Four of My Least Favorite Books So Far This Year

By Jay Flood

Last week I shared my four favorite books from the first half of 2023, so this week I thought I would share my four least favorite. I have read 46 books so far this year and most of them are rated three stars. However, when I was looking through the list of books I’ve read so far this year in order to determine which four were my least favorite, I realized that I am very generous with my ratings. I realized a lot of books I gave three stars were books I really didn’t like, but I feel like it’s mean to give low ratings. I ended up changing books I really didn’t like from three stars to two stars, even though if we’re being honest they should be one star. But, I feel like that’s too mean. 

I did read plenty of good books this year, but most of the books I read this year were unimpressive, uninteresting, and forgettable. I tend to give any book that I don’t consider good three stars, when in reality I should be giving ‘forgettable but okay’ books three stars and bad books two stars or less. Making that distinction was difficult, especially because I really don’t like to be negative about something someone else worked very hard on. I don’t think I will ever talk about books that I think are objectively bad, because I think that’s cruel and worse than talking about books I personally didn’t enjoy. So, it’s important to remember that art is subjective and one person not enjoying something doesn’t mean it is automatically bad. That being said, here are my four least favorite books from the first half of 2023.

1. The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater (two stars)

If you read my review on the Shades of Magic (once this is published, add the link) trilogy, you know that the second book in that series put me in a reading slump. While I wasn’t reading any physical books because of that one, I still was listening to audiobooks. After about five other audiobooks, I decided to listen to The Raven Boys because I had been hearing a lot of people say they loved it. I got through the first book and didn’t like it, but I thought I would give the second one a chance. I got about halfway through before I stopped wanting to listen, so then I wasn’t reading at all, not physical books or audiobooks. 

To this day, I still don’t understand why people like this book. The main character, Blue, is the daughter of a psychic and has been told since she was born that she will kill her true love if she kisses him. So, she’s in high school and has never kissed anyone and she doesn’t really have any friends. Then there’s this group of private school boys who Blue hates and calls “the raven boys.” The raven boys are on a quest to fine a “ley line,” which to be honest I’m still not sure what that is. They’re looking for the ley line because they think the dead body of the “long lost welsh-king” will be found there and whoever finds his body gets magic or something. Blue’s mom and her mom’s friends and sisters are all psychics, but Blue isn’t. On a specific night every year they perform some ritual to see people who are close to death and Blue never sees them, but this time she sees someone. 

The person she sees is the leader of the raven boys and her mom tells her that if she saw someone it’s because either he’s her true love or she will kill him. Since Blue is destined to kill her first love, it’s likely he is both. So then the whole book is Blue being friends with the raven boys, even though she’s not supposed to, and trying not to kiss them. It’s boring and confusing. The way the book is written is just strange, too. It’s hard to explain but it almost feels robotic and devoid of emotion. I don’t like reading books that are stiff and choppy and I especially don’t like reading books where the actual plot is confusing and not fully explained or developed. I also could not stand the whinyness that came from Blue not being able to kiss anyone. The ending, which was supposed to be suspenseful, wasn’t interesting at all. I truly did not care about any of the characters or the plot at all. The second book was just worse and I couldn’t finish it.

2. The Wisteria Society of Lady Scoundrels by India Holton (two stars)

I read this book during a time when I wanted something light and fluffy to read. While this book is definitely light and fluffy, it also was boring and not for me. At first it sounded interesting because she comes from a line of female pirates. I’m still not really sure what the main conflict is other than that it has something to do with her dad and betrayal from other pirates. The main character is still considered a child and she complains about it a lot. Then this man shows up to kill her and her aunt, but he doesn’t. They fall in love and he helps her save the day. The whole book just felt like an old-timey cartoon with the most whiny and annoying characters. The audiobook was also read by a woman who had a very proper British accent, which someone made the characters seem even more whiny and annoying. This book just wasn’t for me.

