Jen's Disappointing Reads of 2016

As much as it pains me to make this list, I felt that I needed to because I had been expecting great things and I truly felt so let down by these books. Thankfully, there aren't too many of them!  

Burn for Burn trilogy by Jenny Han & Siobhan Vivian

This turned out to be disappointing because of the way that the series ended. I absolutely loved the first book and was loving the second book right up until the paranormal turn that this series took. Because of that change in plot direction, the third book felt completely different to the first two books and I hated it. I went into this series expecting it to be of the contemporary genre and one thing that I absolutely detest is when paranormal themes appear in contemporary realistic fiction.
I'm extra sad about this series because Jenny Han's books have never let me down before.

Shatter Me series by Tahereh Mafi

The love triangle in this completely ruined the story for me. It took over the story to the point where it didn’t even feel like I was reading a dystopian at all. Not only was I annoyed at who the female protagonist ended up with, Mafi did one of the worst things that an author can do by completely changing one of the characters. Turning one of the love interests into a complete prat just to manipulate the reader into wanting her to end up with the other male love interest (whom I hated with a passion) is one of my biggest pet peeves ever. It’s such a low move and it actually makes me hate the author and not the character that they destroyed. It was just so disappointing because this series is so hyped up and I actually enjoyed the first book. Pity it all went downhill from there.

The 5th Wave trilogy by Rick Yancey

   

This is also another hyped up series that definitely did not live up to, nor does it deserve the hype that it gets. Again, I liked the first book a lot and I also enjoyed the movie adaptation. Unfortunately, the entire series took a very unexpected turn in the second book that it never recovered from. The third book was even worse and I hated it. I didn’t like the storylines at all, they were boring and failed to keep my attention and I hated how it all ended. Major disappointment. 

 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

This one actually turned out to be a major disappointment because it’s such a well loved children’s book. I liked the story, but what ruined this book for me was the writing style. I could not get used to it at all and I struggled with the very long and wordy (and mostly unnecessary) sentences for the entire book. I wasn’t expecting a children’s book to be such a difficult read and I know that if I had tried to read it when I was a kid I could never have finished it.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

My problem with this book was the incredibly slow pacing. I knew going into it that it was going to be a very slow paced book, but I still wasn’t expecting to be as slow as it was. It’s such a shame because I liked the plot, but I still struggled so much to get through this book. 

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by John Tiffany & Jack Thorne

 

Like for many others, this so called eighth Harry Potter book was ultimately a disappointment for me. The main reason being that I was so excited to finally have something new from the Harry Potter universe, but it completely failed to deliver. 

I wasn’t bothered by the play format at all, so that wasn’t an issue for me. What I didn’t like was how some of my much beloved characters had been written. I really didn’t like the storyline, the plot holes, or how some of the magical aspects actually seemed to contradict what we know from the previous books. 

Overall, it wasn’t completely terrible, and there was actually a lot to like about this, but like many others, I think of it more like fanfiction and I absolutely would not consider it to be canon at all.