My Top 10 Worst Books of 2019

“Once, there were four houses of France.”

First line in The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

Hi, guys and welcome to the first of my end-of-the-year posts. We’re starting with the worst books I read this year so we can get that out of the way. I didn’t hate very many books this year actually but I still wanted to do a top 10. That means that this list feature some 3 star books at the beginning. The proper ranting doesn’t start until you get a little further down the list. And yes, they are in order because I love lists. Number 1 is the worst book of the year. I’m also grouping series together even though I might not have given all the books the same rating. It’s just easier. Let’s get into it!

10 – The Broken Earth Trilogy by N. K. Jemisin

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Firstly, I want to say that I don’t think this is a horrible trilogy. It’s won awards and everything so I clearly don’t know what I’m talking about when I’m putting it on this list. I gave all 3 books 3 stars so no strong emotions from me. I thought the premise and world was very interesting but I never connected to the characters or the writing.

9 – Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

A very recent read and not the last Leigh Bardugo book on this list unfortunately. I ended up giving this one 2.5 stars. I went into the book pretty blind because the fact that it was written by Bardugo was enough for me. I guess I learned my lesson. It was filled with so many tropes that I normally steer clear of. I especially hate murder mysteries with a passion so this was really not a good fit for me.

8 – The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

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Hey, it’s Leigh Bardugo again. I honestly forgot that I read to many of her books this year. I gave Shadow and Bone 3 stars and the other two 2 stars. I didn’t completely hate them but I think it’s a case of these books not ageing well, and I read them too late. A bland main character with no personality and an annoying and ever-present romance plot aren’t things that will make me love a book anymore.

7 – The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill

A book that is recommended as similar to The Night Circus… guys, they are completely different books! Yes, The Lonely Hearts Hotel also has a circus (but very late in the book) and a soulmates kind of romance (although not as beautiful or romantic as in The Night Circus). The writing was also trying very hard to be beautiful and it very quickly began to annoy me like hell.

6 – The Smoke Thieves by Sally Green

I had so high hopes for this one because I really liked this author’s previous series, Half Bad. We follow 5 different characters which was too many for this book to handle. I also only really liked one of them. Besides that I couldn’t recognize Green’s writing style from her other books. In this one there was too much telling and less showing. I wasn’t allowed to do any thinking of my own. So even though the world and magic were quite interesting, I didn’t save the book for me.

5 – The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Just because we reached the halfway point on this list, doesn’t mean that The Nickel Boys is a bad book. I just didn’t connect to the story or the characters at all which meant I was quite bored all the way through. It still had some great insights into the Civil Rights Movement.

4 – Catching Stars by Cayla Keenan

I honestly remember very, very little about this book other than it was a struggle to get through. The book is less than 300 pages and it almost took me whole 2 months to read. That’s not a good sign.

3 – The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

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I read the first 3 books in the series this year in preparation for the tv show. That made me realize that I’m just going to watch the tv show from now on. That writing style is way too dry for me and I kind of hate every character because of that. The blatant sexism isn’t doing much for me either. I’m counting on the tv show to fix these things.

2 – The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

I SO wanted to like this book! It sounded so cool with the many parallels to Six of Crows but the execution of it was a mess. It left me utterly confused. It felt like the book was missing entire passages because the characters were moving around but I wasn’t told about it. Very weird to read. It’s also a book that feature a lot of cool inventions. They all just happened to be exactly what our group needed no matter how odd or unrealistic these inventions were. I needed it all to be a little bit more difficult.

1 – Grace and Fury by Tracy Banghart

My first read of 2019 and it was a 1-star. I hated practically everything about it. The characters that were trying too hard to be “strong female characters” and therefore weren’t. The “plot twists” that I saw coming a mile away. The way this feminist book kept telling me it was a feminist book. Please stop. I won’t be picking up the sequel.

Well, there you have the books I didn’t like in 2019. I’d love to bond with you over a shared dislike for these book. Also if you loved them. Then tell me what I missed when reading them. I will have a post about my favorite books of 2019 up soon. That one is a lot harder to do but also more fun. Have a great day!