My Goodreads account is a mess. I’ve had it since high school and used to just add whatever books were popular onto my tbr. It acted more as a bookmark to check out for later but it was all mixed with books that I genuinely 100% wanted to read as well.
At this point I haven’t touched that account in years because I’m lowkey kind of scared (I have almost 2k books on my tbr 💀). But I’m finally manning up to clear it out.
A lot of the stuff I added were YA, which I didn’t even find myself reading much as a teenager. Again, I just added whatever was popular or what friends were reading. Every time I bring up about not wanting something YA recommended, someone always gotta pipe in to say that YA ain’t only for kids, some of them deal with serious issues, etc., etc…. Like maybe it’s because I’m not in that community to know what people usually be saying about it but every single time, someone would jump in defend the genre like it’s their full time job. And I wasn’t even hating in the first place! Just didn’t wanna read it.
In the past year or so, I finally had some time to read a few of these old adds. And I still don’t want to completely write off YA but I do find myself disliking most of the ones I’ve read. I think the problem I have are mainly published during the YA boom around 2008-2016. I can only assume that publishers were high on money and were willing to slap the YA label on anything and sell. A lot of them are not holding up to the test of time as I’m reading it in the year of our lord 2024. So please, UNrecommend me some of the YA boomers. And then I can finally move on with my Goodreads life.
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Feel free to skip what’s below.
Here’re some of the YA I disliked. I’ll give brief explanation of my thoughts but nothing too in depth or I’ll never stop. I read them cover to cover so I have all the fuel.
1. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell – yeah it was pretty distasteful on how the race thing was dealt with. I cringed so hard when Park’s mom was throwing that tantrum. Character development was also lacking… it just didn’t do anything for me.
2. The Selection by Kiera Cass – Mary Sue meets Gary Stu. Characters fell flat, world building fell flat, writing fell flat, plot… was there even much to say for plot? Yes, it’s a series but this first installment just gave so much ✨nothing✨
3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline – I understand that a large part of its appeal is nostalgia for ‘80’s kids. But all those references aside, the characters sucked—except for Aech maybe. This book being in first person POV drove me insane, Wade was sufferable. The world building was wasted potential. The ending was unresolved.
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Now as a counter, here are some of YA that I liked.
1. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon – I read this one a while ago but did throughly enjoyed it at the time. It was cute. Madeline’s mom reminded me of some personal experiences as well as friends’ experiences. So this one was a nice little escapist fantasy that I do wish teenage me had read.
2. Matched by Ally Condie – this was kind of like a better version of the Selection. I actually loved Cassia, Xander, and Ky as characters. Their dynamics were well done. I wasn’t able to get into the second book in the series but by itself, I think Matched did a great job of setting up a bigger story.
I was trying to go 3 for 3 but right now I really can’t think of another YA that I found decent. I can still name a few that I didn’t like off the top of my head but I think I’ve written enough for the post.
Important note: please do NOT take offense I didn’t like your favorite book! It’s not personal. I’m just particular.
by zsaszagabor