So, I have seen these posts and videos circulate the internet a lot recently but as individual posts/videos. I decided I was going to combine the 3 topics as I only had a small number of books to choose from each category.

The Worst of 2019

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Fire and Heist – To me I felt incredibly underwhelmed reading this book. The book was marketed as a heist book with dragons. Well, the heist was practically non-existent! The training for the heist lasted a chapter and the heist itself lasted about half a chapter. I found the main character to be really privileged and annoying and the romance was boring.

The Boundless – To me I felt that this book was trying to be many things. A murder mystery, fantasy, magic realism, historical fiction and normally you can combine them pretty well but the story just felt all over the place and the structure was non-existent. Also, there was brown-face going on which I wasn’t a fan!!!!

The Catcher in the Rye – I was not a fan of the writing style. Stream of consciousness to me is really annoying so I just couldn’t connect to the story at all. It also made me find the main character irritating. I didn’t get very far into this book.

The Most Surprising of 2019

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The Long Way To A Small Angry Planet – I am not the biggest fan of sci-fi books which are similar to Star Trek and Star Wars where we go to numerous planets and meet loads of species. Hard sci-fi if you will. This is due to the fact I just lose track of what’s going on and who’s who. But I loved this book which was so surprising. I feel liked this novel due to the focus being on the characters and less on the world building. We follow the characters mainly on their spaceship and watch them interact with each other.

The Girl in the Tower – I was not fussed about the first book in this trilogy. I just didn’t connect with the story but I had heard really good things about the second book so I gave it a go. Well, I was blown away. I ended up loving the main character, the plot was so much more engaging and action-packed. I was so much more invested in the story compared to its predecessor.

Requiem Infernal – Another hard sci-fi book I was worried about. Maybe I should read more hard sci-fi as so far I am enjoying it. To me I loved the horror aspect of the book more than the sci-fi aspects. I did actually struggle with the vastness of the worldbuilding and political climate. I was quite overwhelmed with the names of a variety of military subgenres but I was hooked due to the horror themes and the internal of our main character. I wanted to see how it ended.

The Most Disappointing of 2019

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Equal Rites – I am a big Pratchett fan but for me this book fell flat. I enjoyed the first half a lot but when we moved into the second half and met some new characters I started to get really bored and I found the ending to be all over the place and I didn’t get what was going. It was a shame as the premise was really interesting.

The Wizards of Once – To me this all came down to the fact that I could not connect with the male protagonist. I was really drawn into the story with the set up of the world, the quirky illustrations but I found the male protagonist to be so irritating. The way he spoke to people, the way he treated people I was not a fan and I couldn’t be bothered to wait for the character development.

The Two Towers – I really wanted to like this book. I really did. I loved the Hobbit, I struggled through the Fellowship of the Ring and I heard that the last 2 books were great but the writing style just drained me. It was so dull and boring and I didn’t look forward to picking it back up. I will just watch the movies instead.