 Hi friends! Welcome back to my channel and welcome to the worst books of 2021! I'll be chatting about my worst books that I've read this year. I'm hoping that we're safe to kind of put it up a little bit earlier than the end of the year because I'm hoping I'm not gonna read any books of the worst of these ones. What would I hope? But yeah, we're gonna be chatting about all of the books that I did not enjoy this year at all. And what's worse, she's on her way to a special audience she hates. This year in 2021, I had three one-star books and ten two-star books. This is all one-star books and then some of the two-star books. I also like, I feel like when I hate a book, it's so traumatic to me that I kind of erase it from my memory. I'm kind of like, get out, we're not dwelling on the negativity anymore so I'm gonna try my best to describe these books to you. But who knows? But first, before we get into the video, I want to thank the sponsor for today's video which is Skillshare. 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Right, this is one of one of the books that's in contention for my most disappointing of the year, Hairprune Bridge by Taylor Adams. Now, if you know me, you will know that No Exit by Taylor Adams, probably my favorite thriller of all time. This is a masterpiece. This should be like fucking hung in the British gallery. I don't know. Like, it is historical. She's history. She is a moment, honestly. Like, how can you go from that to this? It genuinely boggles the mind. I don't understand. It's incorrect. It doesn't fit on my fantasy. I'm sorry, it's not happening. Thing is, this has a very similar vibe to No Exit, where it is a cat and mouse game. That's what Taylor Adams seems to write. Shame it wasn't done well in this book. So essentially, our main character whose perspective we're reading from, her sister jumped to her death three months ago off of this bridge. And she is going to kind of investigate the situation. She meets the policeman, the whole, sorry, policeman, highway patrolman, aka wanted to be a policeman, but was too shit. She meets the guy who last saw her sister alive. And listen, he's a liar, ma'am. He's a liar. Your honor, your honor, he's a liar. Your honor, he's a liar. So it is basically a cat and mouse game between these two characters. But we're also like, apparently she's written the story of what she's pretty sure happened to her sister. And it interspersed with that. But like, it's not like you're reading what happened to her sister. You're reading what Cambry thinks happened to her sister. So like, what is the truth? What is a lie? I don't know. This was just hella boring. It was so boring. There was a lot of standing around. There was a lot of like, let's drive here. Let's drive here. Let's drive here without much happening. And I just think it was very well written. I don't really understand what's happened with this book. Like, why was this allowed to happen when No Exit is a masterpiece? My mom has a conspiracy theory. She has a conspiracy theory that this was written before No Exit and has kind of just been rushed out as like another release from Taylor Adams. But really it's like an old book, like from the backlogs that he wrote years ago that's been dredged up. I don't know what anyone else thinks about that conspiracy theory, but my mom's pretty sure. It's a conspiracy theory that I'm actually interested in. It's just not it. It was very bad. It was very boring. And I was so disappointed because No Exit, again, like I said, probably my favorite thriller of all time. Another one that is in contention for most disappointing is The Islanders by Esfi Leonard. I hyped this book up. I'm so sorry. Before I read it, I was like showing it in every list. I got loads of you to read it and it just, it was not for me. So basically, this is like Love Island, right? If you know the show Love Island, our main character is going on it. She's an ex-police woman, which why is that always a thing? Why is that why? Why in thrillers are they always an ex-police woman? Like excuse me? She goes on a dating show and then one of the contestants dies and they find out that one of the Islanders is going to die like every hour until our main character figures out who the killer is. So it's very and then there were none vibes and I've just decided that doesn't work for me. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. In and then there were none by Ergotha Christie and this. You know when another death is going to happen, right? Listen, they're isolated mysteries. This should be my shit. But I don't like knowing a murder's going to happen in an hour. It does a real suspense for me. I know for some people it increases the suspense because you're like, who's it going to be? What's going to happen? But I'm just like, well then I'm not surprised. If I'm being honest, I'm a bit pissed off about it. However, one by one by Ruth Wehr is inspired by Anand and there were none. But the murders that they don't, they don't know when they're going to happen. They're a shock. You're shocked. You gooped, you gagged. You don't know when they're going to happen. So that works for me. But the scheduled deaths? And this book, I just felt like the perspective was a bit weird. I think, was it like a first person present tense? Yeah, it was. I don't think that works for me in thrillers. I've been struggling a lot with first person in general lately. I just don't think I like it that much. I don't think I really like first person. But especially first person present tense, weird, weird perspective. This, I just felt promised a lot and didn't deliver a lot. Next, a crowd favorite. The crowd loves it. The crowd loves it. I didn't. And then we're in the ashes by Salvador here. Sorry, sorry. I'm so sorry. You've got to be shitting me. You lied to me several times. This is like the story of Leia who's a slave and Elias who's a soldier and they're intermingling in this world where there's like this empire and like there's there's soldiers. Anyway, this is one that was like, because I'm going against the grain, I've kind of blurred it from my memory. But I just didn't really feel like this was written very well. Leia and Elias' little romance situation didn't work for me. I