Top 5 Tuesday || Books That Didn’t Live Up to the Hype

Well, it looks like this Tuesday is another one for being completely upfront about some of my more negative bookish feelings, so I hope you don’t mind some strong opinions, lol. But hey, Shanah @ Bionic Bookworm says this week’s topic is to point out the books that just didn’t live up to expectations, so that’s what’s going to happen!

1. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Sorry, Maas fans. It really wasn’t that good in my eyes, and I can’t believe I bothered to read three whole books before I trusted my gut and gave up on the series. I kept thinking “maybe this will get more interesting!” because I liked the CONCEPT, but pretty much everything about the execution was disappointing, whether that means it was boring or just made me angry.

 

2. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

You may have seen my post a couple months ago about how hard it is for me to DNF a book. Even bad books I usually finish, though I will DNF a series readily.

That said, I DNFed City of Bones about 100 pages in, if I remember right, because it was boring. I’ve seen so much hype for this series, and I can’t believe any of it because it was so dull to read what little I could get through. Even if people say that it gets better, I’m not about to slog through a whole book I’m bored by just to get to the good content.

3. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

So I actually reviewed this back in March or so, and it was…disappointing. I expected a lot more of the fairy tale aspects and a riveting plot, and I mostly got a half contemporary, half fantasy, rushed mess of a novel. Not great. Really, the only reason I gave it two stars was because the heroine was so angry and when I read it, I needed that anger on a personal level.

 

4. The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo

 

Look, I ADORED Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, but HATED Shadow and Bone. I barely made it to the end without DNFing it because all the characters rubbed me the wrong way constantly, and I really don’t regret dropping the series. I hear a lot of people praising it, especially people who either love the Darkling or Nikolai, but I really hated the Darkling, and never saw anything substantial of Nikolai. Basically, sounds like the series is very hit or miss, and it was a huge miss for me.

 

5. The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

 

GAH, I can’t stand being mean, that’s enough of that, and this one is a little more positive. Well, as possible as “it wasn’t as good as I thought it would be” can be. Anyways, this wasn’t a bad series! I did genuinely enjoy it. The problem is mostly just that the hype is SO MUCH, and honestly, it wasn’t quite that good. Like, it was good, but just good. Not great. I think a lot of my frustration especially comes from the fact that the ending of The Raven King felt like a huge letdown after all that build up. Also, there’s a few plot threads that were underwhelming, and I like my plot threads tied up nice and neat. Messy threads are no good in my book.

 

Man, that’s enough of that. Next week, we’ll go back to good top fives, and I can boot the negativity out the door again. Yes, that’ll be good.

That said…what books let you down after the hype?