Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books I Liked less than I thought I would

Ten Books I Liked less than I thought I would

A moment of silence for my terrible decision making skills (they exploded after I asked them to pick the best Top Ten Tuesday out of two hundred) may they rest in peace. Because of that I figured I’d do the reverse of the Top Ten Tuesday from two weeks ago, hey it was an option after all.  Guess what! It’s even in the order of how disappointing they were! Yep I’m actually semi-organized this week aren’t you guys proud?

Black Widow: Red Vengeance by Margaret Stohl

              Admittedly this is a very soft ‘nah’. I didn’t really expect too much from a book that’s based on a comic book character/movie character. Still there was enough potential for me to be a bit disappointed when it fell flat. Basically it was enough to merit its inclusion on this list. 

The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

              Pretty much every other Sanderson book I’ve read has received five stars! There were two big complaints that brought the book down. One, being that it was slower than Christmas my goodness and two, being that there was a heck of a lot of tiny unimportant romantic sub plots. 

Obviously, the Well of Ascension isn’t a complete disappointment I just noticed that it was one of the few that was less than five stars and I thought it was kind of funny.

The Second half of the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Mass

              My interest level went down exponentially from book to book. When the third one wrapped up with a dull cliffhanger about the characters going their separate ways I finally hit rock bottom and moved on. Apparently I chose well because many people have panned the next few books for completely changing the main character’s abrupt change in personality and a second love triangle. Glad a I got out when I did I suppose.

Croak by Gina Damico

              Look if modern day grim reapers don’t sound at least a little interesting to you then I don’t know what will. Croak seemed like a unique and interesting story and that coupled with the cover (despite having a real person on it) intrigued me. Well the world was certainly cool but the characters! Not only were they the most cliché characters to ever cliché 

their ‘super power’ was being super angry all the time and biting people for no reason. Why? The characters were just so frustrating I passed on the next two in the series.

The Last Dragon Slayer by Jasper Fforde

              In all honesty, I liked this book up until the end. The special snowflake trope is difficult enough to get right but when the last few pages present two special snowflake abilities I frankly lost interest. Not to mention the main bad guy of the story was a tossup between the media and ‘evil corporations’. I don’t know guys maybe I was just mislead by the title because for a book that’s supposed to be about dragon slaying it was a lot more like Dr. Sues. 

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare

              This book would probably be higher on the list if the cover didn’t sport an off-putting set of sparkly magical abs. I’d been hearing a lot of good stuff about these books (the world is fabulous! the characters are so hilarious! Etc.) and despite the horrendous cover I picked up the first one. The interesting world got me through said first one but I could not bring myself to read past the first few chapters of the second book. A resounding ‘No thank you!’ and an utter disappointment.

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

              This one was sad! I adored Six of Crows and I wanted so badly to love the Grisha books. But compared to the Bardugo’s other series they were just not that good. Coupled with lackluster characters and a drab romance I never picked up the second one.

Starflight by Melissa Landers

              Starflight sounded awesome, it promised a ship full of less than trustworthy criminals wandering around space and growing into a family. Now if that doesn’t ring any bells then you clearly haven’t seen Firefly. Unfortunately it was a very poor comparison. The crew was interchangeable with a captain that took up maybe 2% of the narrative. Honestly most of it was focused on the romance between the mechanic and the rich boy (now where have I heard that before). Too bad it wasn’t nearly as entertaining.

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

              I read this one several months ago but was so bored that I didn’t even write a review for it. I fell in love with the first books world and creatures and artsy protagonist. At the very least it was interesting enough to distract me from the insta-love romance. The second was simply unremarkable. And that’s exactly why it’s so high up on this list. Because it didn’t induce any feelings in me period. I almost would have preferred hating it to the complete and utter lack of interest that has taken over.

Everything by Holly Black

              I have a very consistent pattern when it comes to Holly Black. I fall in love with the blurb and it’s promise of modern day magic. I convince myself that I won’t completely hate this one. Pick up the book and hate it. Black’s characters are all terrible people. Unlike a select few authors, Black has never been able to make me like her characters. So far I’ve loved her premises but would have loved to murder the characters myself. 

Thanks for putting up with my confused ramblings. And thanks again to the ladies at the Broke and the Bookish for starting Top Ten Tuesdays you can check them out here if you're interested.