just can't remember anything about this, but it is it felt forgettable when reading it. I was disinterested. I was not entertained. I struggle. I've said this before. This is part of my awakening and realizing I don't really like dual timeline stories. I like dual perspective stories if we're following the same story. But like, I just don't get interested enough in either storyline. There's one that's obviously better. But the fact that we don't spend enough time with either of them, I get bored. And it just didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't like it. And I can't remember anything about it. I think this next one was my first two star of the year. It was Supernother by Marissa Mayer. Lovely hardcover, beautiful gowns, beautiful gowns. This is the final in the renegade trilogy, so I can't really tell you much about what it's about. But basically in the renegade trilogy, it's like superheroes. And Nova grew up with the villains, but she's masquerading as one of the superheroes. Here's the thing. They're easy reads, but they're not very good. Like, this trilogy is not good. As someone who when I was like 13 loved the Lunar Chronicles, I just felt like, okay, maybe me and Marissa Mayer could have something. I think I gave the first one three stars. I gave the second one four stars. But bear in mind the context around that, I'd injured my foot that day. I just read the entire book in one day. And I feel like when you're injured your foot, you're a bit sad. And it's just like a fun, light YA fantasy. So I feel like it fit the vibe I was in. This one, two stars. The ending to this was the most illogical, stupid fucking, like from the last 150 pages, I don't know. These people have, they, there's like, there's like 10 characters sharing one brain cell. 10 characters sharing one brain cell. I'm sorry. No. People acting in ways they would never act forgiving people for certain things, which would just, it would never, you would never, you would never in a split decision forgive someone for all the shit that they'd done to you. I'm sorry. It just felt like Marissa Mayer did not know how to end this story. She dug herself into too many holes and didn't fix any of them. So it was very disappointing. And I'm, to be honest, I don't know how I'm going to read any more Marissa Mayer ever, because I just feel like she was an author for younger me and is not an author for present me, and I can just accept that and I can move on with my life. Okay, one that we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about because I barely even know the title. The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. No. Nothing to say. Nothing to say about the game at all. Nothing to say. This was the most boring thing I've ever had to sit through. I'm sorry. I'm very sorry to any of you that studied this back in the day. It's about a salesman who is sad and disillusioned with his life and he's having a difficult relationship with his kids. And oh, it's very sad, very, very sad, very, very sad. We're so sad. Listen, I just talked my eyes to read across the page. This next one I was warned, right? Because I'd heard some bad reviews for it. I'd heard some pretty piss-poor reviews for it. And I still read it. I read it for a thousand dollars readathon, the weekend one, hoping for the best. Didn't happen. If I disappear by Eliza Jean-Bresier. Our main character loves true crime podcast. She's kind of like in this difficult situation, difficult path, crossroads in her life, difficult crossroads in her life. And then the podcaster goes missing and she's like, well, how can I fix this? I'm gonna go move into her home and try and figure out. It's crazy. It's crazy. I think this is crazy. So she turns up at this, her parents' home, this podcast's parents' home. And she's like, I'm gonna work on your farm. And um, is that cool? Listen, it's a case of an unreliable narrator not done well. Unreliable narrator is risky business, because it can make the whole story feel like a waste. And that's kind of what this felt like. It kind of all felt like, what was that all for? I didn't really like the writing the whole way throughout. I was bored as hell. I remember I was up in my office. I was listening along to the audio bitgrass, reading it physically. And like every 10 minutes, I was up in that speed by one decimal point trying to get through it faster. And then my last two star that's on this list, one of the most exciting murder mysteries for me this year was Marion Lane and the Midnight Murder. So this is kind of like adult steampunk Harry Potter. But like, we don't like that. But like, that's kind of vibe that she's trying to, it's trying to play off of that essentially, where these like these private magical detectives who live underground in London and solve these cases like basically, yeah, and they use magic and they're underground. That's the whole book. That's the whole book. It's set in the 1950s, first off, okay, in London. If you're going to be historical, you've got to give me some good historical atmosphere. If a book is set in Victorian times, if it's the 1920s, whenever that's got to be an element of the book, this book could have been set today. It could, there was no reason this book couldn't have been set today. So then I ask you, what is the point? Like it's not the vibe. Stop. This was a book for me where it seemed like the author. I think it's a debut. The author had a great idea. It didn't go anywhere, right? Like books need lots, particularly like murder mysteries, still is, things like that, need lots of twists and turns, need lots of layers where you're constantly like facing different directions and thinking different things. This was a straight line. It was a straight line. We had no diversions throughout the plot. Murder mystery book needs to be like a tree. You need to have so many like diverging elements to the book. This was a branch. And then we get into my three one-star book. I felt like I had more one-stars, but I'm kind of lucky I only had these three. First off, we have got The Fever Dream that is Only Love is Real by Dr. Brian Vice. So I read this for Kylie Jenner's favorite books video that I did like yonks ago. This man believes, what did he believe? I've blurred