There’s no such thing as a bad book … Uh, yeah there is!
There are such things as bad books – and by bad books, I mean the ones that appear written by twelve year olds. The ones that make you roll your eyes, shake your head, and dread picking up the damn thing to finish it because you can’t NOT finish it once you start. The only question is, how do these books make it through the publishing process? It’s mind boggling that such terrible books have caught an agents attention, made it to an editor, got picked up by a publisher and then pushed out into the public!
J.k Rowling wasn’t the best writer but her story was so great it didn’t matter. If she’d written Harry Potter in crayon on a piece of cardboard it still would have been epic. I’d like to say you actually have to try to create something great nowadays but according to today’s market that’s a big fat lie. Truth is, all you have to do is know someone that knows someone and you’re in, plot line be damned!
A list of known offenders are as follows: (the actual list is a bit longer, but I kept it short for blogging purposes)
1) The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld. The book takes place in the future – how do we know that? Because everything is prefixed with the word ‘hover’. Hover board, hover car, ect. Now that’s invented. My other complaint? How many times can you write the word “bubbly” on one page? I mean really. It’s called a thesaurus. Use it.
Great story line – poorly executed.
2) Shatter me by Tahereh Mafi-. Now, I’m all about a book series with a strong female lead. Oh, wait. There is no strong female lead, just a weirdo that can’t see to figure out what she wants to say. Seriously, this is a total x-men rip off with way to many plot holes. Why is Aaron in love with Juliette to the point of being an obsessive Stalker? Oh, right. Because the author tells us he is. Constantly. Okkkkkkay. The only reason this book was published is because no one ever thought to write a book with most of the text crossed out.
Original, sure. Good, absolutely not.
3) Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz. Here’s a new take on writing. How about we chop out all the important stuff – like the main characters breaking up, how they feel, why they feel that way, ect, and focus on the unimportant things, like a three page jet ski ride. Then, we can squeeze in some of the important stuff – like the proposal, falling in love, the huge battle – into two lines of text. Sounds like a good idea to me.
Well, it isn’t. It sucks. The book sucks. The writing sucks.
And the worst part – it rattles on inconsistently for ten books! No, I’m not joking. They published nine sequels to a book that should have been tossed into the slush pile after reading the first sentence.
4) Fifty Shades of Grey by E l James. Not even going to comment. I think Katrina Passick Lumsden has done a great job with that one. You can view her full post by following this link. Be prepared to laugh.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/340987215
These abominations overshadow actual good books that are well written, well plotted, and great reads. Many indie writers and self-published authors pen books a million times better than this literary crap – yet they remain unnoticed while the publishing world pushes this rubbish at us that would be better used to wipe our asses.
Agents and publishers- check out Scribophile. www.scribophile.com. There are tons of great, ingenious stories on there from authors that can’t seem to land a contract.
My picks for good young adult reading:
The Covenant series by Jennifer Armentrout
Anything Dan Brown has ever written
The Delirium Series by Lauren Oliver
Pretty little liars by Sara Shepard
Hush hush by because Fitzpatrick.
Fallen by Lauren Kate
Divergent
Good Adult Books:
Obsession by Jennifer Armentrout
The unit by Ninni Holmqvist, Marlaine Delargy
The Maze Runner series by James Dashner was good. Really good. It had everything- plot, climax, well written … But I didn’t like it all that much. Mainly because it wasn’t the genre I really like to read. So I would still recommend it because it was a good page turning book.
