What has been your least favorite book this year?

[dorothyinAus]

Kale to the Queen by Nell Hampton

It had such potential to be my kind of book, but it was just terrible. The plot was unbelievable and the characters were annoying. Honestly, I just finished it because I wanted to see if I guessed the murderer correctly.

[bdubs419]

Aug 1, 2018 18:55:51 GMT -5 spedrunner said:

You by Caroline Kepnes

I had such high hopes for this book and really disliked it!

I have not had many 2 star books for the year, so thats a plus!

I agree with this one! I gave up on it. It was just too much for me to read.

[expectantsteelerfan]

Anywhere but Here by Mona Simpson because I felt like the main character Ann had a weak 'voice' and was unlikable even though you were "supposed" to sympathize with her for dealing with her crazy mother. And it's never fun reading about a person who clearly needs mental health and seeing all the people around her ignore that, even if it was set before it became socially acceptable to seek mental health help.
And It's Always the Husband by Michele Campbell because I apparently hated all the characters and was happy when one of them died, but I can't even remember it at all (got that from my review, which is why I write reviews).

[aurora]

Aug 1, 2018 9:08:53 GMT -5 rainbowchip said:

My least favorite this year so far is Now That You Mention It. I'll get into why during the book club discussion in September.

So...I shouldn't make an effort to join September book club? I've been so bad this year!

ETA at least I just got Before We Were Yours so I can do August.

[MrsAxilla]

The last American gypsy popped up somewhere as ‘capturing the spirit’ of phish’s (that’s my favorite bad, fyi) melodramatic 2004 run. I was on that run so I checked it out. Such self-important garbage. It’s the 9nly book I’ve ever rated i meals star, and we all know I have lowbrow tastes.

[ssmjlm]

Aug 1, 2018 12:03:33 GMT -5 Vespasia said:

Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson. I loved The Kind Worth Killing so this was extra disappointing. It was just another crappy "thriller" that tried too hard to be twisty and just ended up predictable. I actually skipped about half the book and then skimmed the end to see what happened. So glad I didn't waste my time.

I was the total opposite. I could not figure out why everyone loved The Kind Worth Killing. It was a bad high school drama for me. But Her Every Fear was better to me.

[ssmjlm]

My did not finish so far this year:
The Marriage Pact
Unraveling Oliver

I’m a much harder grader in goodreads it seems. So many people are like “five stars, best book ever!!” And I’m over here going “dude no, I could barely get through the whining.”

The Good Daughter is probably the worst for ones I finished. I think the author buries bad writing in books with abuse so the readers don’t realize how bad the writing is thanks to shock value.

[frog]

I tend to finish everything, even if I hate it. I’m a habitual hate reader. Worst reads so far this year:

A Court of Frost and Starlight - Awful, plus the characters strayed from their defining characteristics, with no real explanation.

Liberated: A Novel of Germany, 1945
- Couldn’t care about the characters, plus terrible pacing.

Tower of Dawn - boring and drawn out

A Swiftly Tilting Planet - I realized I had never read all of the A Wrinkle in Time quintet... there’s a reason for that.

Wolf Hall - Probably my most disappointing read because I was excited about it. Terribly boring and poorly written.

The God of Small Things - I can’t remember much about this book, which is generally a bad sign.

It looks worse than it is, I read enough that this is only a small portion of my reading this year, and most of it was pretty decent

[ellebebold]

I can't find a fav yet!

[sassypants]

The Last Tudor by Philippa Gregory. Oof, that one was painful. I am a sucker for all things Tudor, but the characters were all such whiny bitches.

[just]

"The Power" by Naomi Alderman. I literally finished it about 30 seconds ago and the only reason I finished it was for a book club. I felt it was so heavy handed and clumsy. The reverse analogies were so clunky and obvious to me. For me it read like a freshman comp project and I can't tell how many times I rolled my eyes. It makes me crazy that it's talked about in the same breath as the handmaid's tale

I feel bad because I know a couple of my friends loved it, so I'm scouring reviews to find some nice things (that I believe) to say about it for when we meet

[mpc]

Nothing I really hated yet, but my least enjoyed were:

The Atomic City Girls - Such potential, but I found it boring and really elementary writing skills. Apparently there's a book called 'The Girls of Atomic City' that is based on real people and I've heard it's much better.

The Underground Railroad - This one had a lot of hype, so maybe I was expecting more. I didn't enjoy the weird mix of not quite history (the literal railroad ruined it for me), and parts of it felt like cliche after cliche.

Yellow Iris - short story by Agatha Christie. I think maybe I'm just not used to her style, which is bad news for me because my hold for Murder on the Orient Express just came in.

[Nonny]

I have another one to add, Blindness by José Saramago.

It started off as something I thought was going to be a terrifying story (everybody starts to blind and the chaos it causes), but it's mostly about people pooping EVERYWHERE, a grotesque gang rape, and a literal shitton of boring rambling.  The metaphors are so heavy handed, and the writing style was this unpunctuated mess of stream of consciousness (which I already hate regardless of the author, it's not my jam), with a constantly shifting narrator - is it first person?  Is it third person?  No one knows!

I really don't know how this book has a 4.09 rating on Goodreads. 

[Nonny]

Aug 14, 2018 20:58:01 GMT -5 just said:

"The Power" by Naomi Alderman. I literally finished it about 30 seconds ago and the only reason I finished it was for a book club. I felt it was so heavy handed and clumsy. The reverse analogies were so clunky and obvious to me. For me it read like a freshman comp project and I can't tell how many times I rolled my eyes. It makes me crazy that it's talked about in the same breath as the handmaid's tale

I feel bad because I know a couple of my friends loved it, so I'm scouring reviews to find some nice things (that I believe) to say about it for when we meet

I think it gets Handmaid's Tale comparisons because Atwood mentored her while she was writing it:
www.rolexmentorprotege.com/pairing/2012-2013/margaret_atwood_and_naomi_alderman