The Library of the Dead by T.L. Huchu.

I did not like the main character, as she seemed very immature and was simply insufferable - I was just not vibing with the way she was talking and the way she was rude a lot of the time for no apparent reason. There were a lot of mention of the character’s ‘‘vag’’ and pubes… I will never forget the way the author wrote ‘‘Fanny flutter alert’’ when the main character saw a scenery that she thought was beautiful and impressive. All the more disturbing when you know the main character is 14 years old. That was a big no from me. I feel like the author tried too hard to make her relatable to younger people of our generation, and failed to do so.

Just no, thank you. I will NOT be continuing on with this series. 🥲

The House Witch by Delemhach. DNF at 67%.

I wanted to like it, that’s why I read so far. Wonderful premise. Cozy little witch just wants to cook tasty food but gets embroiled in the politics of the house he works/lives in. Unfortunately, it was written like mediocre fanfiction. It needed a good editor to work out the kinks and it could have been amazing. It sucks because I honestly tried to finish but I couldn’t read more than a few pages at a time without getting frustrated by the writing.

why do you finish these books if you hate them?

The Unheard by Nicci French. So many things made no sense. It’s one of those books you start skipping and scanning to see if it all pulls together properly somewhere. But no, just deeper into the weeds.

The Hitman’s Guide to Housecleaning. I was expecting a thriller about a hitman having to clean houses, or cleaning up a messy situation metaphorically, or something along those lines. What I got was mostly just a fat old guy whining about everything and somehow being popular with women despite being an awful and unattractive person, also kind of a story about Christianity kind of redeeming a person, but it wanted to not actually accept that that wad the story it was telling so it made the MC cynical and disbelieving every step of the way, even though that is kind of what ended up happening.

The title of the book was a throwaway joke, because the hitman cleans up the messy house of the girl he briefly stays with while on the run, also he convinces her to sleep with him and break up with her fiance even though he was literally a fat old man on the run from both A) the law and B) the criminal organization he worked for.

It was just very unsatisfying and felt kind of pointless.

I also read another book I really didn’t care for but it was an indie self pub about marginalized people, and so even though I thought it was pointless and kinda boring I won’t name it because I don’t want to shit on a struggling self pub indie person. But seriously, Authors, please let stuff happen in your books. Make things matter, please.

OP probably just helped sell a bunch of copies of The Ritual.

The City & the City by China Miéville

This had all the worst elements of the genres it tried to blend. The general concept was interesting but poor executed in all other aspects

I read a book called Verity someone recommended and the writing was god awful. I think that author is really popular too, which I guess makes sense.

Lucy By The Sea by Elizabeth Strout. A transparent vehicle for the author to process her feelings about being privileged enough to leave New York City in 2020 and ride out the pandemic in a rural area. We know the narrator is one of the good liberal white people because she feels bad about George Floyd (she tells us this), but is concerned that her adult daughter wants to go to the protests (she tells us this). She tries to connect with a Trump voter but eventually it just doesn’t work out. Of course, she can’t bring herself to name Trump in the text; he’s just “the current president.” Her daughter’s parents-in-law are bad people, which we know because they’re from Florida and don’t wear masks; of course, they get COVID and nearly die. Some of the locals in Maine don’t like her, and she has thoughts about this.

Don’t get me wrong – I, too, am a fairly privileged white liberal. But this read like a novel-length parody of a New York Times opinion column, except without the irony that would make such a thing tolerable.

Piranesi.

I’d heard such great things and I liked Clark’s previous books but I hated this. The MC was infuriatingly naive and the entire third act was nonsense.

Credence by Penelope Douglas.

Miss Penelope needs therapy.

Just the Nicest Couple - Mary Kubica. Just terrible.

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird by Augustina Bazterrica. It’s a short story collection from the author of Tender Is The Flesh, but the stories go nowhere. Some aren’t even stories as much as they are fragments of thought with no plot/action/resolution. I’m not sure if there was a problem translating this book to English, but the version you can buy from Barnes and Noble is awful.

Cleopatra and Frankenstein. Every character was pretentious and insufferable and they kept stressing just how young and teenager-like the fmc looked. Maybe this is part of a storyline where her male love interest turns out to be a p*do or something, but I’ll never know because I DNF’ed.

Going to probably get hate for this but- Neil Gaimans Stardust. Im thinking it could be because I’ve heard all this hype about it and everyone says it’s just the best. But when I actually read it I was very underwhelmed. I felt like it lacked a lot. Beyond being just kinda flat. Would definitely never read again.