TBR Jar DNF Review: Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger

I had high expectations of this one, because “All Quiet on the Western Front” by Erich Maria Remarque is my all time favorite book (along with “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen) and this one promised something similar. 

Once I got around to it though, it turned out to be a meticulous diary of trench life, but instead of the intense emotions and philosophical ponderings on life of Remarque this was a rundown of the technical workings of the trench. It was one long list of “then this person got shot in the head, then we built another shelter, then these two people got blown up, then we laid out some barbed wire, then this one was shot in nose and bled out, then it rained and stuff got muddy.” I wasn’t very far into it when I gave up, because even 50 pages of that was just too much. It was weirdly cold and unemotional and he listed deaths with the same punctuality as improvements on their shelters. I flipped through the rest of it and it seemed pretty much the same so I decided to give it up. 

The next pick from my jar is “The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War” by Lara Feigel. I checked my library and put a reservation on it, but then when I read the summary I thought it sounded really familiar. And it was, because I had (tried to) read this book about 6 months ago and given it up. So not a great day for my TBR jar, but I will dive in once again. 


Well, not a banner day still for my jar. I just picked out 3 books which I seem to have since deleted from my TBR (I keep up on Goodreads) so I will trust my former self and skip them, and the next book I picked that I actually want to read and haven’t read yet is “A Home at the End of the World” by Michael Cunningham. In a stroke of good fortune I just picked that up from the library yesterday, so I am all set to go and I just hope this one will turn out great! 

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