I know there are books that have underwhelmed me, books that have disappointed me and books that made me shake my head and think "What was this publisher thinking?!?!?" but not many that I can remember hating.
You see, even when a book has been disappointing, I can usually recognize the effort underneath. I can appreciate a piece of it: a character stands out as being especially lovable, a plot concept is extraordinary, the prose is beautiful, etc. Something redeems almost every book, at least to a certain degree.
On Goodreads, I've rated twelve books with only one star. Six of them are House of Night books. So, I am going to call House of Night the series that I hated.
I wanted so badly to like these books. They were hailed as Twilight-meets-Harry Potter, which, I guess is sort of true. I mean there are vampires (thus the Twilight reference) and they learn how to be better vampires whilst at a private vampires-only boarding school (substitute "wizard" for "vampire" and you've got Harry Potter). So, while the nuts and bolts of that marketing tagline are, in essence, true, it just goes to show that you can't always trust a marketing line because I cannot imagine books MORE DIFFERENT from Twilight or Harry Potter.
I kept waiting for these to get better, and I waited in vain.
The characters are terribly underdeveloped. By the end of book three or four, several of the characters were almost completely indistinguishable from each other. I couldn't tell you how a character would act in a certain situation, because there was no personality or depth. They were just paper-doll placeholders moving through the story.
The story is fast paced to the point of freneticism. Each book takes place over about three or four days, you really can't imagine how completely exhausting it would be to live life at that kind of pace, with a new disaster developed, adverted and forgotten in the space of half a week, and then repeating the process again immediately.
People complain a lot about how Stephenie Meyer took artistic license with her vampires, and those are not "real" vampires (Note to the world: vampires are not real. There is no way to write "real" vampires.). People ought to pay a little more attention to the crap that PC Cast churned out. Her vampires:
- become vampires sometime after their sixteenth birthday. They get a mysterious visit from a stranger. He points his finger at their head. They wake up with a tattoo on their forehead, denoting them as a vampire.
- must live with other vampires or else they die. If they do not get to the House of Night within twenty four hours of being marked, they die.
- can die from not being a good enough vampire. If they flounder in their vampire classes, they will start coughing up blood and then die. For reals.
- can die again and be re-born as even weirder vampires. This time with a red tattoo on their head instead of a blue one. This is different from the dying for reals that happens when they either do not get to House of Night fast enough or suck (no pun intended) at being a vampire.
- are all celebrities. They are our professional athletes, movie stars, etc. They are the best at everything because vampires are genetically superior to humans (even though they were all birthed by humans, but whatever). Garth Brooks is a vampire, in case you were wondering.
- become more powerful as they age. Their tattoo grows to demonstrate their vampiric strength.
- don't actually need blood. They just like it. They can also drink the blood of other vampires to sate this desire.
- all convert to a Wiccan-type of religion, worshiping a goddess and the elements of the earth.
I hated these books. I stopped after number five or six (I can't even remember because each one is pretty indistinguishable from the others) and gave them up as a bad time.
A blogging friend of mine posted a bookish meme, after reading it on another blogging friend's site. I can't not participate! This post was written in response to the 30 Days of Books.
The full list:
Day 01 – The best book you read last year
Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times
Day 03 – Your favorite series
Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series
Day 05 – A book that makes you happy
Day 06 – A book that makes you sad
Day 07 – Most underrated book
Day 08 – Most overrated book
Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 10 – Favorite classic book
Day 11 – A book you hated
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore
Day 13 – Your favorite writer
Day 14 – Favorite book of your favorite writer
Day 15 – Favorite male character
Day 16 – Favorite female character
Day 17 – Favorite quote from your Favorite book
Day 18 – A book that disappointed you
Day 19 – Favorite book turned into a movie
Day 20 – Favorite romance book
Day 21 – Favorite book from your childhood
Day 22 – Favorite book you own
Day 23 – A book you wanted to read for a long time but still haven’t
Day 24 – A book that you wish more people would’ve read
Day 25 – A character who you can relate to the most
Day 26 – A book that changed your opinion about something
Day 27 – The most surprising plot twist or ending
Day 28 – Favorite title
Day 29 – A book everyone hated but you liked
Day 30 – Your Favorite book of all time
