My book club specialises in reading terrible books and respectfully hating on them. It's a fairly new book club so we haven't had a chance to read something new. We've read Twilight, It Ends with Us etc. I'd love to be recommended books that were bad. I totally get that a bad book is quite a subjective thing. I think I'm looking for
1. Books that you think were well marketed but turned out to be overhyped
2. Books that were clearly lesser in quality than the authors previous work
3. Books that glamorise and normalise problematic themes
4. Books that are clearly inspired by other popular books and authors (Game of Thrones, The Hunger Games, Dostoevsky, Bronte etc) but failed terribly.
These are just some points off the top of my head. All terrible book recs are welcome!
by Charmingbabies
11 Comments
I personally loathed This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijkamp… it’s a god awful YA fiction about a school shooting. Does the issue a complete disservice on top of just being written poorly in general.
It has a pretty faithful fanbase among some YA readers but most everyone I’ve actually talked to about it also hates it 😅
Also the Powerless trilogy by Lauren Roberts is hilariously bad
Lore Olympus by Rachel Smythe
The series is a graphic novel that has neat artwork and it’s not boring but it does try to normalize a lot of creepy/problematic behavior from older men and women in a place of power.
If Lore Olympus was actually based off of Greek mythology and historical while not justifying problematic behavior there wouldn’t be a problem tbh however that’s not the case.
Oh boyyyyyy! I’m prepared for Reddit to downvote me but:
Fourth wing by Rebecca Yarros, my grand parents got it for me for my birthday (I’m 29, but they know how much I love to read)
I could not get past the first chapter!!! Think Twilight meets Hunger Games meets How to Train your Dragon
Throne of Glass series
A Court of Thorns and Roses series
Acotar is worse but they’re both bad
Not a specific book, but the podcast I Don’t Even Own A Television does exactly what your book club does. They usually picks books that are generally well regarded and pick them apart without being disrespectful.
You could use their backlog for inspiration! Off the top off my head I remember episodes on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Enders Game.
Any Colleen Hoover, particular It Ends with us. Fourth Wing. The Midnight Library, Orbital (it won the booker prize but might be the most boring book I’ve ever tried to read), the 3rd book in the Divergent series is an example of a book that nose dived after the others were alright.
Tbh most anything by Grady Hendrix 😥
The Perfect Marriage. I didn’t even finish it, but it is for sure over-marketed.
If you do science fiction, Ready Player One is probably the worst book I’ve ever read, to the point it’s really funny in places. Sits somewhere between number 1 and 4 of your criteria.
Snow Falling on Ceders