Top Ten Tuesday: Most Disappointing Books
Hi!! I hope everyone is having a wonderful Tuesday so far!
Today I wanted to do something a little different – it’s another meme frequenting the world of blogging and I’m excited to dive in!! Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish for the purpose of sharing lists about a variety of book-related topics.
Personally, I feel like I spend a lot of time talking about books I love and enjoy, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! After all, I am not intentionally going to pick up a book I know I am not going to like.
That being said, sometimes with the best will in the world, we cannot love everything. Books that other people rave about, or books you think you will really enjoy just don’t always cut the mustard. (This is a really bizarre expression, but I love it!) These books are the feature of today’s post, so let’s get to it!
I’m writing the list in reverse order, so I’m starting with the least offensive books:-
10. American Gods – Neil Gaiman
I think I’ll get some hate on this one. It is not that I didn’t like it. I did. I DID, OKAY?! I just didn’t love it… and I really thought (hoped) I would. This is a book that has been talked about a lot this year and perhaps the hype got my hopes up. It’s an okay read – and I would probably pick it up again (as has been recommended to me)… but not yet.
9. Eric – Terry Pratchett
Again, this is a book in which I enjoyed certain parts of, but not all. Towards the end of the book, Rincewind and Eric have to make their way through Hell back to the Discworld. I particularly loved this part as Hell was basically run like an office, with memos, policy statements and torture by boredom instead of the traditional variety of physical methods. Working in an office for 35 hours a week, I saw the humour in this, but not much else. It isn’t a bad book, but not one of Pratchett’s finest in my humble opinion.
8. Moving Pictures – Terry Pratchett
It’s bad enough having one Pratchett book on here, never mind two!!
I just found this one to be really slow. At school I studied a lot of theatre so this parody of the magic of Hollywood should have been right up my street. Sad to say, I found it a bit dull.
7. The Inheritance Cycle series – Christopher Paolini
I started this series whilst studying my A-Levels, and I have fond memories of reading Eragon whilst on break duty, supervising the kids in the younger years.
I think by the time I came to read Eldest I had outgrown the series – I found it a little bit childish and ultimately, I have given up on it. If I had read it sooner I probably would have enjoyed it.
6. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
My dad would absolutely hate me if I knew this was on my list of most disappointing books. I don’t mind the film so much, but I find it really silly. It’s not supposed to be a book you take seriously, sure. I just didn’t enjoy it all that much.
5. The Great Iron War Series – Dean Wilson
I started this series this year. I also DNF’d it this year. The foundations of the series are good – I love the base plot and the motivations of the characters. What I dislike about the books is how repetitive and unrealistic they are.
“Well damn, the enemy broke my super expensive submarine. Good job I kept an arsenal of weapons and a barrage balloon on standby… you know, just in case.”
Right. Sounds legit, no?
4. The Books of Pellinor – Alison Croggon
I really enjoyed three-quarters of this series. Guess which one let me down.
The Singing, of course. The build-up to this huge battle between “The Chosen One” and the darkness begins early on and you know what? By the time the battle actually came Alison must have realised she only had about 12 pages left in her, rushed the ending very badly, and for me, the whole series just fell flat on its face. I was so disappointed, as this had so much promise.
3. Magician’s Guild – Trudi Canavan
Now we are getting to the really bad books. This was a DNF pretty much straight away as I couldn’t get into it. There isn’t much more to it than that.
2. The Knife of Never Letting Go – Patrick Ness
The idea of a world in which you can read minds sounds both fantastic and scary right?! I thought so too, but this was also a DNF straight away. I seem to recall I thought it came across a bit childish, but I attempted this years and years and years ago and truth be told, I’ve erased the painful memory of trying to read this from my mind.
1. The Darkness that Comes Before – Scott Bakker
What makes this book the worst on my list is that by every right, I should have enjoyed it. I felt so strongly that I should, I ended up forcing myself to read it and that was a mistake. I’ve even attempted a re-read years later and I cannot get into it. I don’t like the main character; I find the fantasy world confusing… the list goes on. It doesn’t get any better. I can honestly say that whilst I am sure someone out there loves it… I don’t. It gets the top prize for being the worst book I ever read.
So that makes up my list of the Top Ten Most Disappointing Books!!
The important thing to remember is that everybody has different tastes and we are all entitled to our opinions. I’m basically saying don’t hate on me for any of my choices, pretty please?
Have you read any of these books? Do you agree with me?
I like your take on the list.
I read Magicians’ Guild when I was younger and loved it, but I think if I was coming to it now I wouldn’t like it so much.
Cora ❤ http://www.teapartyprincess.co.uk/
I agree with a few of those.
I couldn’t read ‘Eragon’. I tried, but even before the first half, I gave up. Badly written and so many clichees. A lazy book & nothing new. Even the dragon didn’t help.
The Darkness that comes before… Yup, I really wanted to like it as well but it just confused me and I couldn’t find the storyline. It was pretentious and none of the characters were interesting or likeable to me.
There are lots of clichés in Eragon. Problem is it is virtually impossible to do them in an original way. To me, a lack of originality detracts from a book.
With the darkness that comes before, I have literally no idea what happened. I recall there was some kind of holy war or something. I think? In contrast to Eragon’s laziness, I think Scott tried too hard with this one. It was REALLY difficult to follow.
Awh that’s so sad that you couldn’t get through “The knife of never letting go”. Its a strange book all around but a really epic adventure once it gets going! I actually enjoyed it a lot.
I like this post – I don’t agree with you on all of them, but what we like to read is such a personal thing. I am in total agreement with you on Bakker, however – I forced myself through the first two books, but it didn’t get any better 😂
Of course it is – if we were all the same we’d be boring, right? I doubt I’d have tried to pick the series up again and from what you’ve said, I’m glad I won’t 😂
Great post! I was too old of eragon when I started, so I get why you outgrew it. And I really hated knife of never letting go- I really should of dnf’d it. But I was glad I persevered with Magician’s guild (cos my friend told me you had to force your way through the beginning) but it really did get good in the last third and the rest of the trilogy was seriously amazing. The only thing that still bugs me about that series is that it’s totally skewed my perspective and made me think that I should probably continue books I don’t like, cos they might get good 😜 anyway great post!