My Cute Bookshelf: 2011 Wrap-Up: Worst Books of the Year

26 December 2011

2011 Wrap-Up: Worst Books of the Year

9:56 PM |

Posted by Jennie |

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Hi everyone! To celebrate the end of the year, we'll be posting various wrap-up posts here on the blog. Some of them will have Face-Offs where we will battle for which book is the Top One. You can be a part of this by voting in the poll and choose which is the Best of 2011! Today's topic is Worst Books of the Year.

Jennie's pick:

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Oh boy. Every time someone asks me about this book, I can't seem to shut up. Honestly, no other book has ever made me feel the way that The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer has. I was expecting so much from it and yet it was so awful. In all honesty, this book was painful to read. I had to force myself to finish it. It was that bad. Let me just point out that everything about this book annoyed me. From the horribly annoying characters to the cliched romance. The story had so much potential and yet the author decided to throw that away and make this book a boring and uninteresting one. Please check out my review to read what made me dislike this book so much because honestly, if I keep on going, I'll just keep on ranting. All I can say is that The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer was the Worst Book I read in 2011.

Other awful books I read in 2011:

The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore (Boring story and annoying characters.)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan (Painful to read. Awful characters. What zombies?)

Hourglass by Myra McEntire (Boring story and characters. What time travel?)

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow (Annoying and rude characters. What plot?)

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson (Annoying characters. Unrealistic look at eating disorders)

Rayne's pick:
Cryptic Cravings by Ellen Schreiber

Okay, so this one was kind of hard for me, mainly because I didn't particularly deeply hated any book I read this year, which, of course, I owe to Jennie because she saved from some pretty sucky ones, but still, in the end I picked Cryptic Cravings and I'm about to explain why. So, while my hatred for this book doesn't burn with the intensity of the sun, or actually exists if I'm being honest, I thought about how this book made me feel and decided that the levels of disappointment I experimented after reading this book should be what defines a worst book. Don't get me wrong, this series is kind of my guilty pleasure and I've been an extremely loyal reader since the first book, but in the last, let's say, four installments of the series, I've felt like I've been cheated, like Ms Schrieber isn't really putting in any effort into the story and just randomly picks an inane, tepid topic and writes barely 200 pages on it and simply sends it like that because she knows we are going to keep on buying them. The characters were extremely flat and stereotyped in this one, the plot made me go "meh" because of how unimportant and uneventful it was and the overall feeling of the book felt forced. What happened to the witty plot that drove the first few books of these series and the strong and entertaining protagonists I loved to read about? I know people, these books are not to be taking too seriously and Ms Schrieber is far from being a real writer, but still, this last few books in the series fail to follow the winning formula that were the first ones and that is why Cryptic Cravings is my Worst Book of the Year. I can honestly said I am infinitely glad the next book is the last one.

Other bad/unsatisfying books I read this year:

Afterlife by Claudia Gray (Unsatisfying ending to the series)

Moonlight by Rachel Hawthorne (Twilight-ish and simplistic)

Generation Dead by Daniel Waters (Boring)

Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr (Loved the ending, but what was the point then?)

Gifted: Out of Sight, Out of Mind by Marilyn Kaye (Too simple for my taste)

We would love to know your picks for Worst Books of 2011!

Labels: Year Wrap-up

7 comments

Sayomay

December 27, 2011 2:30 PM

One a couldnt stand was Firelight. Everyone seemed to really like but i just couldnt stand it! the characters werent well developed, and the author had such a great idea w dragons! :(

Jennie

December 27, 2011 6:13 PM

How sad! I haven't read that book yet, but I agree, I've heard good things about it. So sad to hear about the characters. Those are the ones who make or break a book for me.

Taking it One Book at a Time

December 27, 2011 8:08 PM

For me it was Pulse of Heroes by A.J. Sweeny, I couldn't finish it...at all. I don't have deep seeded hatred, but from a Grammer Nazi POV I couldn't stand it.

Racquel (A Book Barbie)

December 27, 2011 8:31 PM

I love this! When me & my co-blogger were doing the favorite posts of the year, it was all favorite favorite favorite. I told Emma we need to do worst book of the year & worst covers, it's only required! Where there is good, there is evil. Where there is favorite, there is awful xD

I heard a lot of things about Mara & how everyone either hated it or love it so I'm very wary about reading it. I think I will hate it... I heard about how the guy is all perfect & rich & amazing and very... perfect. I don't like that but you're actually the first person I see who doesn't like Hourglass... mhmm.

I wasn't planning on reading anything from Rayne's list, Im not much of a PNR fan.

Sucks you didn't like these though. You can't win them all, or in this case you can't love them all :p

Racquel @ The Book Barbies
-thank you&come again.

Rayne

December 27, 2011 10:15 PM

@Sayomay: You know, I kind of agree with you. I mean, I didn't absolutely hated Firelight, but for me it was kind of okay and definitely not worthy of the hype storm that came with it. The author was obviously talented and the concept of the story was really interesting, but she preferred to focus on a very uninteresting aspect of the story that kind of ruined it for me.

@Raquel (A Book Barbie): I'm actually not a big fan of romance on my PN books. The great majority of the books in my list are there because I found them extremely cheap and I'm not one to refuse a cheap book, which just goes to show that we should all be wary of pretty and cheap books XD

Aleksandra

December 28, 2011 6:39 PM

Haven't read any of them, although I tried reading Forest of Hands and Teeth once, but I disliked it from the start, I just couldn't get into it, so I gave up & I usually love zombie books ;)
The worst book I read in 2011 was definitely Wildefire by Karsten Knight. It had lots of potential, good idea, but just bad execution. I finished it because I rarely give up on books & I thought it has to get better, 'cause everyone loved it, but it didn't, it was just awful. And I didn't even had high expectations. I hated almost everything about it, the characters, the dialogues, the romance... The "twists" that should've surprise me were too transparent, I saw them long before they happened. I disliked everything about it, except the mythology he used & the few scenes with the little girl, I loved them & I wish the story was going more that way, but that won't keep me interested to try reading the sequel, no way. I'll say again, good idea, awful book.

Jennie

December 28, 2011 9:54 PM

@Raquel Yes, it's a list that I haven't seen as much on blogs but I'm curious to know everyone's picks. :) Yeah, if you're not into that, Mara Dyer is pretty much like that. I just didn't enjoy Hourglass. It was too boring, in my opinion.

@Aleksandra I forced myself to finish The Forest of Hands and Teeth. It was quite terrible. I've heard mixed things about Wildefire, but the negative things I've heard are pretty much what you said. That sucks because I think it has an original idea with the Mythology it uses.