is echoed in many other Palahniuk novels. But the narrative in this one is terrible.
To prove my point for the sake of this blog post, I opened the book to a random page, closed my eyes, and pointed to a sentence. It says, “All must sing nonsense or no allowed college, no advanced physics and training. Force compelled to sing how yearning for location on top arched spectrum of light wavelengths created by precipitate.” What. The. Eff.
And this is pretty much how every sentence in the book reads. Making sense of this is exhausting. Moving on.
The Darlings by Cristina Alger
This debut has an intriguing synopsis. A finance guy marries into a wealthy New York family. Then, a tragedy “catapults” the family into an investigation and scandal. The finance guy must then decide “where his loyalties lie.”
All the finance talk in this book put me to sleep. I couldn’t even make it through the first 50 pages, which is normally how far I allow myself to go before discarding a book.
Maybe The Darlings will be a major hit with finance geeks or people very interested in finance.
Did you read either of these books, and if so, what did you think?
Last Updated on April 16, 2026 by Sarah Ann
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