Missed the mark in 2017

I’ve told you my favourite reads for 2017, so now I’m giving you the disappointing reads of 2017. I don’t necessarily think they are terrible books, ok some are, but most just didn’t work for me.

Dishonourable mentions go to – Brooklyn by Colm Toibin and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn.

Now onto my top 5 My top 6 books that I didn’t love this year.

The Last Namsara by Kristen Ciccarelli – I feel bad about this one, it was repetitive and nothing really happened. I dnf’d it almost halfway through, so I gave it a red-hot crack,  I tried to like it, I was waiting for it to get good, but it was repetitive. All of the side characters were flat, the mc was a terrible sister and dragon hunter. We were told everything, never shown and it was repetitive. I was extra bummed about this not working for me because DRAGONS!!! Not nearly enough books have dragons.

The Girls by Emma Cline – I really didn’t like the writing style. Its one of those books that you get a couple of chapters in and just decide Hell No! It could be the most amazing story in the world, I just can’t deal with the writing. I can’t tell you what it’s about, because I didn’t get that far.

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell – I finished it, someone buy me a cake to celebrate because this was a chore. It was pretentious, it felt like the author was just trying to see how clever he could be.

Blackwing by Ed McDonald – This was a massive shock, I expected to love it. On paper it looked like a brilliant fantasy. The cover was perfect, the premise was fascinating, the western feel was so good I was reading the mc’s voice with a Western twang, and then I realised that I was over half way through and just didn’t care. I wasn’t interested at all. I’m the type of reader who usually becomes invested in a story and the characters, but  not this time.  The characters were completely flat and for me at that time it was enough to make me dnf it. I was just looking at my Goodreads thoughts and I still rated it a 2 star. I must have felt bad about dnfing it! If you can deal with 2 dimensional characters, give it a go because the world was amazing.

Truthwitch by Susan Dennard – this book has it all; bandits, assassins, witches, magic, a strong female friendship and zero world building. ZERO. It felt like a total waste of an idea. The execution was terrible. This was the book that made me stop reading ya fantasy for several months and rant to anyone who would listen about just how MEH ya fantasy seems to have become. I get that I’m not the target audience, but the audience isn’t dumb, they can handle 3 dimensional characters and an interesting story line with some world building involved at the same time.

And lastly my biggest disappointment for this year…. The Gunslinger by Stephen King. I read a lot of King this year, some I loved, some I liked and some were just big old piles of boring shit. The Gunslinger was boring shit. My reading experience summed up in a few lines; I was bored, I persisted. I was still bored, I persisted. I was bored and waiting for some Stephen King brilliance to turn it all around, it ended and I threw the book. I wasted a day reading that. I wanted to put it down so many times and dnf it, but I thought no, it has to get better, its King, he can’t write a book this bad can he? I should have put it down. He can write a terrible book.

And there you have it, my whingey list. What book didn’t meet the mark for you in 2017?