December DNFs

Where did I stop reading? 18% in

Why? In fairness to the book, it is #16 in the series and I haven’t read any of the others. With that being said, this book is a great example of why I don’t like omnibus casts and third omniscient point of view. 18% of the book in and all that’s happened is the chapters jump from character to character, sometimes multiple characters within a chapter, barely brushing the high level details of each while rehashing the same pseudo-catalyst event with each character. I say pseudo-catalyst because right now it’s just a potential peeping Tom and an eccentric neighbor. The murder promised in the blurb had not yet occurred by the time I stopped reading. I was not connecting to any of the characters at this point, and I was bored. I don’t need to hear each character’s take on the event. Because there are so many and none of the characters are really established for me, they all sound the same and it’s nothing more than repeat information. I’ve picked up Christmas cozy books in the middle of a series before and haven’t had issues since a lot of the time cozies in general can somewhat stand alone. This one with the storytelling style and the sheer number of characters really can’t.