my memory. I don't remember love. I don't remember at all. I really don't. It was an awful long time ago. Oh, oh, oh, this is like, okay, yeah, yeah, I remember now. Let's take me a moment. It's like past life meditation. So he believes that he can like have sessions of people where they remember their past lives and like he guides them to this meditation and suddenly they can remember everything. And it's about how soulmates reunite. That's the whole premise of this book is about two patients that he had were remembering lives where they'd like intersected and then like fucking years after he realized, oh, shit, they were describing the same things often and they were soulmates. And they were roommates. Oh my god, they were roommates. It's about how we always with our soulmates in all our different lives. Not only do I not personally agree or like necessarily believe in what he is saying, but like, he needed a ghostwriter. He just needed a ghostwriter. He could not write. We went off on so many tangents for like a 160 page book. This did not need to happen. It was wild. It got one star because it was one of the most painful reading experience I had this year. I just had to like force myself through it. I hate when I have to read books like this for celebrities' favorite books. Why do you love this shit so much? Why do you love this shit? And why are you putting me through it? I just, I just, okay, no. The other two were actually books I was personally excited to read. Firstly, we've got Fable by Adrienne Young. I always thought this was a little mermaid retelling because of the cover, but apparently not. It's about this girl called Fable who is the daughter of like one of the most powerful men in this place called the Narrows. And like he abandoned her when she was a kid and now she's like going to try and find him. And she enlists the help of a young trader named West. So we all know where this is going. This gave me nothing. I was so bored. The writing? Not for me. Oh, not for me. No characterization. Oh my god. There was like a whole cast of characters in this book outside of Fable and West who were the lovers. Also, no chemistry. Zero, zilch chemistry. Nothing, nothing there. Don't know what happened. Yeah, there's a whole cast of characters. Even when I was reading it, I could not tell you one characteristic of any of them. Who were they? Like gent, and I got them all confused. I did not know who any of these people were. I was bored as hell. Like it was so bad. I could not believe how bad this was. It was also like there was no plot. This book did not follow like the kind of story structure a book needs to have in order to keep you interested. We were just coasting on one level, like at least Marron Lane in the Midnight Murder. We had, you know, a mystery we're working towards. We had some exciting moments. We are, we are one note, girlies. We are one note. The sprayed edges has more excitement in this than the book does. Here's the thing. This is like, I feel like a lot of people are quite like this. So I generally don't understand what is going on. Did we read different books? Did I have a malfunctioning copy? Like I don't understand. But yeah, it gave me nothing. Nothing happened. There's nothing to talk about because nothing happened. And then my final one star that I read this year was The Big Four by Agatha Christie. Now we all know I love Agatha Christie sometimes. We have a mixed relationship. I've given her five stars. I've given her one star. This was bad. This was the first book published after Agatha Christie went missing and she wasn't really able to write. And so this is a collation of short stories that have been published like in newspapers and magazines and stuff of this storyline repurposed into a book. And you can tell this was never meant to be a book. Agatha Christie probably never wanted to publish this because it was bad. Like I didn't again have that story structure that you need to keep you interested because it wasn't meant to be a book. Like this was supposed to be kind of short interesting short stories but made the reader want to like pick up the newspaper or whatever again next week or whenever the next story was published. So kind of each chapter was like its own little scene like almost like a five minute episode of something on YouTube. I don't know how to describe it. That had at the end a moment where it was like but that just doesn't make for a great book. And to be honest it could have been two stars but basically there's four villains in this and one of them is what the book calls a sinister china man. And just the racism in this book made it impossible for me to enjoy. I think sometimes with Agatha Christie there are elements like little elements in her books that are of their time right? That you're kind of you know able to recognize as being an attitude or a little slip of a sign of what the attitudes were at the time but it's not pervading throughout the whole book. But in this case with this character I really felt like it was and it stopped me from enjoying the book at all. Like I was just not I was just not capable of enjoying it at all. So yeah very disappointed because some people really like this and kind of like how comfy and silly and like you know short and stupid it is but for me it just didn't work. So there we have it. That is my worst books of 2021. A mixed list I feel like. Some books on here that other people kind of agreed with me on and like we're kind of universally disliked this year but some that people loved. I just don't understand but anyway let me know if you've read any of these and what you thought of them. If you've got onto the end of this video comment a water emoji for fable. Comment that down below and yeah let me know if we thought of any of these or if they're on your tbr and what you kind of think of them. I feel like maybe ember and the ashes is going to be the most controversial. I just didn't like it. I'm sorry guys. But yeah thank you so much for watching this video. Thank you so much for all of your support and engagement on all of my December content. I'm having literally the most fun. This is my favorite content to make. So thank you so much and I'll see you very soon in another video. Bye!