top ten tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’d Gladly Throw Into The Ocean

This week I’ve decided to take part in ‘Top Ten Tuesday’ hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl again. I wasn’t feeling the TTT prompt of this week ‘books with names/character names in the title’, so I’ve gone for a far more petty topic ‘books I’d gladly throw into the ocean’ and I’m very happy about it!

The Thousandth Floor by Katherine McGee

An incredible concept for a YA novel, it’s just such a shame this is so awful. It’s full of too many characters, and all but one are whiny and infuriating, I honestly couldn’t stand reading from any other perspective. The drama is lacklustre and doesn’t live up to expectations, as it largely seemed revolved around one of YA’s copies and responses to Twilight’s Edward Cullen (and we all know bloody creepy yet boring he is). I just don’t understand why this book did what it did.

Loveboat, Taipei by Abigail Hing Wen

I can’t stand this book. I read this for a Buzzfeed series on this blog, and it was abysmal. This has an amazing premise of a young girl sent to a summer camp to learn Mandarin, but in reality the camp is a meet-market for teenagers instead, which sounds like it should be full of fun and romance. It was not that. It could have been great, but instead it was full of major problems regarding revenge porn and subjects like that which I couldn’t forgive. Read my full review here.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

I think I may have been too old for this book when I read it, yet I also still wonder if the entire YA book community was collectively drunk when they read this because why, why was there so much hype for this book? The romance is abusive, the girl becomes unnecessarily obsessed with a guy and the paranormal element is not even really there? Why did people like it? I don’t know, I just don’t get it.

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

It’s a big nope to this one. I read this for my English Lit A-Level, and it was a bad start to that study for me. This isn’t necessarily a bad story, and the characters are fine too I guess, but the nicest thing I can say about the writing is it’s weird. It’s full of repetitions, and bad symbolism, as well as an obsession from the author to label the vagina as ‘velvet’-like at every opportunity (it made my toes curl in a bad way every single time). It’s such a shame because I know Waters is so highly regarded for the rest of her work, and I just happened to read her dud, which means it’s got to go.

The Queen’s Assassin by Melissa De La Cruz

Another book from my Buzzfeed series, and another absolute flop for me. I didn’t really understand the plot of this book – not because it was too complicated – but because it didn’t feel very well thought out. Plus, this was super weird in the fact one character’s perspective was told from first person, and the other character’s was in third, which was really jarring and sometimes (thankfully) distracting from what was going on. Read my full review here.

Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Again, a book I read for my English Lit A-Level a few years ago, and whilst I did read books I ended up loving for that qualification, other books were like this one deserve to drown. This was far too long, and I appreciate what Hardy was attempting to do with rape culture way back in the 1800s, but boy did he miss the mark. I also hate the fact that Angel Clarke is viewed as a romantic hero from this era, because Angel genuinely deserves to die a very, very painful death.

A Love Hate Thing by Whitney D. Grandison

You may notice a bit of a theme running here, because this is another book from my Buzzfeed series (oh my god, Buzzfeed has bad taste). I couldn’t do this book at all, I just hated the characters and how entitled the protagonist was, and the story is stuffed full of harmful stereotypes; and there’s not even a discernible plot to hide these flaws behind! It’s an absolute no from me. Read my full review here.

Flame in the Mist by Renee Adieh

Because I’m an idiot, I actually read both of the books in this duology, and I hate both of them with a passion. The main character is irritating, the plot is irritating, the romantic interest is irritating, I was just irritated. This also suffers from the huge problem of telling rather than showing, so everything we were told never lined up with what was true or happening, and I can’t believe I made myself suffer though two of them.

The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger

This may be a well-loved classic by English teachers everywhere, but I got three chapters in and a red mist descended upon me, and I had the insane urge to rip the pages from my copy in an attempt to murder the protagonist. The gall of that man (which should hardly be surprising as men always have the audacity), but I couldn’t stand him, I just needed to get away and I need this book to sink in the waves and never come back.

Why We Broke Up by David Handler

I honestly don’t know what anyone was thinking when it came to creating this, there’s so little substance to it. The protagonist is some “quirky” girl who loves old movies and is obsessed with her jock ex boyfriend (who definitely wasn’t worth her time and energy by the way), and I honestly can’t remember much else about her. It made little sense, and I remember wondering why we got this whole narrative about her getting over some ass of a guy she only date for like a month? It was just bad.

Have I got it wrong? Are there any books here that definitely don’t belong on this list and you feel the need to ardently defend? Let me know!

15 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Books I’d Gladly Throw Into The Ocean”

  1. Haha! Love this theme 😀 I think it’s fun (and fine) to be petty about books as sometimes the things you hate about it could be something other people love and then they might pick it up on you not a recommendation. Totes agree about The Catcher in the Rye btw, made myself finish it as it was such a short book but I hated the main character so much.
    My TTT

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    1. I’m impressed you managed to push yourself through it! And sometimes we need to be better petty about books, it’s almost like a release – therapy almost 😭

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  2. Great change of topic! Some of these really made me laugh out loud—I totally felt the same about Tess (ugh, I hated myself for not DNFing that one!) and I also really *really* didn’t enjoy Queen’s Assassin. I thought that book was a hot mess and I was wondering how it had so much hype cos … Big nope from me 😂

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  6. Tess of d’Urbervilles is quite depressing, don’t remember much of it but I agreed with you about Angel Clarke.

    I haven’t read the other books but I’m convinced you are right about them. The characters in these books sounds annoying, that seems to be the thread for most of these books.

    Have a lovely day.

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    1. Yeah I think you’re right about annoying characters, they seem to be my insta turn off for a book. And for Tess, as someone who wrote plenty of essays on it, take it from me, there’s not a lot to remember

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