Life of a Book Hoarder

Worst 13 of 2016

Milliebot

My “worst books” list is a bit of a guilty pleasure – someone in the book world (I believe it was Richard’s Book Nook?) said they don’t do Worst lists because they don’t want to give more attention to books they didn’t enjoy. Totally valid point. However, I do get a small amount of pleasure from shitting on books I didn’t enjoy – as rude as that is.

I read 120 books last year and I want to call out the 13 that really displeased me! Warning – I’ll most likely come across as a jerk in my mini summaries. I’m honestly not trying to upset you if books you love are on this list, but I’m not going to sugarcoat my feelings! I do have more coherent reviews of all these books either on my blog or Goodreads. So here we go:

The Dying Earth & The Eyes of the Overworld – Jack Vance
These are the first two books in the Tales of the Dying Earth collection and I thought the protagonist was a straight up asshole. I couldn’t keep reading about him.

The Singular & Extraordinary Tale of Mirror & Goliath – Ishbelle Bee
Ugh! This book is some garbage YA calling itself adult fiction and the only part about it that isn’t terrible is the cover.

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre – Amanda George
This is the most uninventive vampire novel I’ve ever read and her ending was a total cop-out.

Graft – Matt Hill
The gorgeous cover and sci-fi plot drew me in, but I was utterly lost the second half of the book. I think there was some trans-dimensional stuff going on?

Throne of Glass – Sarah J. Maas
I refer to this book as Throne of Ass sooooo….

His Monkey Wife – John Collier
I’m 100% sure I missed the tone and meaning of this book. Was it supposed to be funny? Critical? I’ve no clue, but it was boring and bizarre.

Marrow Island – Alexis M. Smith
This book peaked my interest then pushed it off a cliff to its death. The ending really cemented my dislike of the overall story.

Timekeeper – Tara Sim
The fantasy elements were underdeveloped and the LGBT characters felt like cliched cardboard cutouts rather than real people.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason – Helen Fielding
I hate this book so much I not only filmed myself throwing it out the front door, but I threw it off the back porch as well!

The Wangs vs. The World – Jade Chang
Another book that had me until the halfway point, at which I lost all interest and began to hate the characters.

After Alice – Gregory Maguire
The aforementioned tome was unbearably verbose, to the point where I required a thesaurus in order to decipher the myriad of counterproductive word vomit I continually encountered in my literary experience. My gourd.

The Sunlight Pilgrims – Jenni Fagan
Bored bored bored. I was expecting a post-apocalyptic adventure and received a character driven drama.

Lick – Kylie Scott
If all new adult is rife with as much body shaming, low self-esteem and idolization of jerk boyfriends, you can count me out of the genre.

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Alright, you know the drill. Do you agree? Disagree? I’m totally up for a debate and I promise I won’t be as foul as I was in this post!

8 thoughts on “Worst 13 of 2016”

  1. I still want to read Wangs vs the World, I have read enough to know that there’s a chance I won’t like it, which is why I didn’t pick it as a book of the month club pick. But I still want to give it a shot. Maybe in the summer.

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  2. I’m curious about the Sarah J. Maas book. Do you, in general, not enjoy her work, or do you often enjoy her work and this is just an anomaly? Her Throne of Glass series seemed to have a lot of promise. I had plans to read it as soon as I found copies in the used book shops. Also, I’m with you on Gregory Maguire. I sort of enjoyed Wicked, but not several of his others. I felt like such a heathen saying that to people. I mean, I adore the Musical – but the book, not so much. ~ L

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    1. This is the only Maas I’ve read. My issue is probably more with YA as a genre and the tropes that come with that territory. But I felt it was more of a crap romance than a fantasy adventure.

      I really love most of Maguire’s other work and have no interest in the musical. I figured his take on Alice would be a guaranteed love for me but this book felt so different from his other work. Like he tried real hard…too hard…and I’m not sure what his message was.

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