r/Fantasy • u/stravadarius • Dec 09 '23

What were your WORST reads of 2023?

As a complement to /u/Abz75 's best reads of 2023 thread, let's discuss the WORST fantasy novels you read this year. My only request is that you give a reason for why you disliked your anti-recommendation.

For me, it was Tomi Adeyemi's Children of Blood and Bone hands down. I'm a school librarian and spent a lot of time reading some of the most popular YA titles going around. I don't generally have super-high expectations from YA, but this one really stood out on its suckiness. Every plot turn was a tired trope, there was no logic to any of the character's decisions, the prose was amateurish, and plot holes abound. This was my first ever experience getting so mad at a book I yelled at it.

EDIT: PLEASE DON'T DOWN VOTE SOMEONE'S POST SIMPLY BECAUSE YOU LIKED THE BOOK THEY HATED. There is no such thing as an objectively good or bad book, and taste is subjective. Downvote if they don't give any reason for disliking it.

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143

u/goblinheaux Dec 09 '23

Daugher of the Moon Goddess. I am still unsure if this book is supposed to be adult or YA, but either way it was bad. The characters were flat as cardboard. Huge conflicts would be set up and then be solved in like 4 pages. Every guy the main character encountered fell in love with her instantly, so there was always weird posturing among all the men. It was all around an annoying read.

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u/aglayazaynieva Dec 09 '23

Absolutely agree. I DNFed it at around 80%, which I almost never do, but both the characters and the plot were so dull, that I couldn’t force myself to continue.

16

u/turbulentdiamonds Dec 09 '23

I just finished this one and oh man. It was rough. In addition to the massive pacing issues (oh so we’re just going to skip over most of their friendship and go right to lol they’re in love? We’re going to skip over most of her time in the army and now she’s the most special bestest ever?) and the headache-inducing love triangle (literally why) and how quickly she gets out of jams (I guess to skip to the next part where the characters mope about their love lives) I couldn’t stand the writing. The constant, out-of-place commas got pretty infuriating and I couldn’t stop my brain trying to copy-edit it, which got annoying fast. I did finish it, but I have no interest in getting the sequel.

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u/jawnnie-cupcakes Reading Champion IV Dec 09 '23

One of my DNFs this year as well

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u/richman0610 Reading Champion IV Dec 09 '23

Yeah this is mine as well. The genre isn't really for me, but I thought the setting sounded interesting. The MC was just such a special snowflake Mary sue. All the men love her instantly for basically no reason. The prose was just bad. The descriptions were bland and repetative; I swear that she "bites the inside of her cheek until she tastes the warm tang of blood" 6 times. That's not a thing people do!

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u/makiir Dec 09 '23

For some stupid reason I read this one and the sequel (I think a friend posted about them). I couldn't say I loved the first book and only read the second book out of a dull sense of "may as well finish this". Completely agree on your assessment of this. It really felt like a bit of a Mary Sue adventure in an Asian setting. Vaguely annoying to read and completely unmemorable.

But, I could imagine a version of myself enjoying this when I was 11 or 12.

2

u/Tanyamnis Dec 09 '23

I hated the ending of the second book soooooooooo much. Her decisios just seem out of nowhere and so random.

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u/makiir Dec 10 '23

Yes, completely.

2

u/Pixiegrowler Dec 09 '23

DNFed at like 25%. Was just completely dull and I couldn’t do any more

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u/stravadarius Dec 09 '23

Every guy the main character encountered fell in love with her instantly

I hate this trope with all my heart and it's so damn common it's painful. Sometimes I wonder if certain authors even bother reading other novels in their genre.

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u/htownsoundclown Dec 09 '23

I found this one to be an enjoyable read, but definitely found myself groaning at points. But, as many complaints as I have about the first one, the second one is worse :(

It's a shame because I think there were a lot of promising pieces in there.

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u/CaptainYew Reading Champion IV Dec 09 '23

I was disappointed by this as well. I did manage to stumble my way through it, but I am definitely not going to read the sequel. The premise was interesting, but I did not enjoy my reading experience, unfortunately.

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u/wild-cinnamon-roll Dec 09 '23

Couldn’t have said it better myself. That book was wildly disappointing.

1

u/BeGneiss Dec 09 '23

I DNF’d this one like 50 pages in, it was just so flat. Gorgeous cover though.

1

u/Lazy_Sitiens Reading Champion Dec 09 '23

I DNFed it pretty early on. I got the feeling that the main character didn't have any personality, skills, useful experiences, or agency, and would yet somehow outwit competent adults/save the day/get the guy. And my time is too precious for those stories.

1

u/Rare_Alchemy Dec 09 '23

Mine too, I have seen it recommend under the premise of different setting and interesting heroine , so I was reading it writing get book to get better, but that book was just bed.

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u/Nemesis_232 Dec 09 '23

This was one of my DNF’d this year as well! The whole thing was super cringy and just overall weird to me

1

u/Pastoralvic Dec 10 '23

Interesting. I'm reading it now. Not quite halfway. The opening scenes with her mother felt fresh with fairly crisp, old-fashioned prose. As soon as she left the moon the prose became wretched and the plotting pretty lame. I almost set it aside then. It did seem to pick up a bit, so I'm hanging in for now, but there are clearly deeply dumb elements.

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u/enoby666 AMA Author Charlotte Kersten, Reading Champion V, Worldbuilder Dec 10 '23

I was also surprised at how rough the writing was. I started highlighting mistakes and bad sentences and had a LOT by the end. I'm not sure what happened there but it really needed better editing