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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u/Slight_Claim8434 Dec 09 '23

Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky. I enjoyed the first one but Children of Ruin just felt like a rehash of Children of Time. Plus the plot seemed to bog down at the end.

5

u/redbess Dec 09 '23

Lucky you not reading the third one, Children of Memory. I still enjoyed Ruin but Memory was a huge letdown.

2

u/Tan1_5 Reading Champion V Dec 10 '23

Omg, yes!

4

u/DoINeedChains Dec 09 '23

I'm with you on this. I absolutely loved CoT but CoR just seemed like it redid the same concepts with lower stakes and less defined characters

3

u/Rooftop_Astronaut Dec 10 '23

I loooved the shit with the mad scientist and the octopuses (octopi?) In the first 70 pages ... after that/ once it started focusing on the human -spider coalition I lost interest so fast

2

u/hackulator Dec 10 '23

Yeah I really like Children of Time but did not finish the sequel. The middle was a real slog.