Wednesday 25 December 2019

The 10 Most Unpleasant Reads of the 2010's

Video in Swedish

I know some people say you shouldn't point out books that you didn't like or talk negatively about them. Well, listen here... I'll speak ill of books that I found were genuinely bad. I am allowed to express my opinion! And if you don't agree, that is absolutely fine. However, maybe this list can do good and spare future readers of the torment I went through? Whatever you may think, here is a list of the most disappointing books I read in the 2010's.
Note: Because these are all books that I rated pretty low, I'll just mention them in chronological order rather than bad to worst. So we'll go from the book I read first to the one I read most recently.


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After loving "Ruby Red" by Kerstin Gier in 2012, I stumbled upon this. I was looking for more time travel books at the time, so I picked it up in the store. I now regret that I did. With an average rating of 2.97/5 stars on Goodreads, this was a horrible book. The characters were unlovable, the story was boring, and some scenes were just sooooo bad that I still remember them clear in my memory even though it's been more than six years since I read this. If you enjoy life, stay away from this novel.

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The sequel to "Matched", which I didn't necessarily dislike, but didn't like very much either upon reading it. However, back then I was obsessed with finishing every series I started, and I was not about to make an exception. "Korsad" was a step down from "Matched". It was boring, slow, and not much else.

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Remember how I said I used to be obsessed with finishing series? This is a great example of that. I hated this entire series, from start to end, yet I was determined to see it through. These books were poorly planned out and written. The main character was a pain in the ass. This is one of few cases where the movie/TV series adaption is far better than the books.

Such a beautiful cover, yet such ugliness inside... This book had me intrigued with its promises of assassins, pirates, adventure, and a bad ass female protagonist. Well, she was winy and frustrating, the adventure was about as exciting as the forgotten pair of black socks in the bottom of the drawer, and and romance was dry like knäckebröd. Such a let down.

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A contemporary YA novel I had to read for school back in 7th grade. One of the protagonists, Sophie, was widely annoying and off-putting. I couldn't stand her, and I never would have read this book if I didn't have to. This is one of the books that have contributed to my scepticism towards modern Swedish YA literature.

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Aaaaah this was so bad and I actually had such high expectations. I read this for the 2014 BookTube-A-Thon (now known as The Reading Rush), so I don't remember the plot or my thoughts exactly very well. I do know that the writing style felt plastic and fake, the pace of the story was off, the characters were just embarrassingly bad, and the plot idea felt like a Lord of the Rings cheap knockoff.

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Mm, the popular web story turned published book. If only this book lived up to the hype. Alas, it certainly did not. The protagonist, though attempted to be written as bad-ass, came off as a damsel in distress who needed a strong man to protect her. The writing style was so repetitive that it felt like a broken record, as if the writer only knew how to describe things in one single way. Overall, this book had potential, especially with its setting in India, but it was so incredibly awful to read.

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I was reluctant to include this, because I also included "Allt jag inte minns" in my top 5 best books I read for school... but I cannot deny that I strongly disliked this novel. It's supposed to be a good look through the perspective of a young boy who is second generation immigrant, and it would have been great if it did that well... But I was extremely unsettled by the protagonist's crude language, which was extremely racist mostly towards black people and very sexist. I enjoyed none of that at all.



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This is a book that I actually won when I participated in competition over on another book blog a few years back. I was stoked to win the package of books, but this book was just not very good. I could not relate at all to the female protagonist. Though she was very different from me as a person, I believe that a good writer can have the reader sympathising with any character. This was not the case here. She was unpredictable, rude, and abusive.

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I looooove this cover, but the story itself was a total flop. It was supposed to be all about the eerie atmosphere and the dark, dangerous romance. Guess what is was? Clumsy, badly written, and absolutely sexist. There was one character in particular who would just spit out hatred towards women all the time and this behaviour was just excused by the other characters because 'that's just who he is'. Fuck that.

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