3. A Flicker in the Dark by Stacy Willingham (two stars)

I’ve read two of Stacy Willingham’s books and I didn’t really like either of them. Her other book, All the Dangerous Things, wasn’t that bad. But A Flicker in the Dark was not good at all. The concept was great and I thought I had figured out what the twist was going to be, which would have been brilliant and shocking. However, the twist at the end was stupid. This is going to contain spoilers, so if you don’t want to be spoiled, don’t read the rest. This murder mystery features a woman whose father was arrested twenty years ago for being a serial killer. She’s now a therapist and about to be married, but teenage girls start going missing again. As the book goes on, she realizes she had run-ins with all the girls going missing. She starts thinking it might be her fiancé, especially when she finds a box of the girl’s things in his closet. 

I thought the twist was going to be that she was the serial killer all along and that she had some sort of psychological disorder that made her black out, and that her father covered for her. So many clues were dropped to point toward it being her. She could have easily put the box in her dad’s closet twenty years ago and fiancé’s closet now, she knew all of the girls that were missing, and she was prescribing herself medicine and drank a lot, which would explain black outs and missing memories. If the twist was that it was her all along, this book might have been five stars. However, the twist was that the killer was her brother all along. Her brother was not relevant enough in the story for him being the killer to be shocking and a huge twist. He was barely in the story and was completely forgettable. This book felt like a waste of time because of how irrelevant the murderer was to the story beforehand. It felt like reading a murder mystery where the murderer ended up being a complete stranger, which is not impactful and boring.

4. Something to Talk About by Meryl Wilsner (2 stars)

This was the first book I read this year, I actually finished it on January 1st. I listened to the audiobook and started it on the three hour drive to see my friend and finished it on the three hour drive back. I listen to audiobooks on 1.75-2x speed, which is why I finished it in almost half the time I was supposed to. The previous two audiobooks I listened to were Jeanette McCurdy’s memoir and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, which were both very dark and difficult reads. So, I wanted to read something light and easy for a change. I figured romance books are light, happy books that aren’t too complicated, so I looked through sapphic romance lists and chose this one because it seemed fun. 

A rumor of a relationship between a famous Hollywood director and writer and her assistant is started and spread by tabloids when a picture of them laughing at a red carpet event is captured. It seemed like it would be fun and interesting, but the books left me underwhelmed and uncomfortable. Jo, the hollywood director, is fourty-two years old and Emma, her assistant, is twenty-seven years old. I’m not sure if the fifteen-year age gap would bother me as much if there wasn’t also a weird boss-subordinate power dynamic. I also don’t think the boss-subordinate power dynamic would bother me as much if there wasn’t a fifteen year age gap. But the combination of those two things just made me very uncomfortable. 

This book has both Emma and Jo’s POV, which usually makes things better, but this time it made it worse. Emma idolizes Jo and puts her on a pedestal whereas Jo views Emma as very young and naive. From Jo’s perspective, Emma seems very whiny and childish and from Emma’s perspective, Jo seems very wise and like her being older makes her better than Emma. Emma also calls Jo “boss” very often, which wouldn’t be that weird except the context in which she calls her “boss” is always during quiet, almost intimate moments where both of them have to remind themselves that it’s inappropriate to have that kind of relationship at work. Then, when they finally get together at the very end of the book, Emma calls Jo “boss” in a sexual way which just makes me cringe and feel so uncomfortable. 

It felt like they focused more on the power dynamic and age gap more than they focused on the “Hollywood scandal” itself, which would have been more fun. I was expecting more of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, but this was not that at all. There were aspects of the book where they condemned sexual harrassment and the power dynamics that are abused in Hollywood, but they really only condemned this specific male director who made sexual comments toward Emma and apparently a lot of other women. It just felt like this book implied that only men can abuse power dynamics and age gaps, when that’s just not true. 

There’s a common misconception that abuse doesn’t exist in sapphic relationships and that women don’t sexually harrass or sexually assault other women, and that misconception is a dangerous one. So to imply that power dynamics and age gaps are only abused by men is harmful. I liked that this book dealt with those topics, but it felt like they were finding excuses for why it was okay for Emma and Jo to be together. I tried to like this book, and there were definitely some aspects that I liked, but the uncomfortable feeling I had the whole time wasn’t worth it. 

I hope I read better books for the rest of this year. I’m tired of reading forgettable and unimpressive books. My goal for the rest of this year is to get better at making the distinction between books I don’t like and books I feel indifferent about. Remember: it’s important to remember that art is subjective and my perception of a book might be completely different than anyone else’s.