General Discussion

@SparkOfRuby: I thought I’d read the new Erin Hunter book for nostalgia and I don’t know if I’ve just grown up or what, but it was awful. The lion plot line was way too derivative of The Lion King, with him being adopted by baboons being similar to Timon and Pumbaa, even. The only character who remotely held my interest was Sky the elephant. Elephants are amazing creatures that deserve a better book.

A Tale of Two Cities is the worst. The characters aren't that interesting, it's hard to remember which character is which, and the language and long sentences it uses just make it impossible to read. I read a few chapters of the book before completely giving up and using SparkNotes for class discussion. I don't think anyone in my English class actually bothered reading that mess.



Then, for one of my birthdays my mom bought me the first 3 books from a series that...had something to do with dragons being paired up with the outcasts of society (who had reptilian-like deformities) and they were travelling somewhere??? It's been so long that I don't really remember the plot, but it was pretty interesting. However, once the journey started it quickly devolved into love triangles and that one trope where for some reason everyone is obsessed with mating.

I wanted to like the books, I really did, but at some point I decided I wasn't willing to put up with all the dumb love drama just for the few cool bits of worldbuilding.

I hated quite a few books that I've had/decided to read, but I really only want to mention these three.

I feel bad for saying this first one, but The Great Gatsby. I was extremely disappointed in the entire story and the characters, which I feel like were all very blatant stereotypes with very boring personalities. The values of the characters and their money were garbage, and I hated how much the characters were unhappy despite seemingly having everything except one little thing. Gatsby is rich and throws extravagant parties and has tons of admirers, but he's unhappy because he can't have Daisy, who's unhappy because she's in a relationship with Tom, who's cheating on her. But will they leave each other to be happy? Of course not! No, Daisy and Tom are bound to each other because of a child and money. And then there's Jordan, an athlete, who's the most basic female athlete ever? She's a much more masculine woman who also turns out to be cheating during her games. Kill me now, I never want to read this book again.

Next up is Magick by Mira Monroe. Her book was terrible for many other reasons, but the main one is still boring characters. The main character, Willow, is extremely awful. She's one of those characters with a very obvious tragic backstory who is also one of those super obvious Mary Sues. She's also a spoiled rich kid with a very horrid personality and some horrible thoughts and dialogue. Also, it's mentioned many times that she knows nothing about magic, but somehow she's able to do so much with it. Like, at one point she's on a beach alone, but she telepathically calls for her "Guardian" (another lame character that annoys me because he's stereotypically strong and protective) without ever having done it before. Then she goes into the magic world and automatically explains everything that's there and knows exactly where to go. And I don't even want to get started on all the grammatical errors and unneeded details and characters.

Lastly is The Grave Keepers, which had an amazing concept but a really bad plot. In it, everyone has a grave before they die, and they can decorate it however they want and go there to think. The main characters work there and blah blah blah, one sister doesn't get to public because another of the children died before she was born. Also, a ghost haunts their house for no reason and chooses to be awful to the family just because it can. They've done nothing wrong to it, they aren't on its land, and they didn't kill it, nor did their ancestors. They aren't even close to its body. There's also stereotypical high school drama with a popular girl (very Mean Girls-esque, since one of the main characters befriends this girl before drama starts). Just... horrible, simply horrible.

@ShadowTheEdgehog: The series you’re talking about would be the Rain Wild Chronicles (last word?) by Robin Hobb. I enjoyed them for the dragons, but yeah, in hindsight they’re nothing special.

I would say I have three that make my list but I'm going to rant about the most memorable/ terrible

One of those shape-shifter dragon series, (thankfully not the romance kind) anyways, I think the author had a reasonable idea but failed at it...

1. The world building has: elves, humans, centaurs, dwarves, and of course the shape-shifting dragons. The thing is, the dragons never reveal themselves, just chill in the only mountain range, and somehow are always neutral and never meddle with the outer world affairs.

2.So there's a prophecy that there's going to be a chosen one who will defeat a evil sorceress (who has no backstory on why she's evil, she's just there). Her grand plan to stop the 'chosen one' is to raise another shapeshifter to find and kill her when their ~16 or something.

3. So the chosen one turns out to be a 110% Mary Sue: can do whatever magic in the universe by thinking, already shapeshifts, chosen of the light, also her personality is 0- "I don't know how I do magic, but I do".

4. So the shapeshifter's have a randomized hatching system with a dragon form and one of the four races right? Well the normal races really don't hang out with each other so it's a bit conspicuous when a elf, dwarf, and centaur are together and being friends.

5. Gives them super fancy enchanted weapons from the start- I mean the elders of the dragons are wise and stuff, BUT make the characters work for it! They ought to either lose their weapons or work for it!

6. Overboard details- I mean some people are great doing it but this author wasn't- so I read plenty of fantasy/adventure novels so i kind of know what's up. But this author would say something like this: The yew bow was five hands length with a medium heft while being decorated with citrines, rubies, and diamonds. I literally only got half of that...

The absolute worst thing a fantasy novel can do for me is stack together tropes and biology that make no sense.

C.L Wilson's Tairen Soul series:

Guilty pleasure--I like fantasy and romance. Supposedly this series has it all but there's only so much inconsistent world-building I can swallow. Tairen are intelligent winged cats big enough to ride. They can speak, cast magic and sing to their kits in the egg while they incubate in the sands of a volcano.

At that point the whole fertility/soul-bond connection and how the Fey and Tairen have somehow forgotten how to breed healthy children (yes, there's some sort of inter-species relationship needed) despite living hundreds of years...nope.

@Nightwind What kind of DeviantArt nonsense is that?

Honestly, Catcher and the Rye. I just could NOT get through the first chapter. Kept getting to the bottom of the page and realizing I had no idea what I just read.

@PrehistoryMaker

Blame Leisure Fantasy Romance (subsidiary of Dorchester Publishing). There's at least three in that series the last I saw.

Sure, magical flying cats that can cast magic and talk. I can accept that in a fantasy setting. It's the egg-laying that made my brain break.

Did I mention they can breathe fire?