So my friend and I have been doing a different reading challenge each month this year. Some are getting us to read something outside our usual stuff or even writing a book report for something we read. Our challenge for this month is to read a 1 star book.
Since I typically look for books I think I’ll actually enjoy, it’s been a struggle thinking of something to pick here. Please tell me about your 1 star books!!
by that-onebird
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Never by Jessa Hastings – So, imagine turning Peter Pan into a lethario frat boy, inserting a Temu Jamie Fraser (from Outlander) as Captain Hook’s long-lost son (including LENGTHY dialect passages), spice in constant infidelity, and a bimbo narrator that is obsessed with them, and you get your one star book. The entire plot is overshadowed by this exhausting love triangle. Meanwhile, also, the protagonist is not like those other girls. Dinnae maybe ye will lurve et, ye ken? Also, a 22 year old grooming a 17 year old and counting down until she turns 18 and another LI that tries to guilt the MC for a spicy scene. I swear this book was just awful.
The Last One by Rachel Howzell Hall. So terribly written it read like a parody. Currently has a 2.8 rating on Goodreads
Penelope by Rebecca Harrington was bad. Bad bad. Really bad.
Yesterday is History by Kosoko Jackson was also awful.
ETA: Must I Go by Yiyun Li is also up there for worst books I’ve ever opened
Lovers and Liars by Amanda Eyre Ward – prepare to feel wildly indifferent about everything and everyone
Weekends With You by Alexandra Paige – at no point are you given enough backstory on the cast of characters to have context for what is going on
The Book Proposal by K J Micciche – get ready for poop jokes and tina belcher style erotic friend fiction
The Pairing by Casey McQuiston – if miscommunication was a sport these characters are Olympic gold medalists
Attachments by Rainbow Rowell – this book is the very definition of ick
Quicksilver by Callie Hart is pretty bad. Also, unpopular opinion, I think the Women was 1 star. Come at me.
Lone Woman by Victor LaValle – I was so excited for this and so disappointed…
Eric Larocca’s Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke. Just bleh, slightly interesting concepts executed very poorly. Feels like he desperately wants to be the Bret Easton Ellis of horror but came out moreso as edgy Koontz.
The final girl support group by Grady Hendrix. Begging for the main character to die so the bloody book would end, fuck I hated this one so much but I refused to DNF at the time
Is one star actively bad or just dull?
The worst book I’ve read is Irene Iddesleigh by Amanda McKittrick Ros, which is also a serious contender for the worst book. The horrible writing style doesn’t quite hide the plot holes.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34181
Snow by John Banville Lots of people love this book, but I thought it was it was dreadful. Almost a parody of a certain kind of grim detective tale, every character was unrelentingly awful and the plot was cliched, the twists were cliched. But then you might like it!
The Atlas Six