Four Things that Ruin Would-be Five-Star Books

By Jay Flood

As a reader, it is so disappointing when a book has the potential to be five stars but falls short due to a choice the author made. Reading five-star books is exhilarating and reminds us why we love reading so much. When you’re raving about how great the book was and cannot say a single thing was wrong with it, it’s the best feeling in the world. However, there are some books where it was almost five stars, but not quite because the author made a choice that ruined it. Here are four things that ruin would-be five-star books for me.

1. Endings

There are way too many books where the entire plot, characters, conflict, pacing, and everything else is just perfect, but the ending ruined it. If an ending is vague, rushed, meaningless, and seems like an afterthought to the author, the whole book is ruined and you feel like you wasted so much time reading it. When finishing a book, it is easy to tell if the author wrote the book with the ending in mind, or if they wrote the book based on a really cool plot and characters but never really thought about the ending until they got there. The ending is supposed to wrap up all loose ends, provide satisfying character arcs, resolve conflicts, and have been built up from the beginning. At the end of a book, readers should be able to look back through the book and find foreshadowing and hints of how it would end. 

A great example of this is The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard. Spoilers: One of the main internal conflicts the main character has is trusting people. She trusts one prince over the other and believes he is helping her, but at the end of the book he is revealed to be the villain. In any other book, this probably would have been obvious. However, because it took a while for the main character to trust him, we grew to trust him, too. He didn’t just manipulate the main character, he manipulated us, too. After the reveal, readers could look back and see the foreshadowing and understand how this happened. The ending was a good ending because it wrapped up loose ends, was not vague, did not feel rushed, and was clearly planned. 

A good example of a bad ending is Lore by Alexandra Bracken. The entire book was incredible and would have been five stars if it weren’t for the ending. The ending was very vague and confusing, which left me unsatisfied and I still am unsure exactly what happened, which is disappointing. The plot, conflicts, characters, pacing, and buildup were incredible and I was sure the entire book I was going to rate it five stars, and I think I actually did end up giving it five stars but in my head, it’s more like 4.9 stars. Seriously, if the ending was detailed and clear, I would feel much more confident giving it five stars. But, I could tell the author didn’t really think of the ending until she got there, so it was vague and confusing.

2. Botched romance subplot

First of all, I am not a romance reader. I rarely read romance books, and when I do it’s because I want something lighthearted to read and I never fully enjoy it anyway. Romance subplots can be good, though, but only if it’s done right. The issue occurs when the romance subplot becomes more important than the conflict, plot, world-building, etc. Unfortunately, there are so many examples of this. The Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth is a dystopian series set in a futuristic Chicago with an interesting society. They are split into factions based on their personality types, but there are some who don’t fit into these categories and they are quietly executed in order to maintain the societal structure. This is such an interesting concept and would have been an incredible series, but the romance subplot became more important to the author than the cool dystopian society she created and the point of it. 

Dystopian books are supposed to comment on and critique modern society in a futuristic setting. There is supposed to be a point and a reason why it matters. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins does an amazing job of drawing parallels between our society and theirs while still having a romance subplot that directly affects the plot, not the other way around. However, the Divergent series shows the romance being affected by the dystopian world, which ruins the book for me. The romance should add to the plot, not be the plot in a cool world with an interesting conflict. 

Two other examples of this are The Maze Runner trilogy by James Dashner and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children trilogy by Ransom Riggs. Both trilogies have incredible world-building and should have been developed much more. However, after the first book, the romances were focused on so much more than the conflict they were facing. The main character in The Maze Runner trilogy is in a love triangle in the second and third books and this dilemma takes up most of his inner thoughts, instead of what’s going on around him. The main character in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children pretty much is only thinking about his love interest, even during the intense action scenes. The romance subplot in Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children was so awful that I would complain out loud and roll my eyes at least once a scene. 

These books are supposed to be dystopian, science fiction, and fantasy with maybe a hint of a romance subplot. However, they ended up being romance books with a hint of dystopian, science fiction, or fantasy. If the world-building and conflict were developed fully and properly, these books could have all been five stars because the concept was so cool. But because the author decided a cliché, shallow romance was more important than the incredibly cool concept they created, these books were not great.

3. Dual POV Pacing

When done right, books with dual POVs can really elevate a story and make the book so much more interesting. However, when done wrong, dual POVs can create a frustrating experience for the reader. Too many authors want to have cliffhangers at the end of every chapter to keep you turning the page, which wouldn’t be a problem if the chapter leading up to the cliffhanger was interesting and if the next chapter addressed the cliffhanger. However, too many authors have butchered this when using dual POVs.

In some of the books I’ve read with dual POVs, the chapter with character A will be so boring and anti-climactic until the last paragraph, which ends with a cliffhanger that makes you finally excited to find out what happens next. But then you turn the page to character B’s chapter which is also boring until the last paragraph which ends with a cliffhanger. But instead of getting to know more, you go back to character A who either doesn’t address the cliffhanger at all or mentions it in one line and moves on. Then the cycle repeats. Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo had this issue and it frustrated me to no end. If the author learned to pace the chapters correctly, the books would have been five stars. However, because the author was more focused on the cliffhangers at the end of each chapter rather than fully developing the plot in each chapter, the book was ruined.

4. Plot vs. Character balance

It is common knowledge that there are plot-driven books and character-driven books. I personally don’t care for character-driven books, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to like the characters in the books I’m reading. The lack of balance between plot and character development ruins would-be five-star books for me. I don’t really read character-driven books because I tend to get bored and lack interest. But when I read plot-driven books and the characters aren’t developed or likable at all, I feel no connection to the book. When the characters feel real, the plot is so much more enjoyable.

A good example of balance between plot and character development is the Good Girl’s Guide to Murder trilogy by Holly Jackson. That trilogy is a plot-driven book, but the characters are so developed that they feel real and you find yourself genuinely feeling worried about them. The plot was so intense and a page-turner, but I don’t think I would have cared as much if the characters didn’t feel as real as they did. There are many other murder mysteries or thrillers that I read where the plot was interesting, but I didn’t care at all because the characters weren’t developed, and therefore didn’t feel real. 

Ninth House’s sequel, Hellbent by Leigh Bardugo, is a good example for a book that lacked balance between the two. Even though the plot was really cool because the main character literally goes to Hell and back, I just did not care about the characters at all. The issue existed in the first book, as well, but it still felt like we were being introduced to the characters so it didn’t bother me as much. However, I still did not care about the characters at all in the sequel which made the book uninteresting and quite boring. A plot could be really interesting, but if you don’t care about who it’s happening to, it’s harder to care about what happens next. Because I didn’t care about the characters, I didn’t care what happened to them and because I didn’t care what happened to them, it felt like a chore to finish the book.

There are plenty of books I didn’t like for other reasons, but these four things are what will always ruin a book that I otherwise would have rated five stars. The ending, romance subplot, pacing, and plot vs. character balance make a good story great if done correctly. I would argue those might be the most important qualities a book can have. What good is a book if the ending is bad? If the pacing isn’t right, the book will feel very choppy. The romance subplot can completely overshadow the concept of the book if done wrong. If the character or plot isn’t developed, there’s a high chance you won’t care about the book at all. If I don’t care about the characters or plot, feel whiplash from choppy pacing issues, am annoyed at romance subplot overkill, or feel like I wasted my time reading a book because the ending was bad, I am unlikely to recommend those books to people or speak highly of them.