Most disappointing books of 2021 (& 2020)

I saw a YouTuber make this kind of video and thought, man, how come I've never done this before? I started compiling my list of favorite books each year on a different blog, but thought I'd do this list on this blog.

• These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong

One of my biggest disappointments of the year. I just didn't like it at all, after having it as one of my most anticipated releases.

• The Ever Cruel Kingdom by Rin Chupeco

This wasn't a bad book, but I loved The Never Tilting World and found this one just...meh. I guess it was because I loved the adventure plot of the first book, whereas this one wasn't so much about adventuring.

• Love Scenes by Bridget Morrissey

I guess I didn't have the highest of expectations when going into this book, since it's a romance between two white abled M/F protagonists, but it's been a while since I've read a book that actively made me feel like I wasted my time by reading it.

• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Okay, so I purposefully hate-read this book, but my god, it was awful. Nothing but trauma porn about a queer man of color.

• The Burning God by RF Kuang

I'm sorry, I just didn't like this book because of the ending. I was left confused by protagonist Rin's intended character arc, as well as confused about what the overall message of this series was supposed to be.

• Every Ruth Ware book

I started reading Ruth Ware's thrillers after I saw someone call her "the modern day Agatha Christie," but to be honest, I couldn't get through a single one of her thrillers. I would usually read to the 66% or 75% mark, get bored because I felt like not enough information was being revealed, and then skip to the end.

• The Guest List by Lucy Foley

I picked this up because several people had described it as an And Then There Were None-like isolation thriller, but it wasn't. I didn't enjoy this at all.

• An Unwanted Guest by Shari Lapena

Another thriller I picked up because it was compared to And Then There Were None. It was better than The Guest List, though that's a low bar, but I really didn't like the constant perspective-switching in this book.


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And, because I have no life, I'm doing a retroactive Most Disappointing Books of 2020 list (since I still remember most of the books I read ever since the pandemic started, haha):

• Tweet Cute by Emma Lord

I really, really disliked this book. I wanted an enemies-to-lovers romance that took place over a Twitter war, but this was honestly just a boring high school slice of life up until I DNF'ed it.

• Vanessa Yu's Magical Paris Tea Shop by Roselle Lim

I honestly loved Natalie Tan's Book of Luck and Fortune, so I was expecting to like this...and I didn't. I think it was because of the ending message, which left me confused as to what the entire story was actually supposed to be about.

• The Silvered Serpents by Roshani Chokshi

Apparently 2020 was the year of disappointing sequels/second books. I adored The Gilded Wolves, but The Silvered Serpents fell so flat for me that I didn't even want to finish the trilogy after that. I guess it was because I really liked the heist/National Treasure-like parts of The Gilded Wolves, whereas The Silvered Serpents didn't have any of that and its story structure just kind of confused me.

• A Recipe for Persuasion by Sonali Dev

I love me a Persuasion retelling, especially with BIPOC characters, but I found this disappointing, with a lot of odd narrative choices. The cooking competition gets glossed over, the main character has severe anxiety that magically disappears for no reason...yeah. Disappointing.

• Of Dragons, Feasts, and Murders by Aliette de Bodard

*groan* Why did the author have to comp this book to The Untamed? Because of that, my entire reading experience for this novella was me being pissed off that it was nothing like The Untamed. Sigh.