Top 5… books I DIDN’T like that others LOVED

Today’s Top 5 Tuesday is ‘books that I didn’t like that others loved’, and is hosted by the super lovely Shanah over at the Bionic Bookworm, and you can check out her page here (please do, she’s amazing). Shanah, if I get mobbed in my sleep over these unpopular opinions, I am blaming you! (Reader, I expect to get hate from you on this, so I’m apologising in advance!)

F*ck it. Let’s just jump right in.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is probably one of my most hated books of all time. I know it’s supposed to be this amazing love story, but I just could not get past how self-involved, petty and childish both Heathcliff and Catherine were. Even after Catherine dies (spoiler), Heathcliff is destructive and manipulative to their children.Also, I totally couldn’t figure out whether the children who were married at the end were related, but I believe they were cousins. Just. no. Please note, this is just the tip of the iceberg for me, I could go on for HOURS about how much I hated this book.

New Moon of the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer was just awful. I nearly stopped reading at this point, but the last book had just come out so I persevered (and the others were much better). Whiny Bella just really annoyed me and I couldn’t get past her living so dangerously because a boy broke up with her. Vomit. Get some self-respect, lady.

Last Chance Saloon by Marian Keyes makes this list, I am sorry to say chick-lit friends. I was DEEP into the genre when I read this, and I must say, I thought it was a total nothing book. And I’ve read books that had similar synopsis’, like Lisa Jewell’s Thirty-Nothing, and they were WAAAAAAY better than this one. The characters were bland and I just couldn’t believe that I still didn’t care about them 8000 pages later (or however long it it, it’s a freaking massive book). FYI, Rachel’s Holiday would make this list too if I wanted to do more than 1 book per author.

So, this is where we get to the difficult part, as I actually DNF’ed Assassin’s Quest (the third and final book in the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb) when I was about 15 or 16. I was super into high fantasy (there wasn’t a great deal of ‘YA’ around at that time, so I was reading Eddings and Feist from 12). I loved the first two books in this series, and was really trying with this one, but it was dragging like a basically comatose drunk person between two friends at 3am on a big night out. Like, I was doing all of the heavy lifting, and I just got sick of it, so I read the last page. I never do that, so it must have been pretty unamusing. Anyway, I decided that the last page was not worth the effort of continuing, so I mentally marked it as 1 star and moved on with my life. Now, I actually had a conversation with a friend about this in the last couple of weeks, and it turns out that the last page doesn’t actually tell you the ending, so how I thought it ended was not actually the ending. Therefore, I’ve actually agreed to go back and give this series another try, but at this point in time, I still hate this book (second verdict pending).

And of course, what would this list be, without the ever so contentious, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by JK Rowling and 700 other people (not really, just John Tiffany and Jack Thorne). Personally, I hated this book so much. It ruined the story of HP to me, and I’ve actually not picked up any of the original 7 novels since reading it. The storyline felt like bad fanfiction on crack, and then when Rowling released the Fantastic Beasts screenplays I totally went off her (although that didn’t stop me buying the illustrated copies of the books when they were released…). Basically, I don’t care what anyone says, this is not my canon.

So, there you have it. I could actually throw a few more out there… Special mentions to Cloudstreet by Tim Winton, the most boring book I ever read for high school; the Fifty Shades trilogy which was then turned into even worse movies; Shopaholic and Sister by Sophie Kinsella, who writes amazing books but doesn’t know when to end a series; and, last but not least, Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer, for writing a YA series about a Faerie chasing teenager, who I don;t think could have made a more unlikeable character if he tried.