Tags: Calamity, Career of Evil, Divergent, Mind Control, Nevernight, The Fold, The Naturals, The Stand, The Truth Factory, Time Salvager
“Top 10 Tuesday” is a weekly meme by The Broke and the Bookish
This week’s Top 10 Tuesday post gave us the chance to be a bit snarky, which is always fun. We couldn’t think of enough books to fit a single category, so we changed the topic a bit. Hopefully no one will be too insulted by our opinions. 😉 Also, don’t let our complaints scare you away from these books – some of them are among our favorites!
LESS ACTION: „The Fold“ by Peter Clines
This is an amazing book that everyone should read, but it ends with non-stop action that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t fit with the rest of the book.
MORE DEATH: The „Divergent“ series by Veronica Roth
Let’s be honest: Wouldn’t life have been much less annoying if both Tris and Four had died in the first book of the trilogy so that „Insurgent“ and „Allegiant“ would never have happened?
LESS ROMANCE: „The Naturals“ by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
On one hand, this is an addictive read with a fascinating premise. On the other hand, it features a stereotypical YA love triangle that gets in the way of said fascinating premise.
LESS EVERYTHING: „The Stand“ by Stephen King
Stephen King’s best novel or a book with 1000 pages too many? (Spoiler: It’s the second one.)
LESS TALKING: „The Truth Factory“ by Cody McFadyen
Okay, the first part of the fifth Smoky Barrett was pretty disturbing and disgusting BUT it was at least also addictive and thrilling – Smoky’s endless talk with her psychiatrist in the second half of the book not so much…
LESS DISTRACTION: „Nevernight“ by Jay Kristoff
It’s hard enough to stay focused while reading without a 200-word footnote right in the middle of every other sentence to distract you. Fun idea, poor execution.
MORE MIND-BENDING TIME TRAVEL SCIENCE: „Time Salvager“ by Wesley Chu
„Time Salvager“ is without a doubt an entertaining time travel adventure but it could have been epic with more scientific time paradox mindfuckery.
LESS SUPERNATURAL: „Mind Control“ by Stephen King
Supernatural elements are to be expected from Stephen King’s novels, but this series was different. King held out until the very end, but apparently he just couldn’t help himself and added in a supernatural twist after all.
MORE EPICNESS: „Calamity“ by Brandon Sanderson
The first two books in the Reckoners trilogy were truly epic (the pun just never gets old…) but sadly this conclusion was rather rushed and underwhelming – especially since Sanderson has proven with his Mistborn series that he can do much better.
MORE ROMANCE: „Career of Evil“ by Robert Galbraith
Yes, you have read correctly, we’re asking for more romance IN A CRIME NOVEL. And don’t pretend you’re not hoping that Matthew bites the dust asap so that Robin is free for Cormoran ;P
Haha, I like how you did this prompt. Completely agree on Calamity (though I wasn’t a fan of the first two either). That ending really lacked a punch.
Thanks! 🙂 And yeah, it was pretty disappointing. Although I guess if you didn’t like the first two, there wasn’t much hope you’d like the third, lol.
I still hope that Brandon Sanderson’s new series that is set in the same universe will give more answers, otherwise the Calamity ending will be even more disappointing…
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂
LOL more death in Divergent because Tris and Four were awful. I completely agree. I have only read the first book in the Reckoner’s series and it was quite epic (lol) it’s sad that the epic levels deplete. I think I would like less happy endings in books. I want to be shocked and angry/upset for once when I finish a book!
Danica @ Shelves of Spines
I don’t know if I should recommend finishing the Reckoner’s series or not. I did really like the second book!
Haha, I know, it’s so rare when books don’t end happily, which obviously isn’t realistic. I can only think of a few authors who actually kill off their main characters. There are more who threaten it, but they never follow through.
Thanks for agreeing on Tris and Four, weren’t they the worst couple EVER? 😀
I hope you’re not discouraged now to continue to the Reckoners series. „Calamity“ was still a good and entertaining book but the ending just couldn’t live up to the rest of the series.
And YES to evil and shocking endings! I want to actually fear for the protagonist’s safety and not always be sure they’ll make it through the story anyway!
I love how you did this!!! I so agree for more romance in Career of Evil!!
Thank you! 🙂
Woohoo, I’m glad you agree about Career of Evil. I’m so impatient to see what happens in the next book. Sebastian and I aren’t 100% in agreement about how things ended in Career of Evil.
Thanks, we had a lot of fun doing this post! 🙂
I really hope book 4 will make some progress on Robin’s and Cormoran’s relationship, especially after THAT „Career of Evil“ ending!
Hahaha, I like how you did this one, too! I 100% agree with the Divergent series xD
Thank you! And it seems as if most people would have liked Divergent better if everyone had died. xD
Woohoo, come join the Tris & Four haters club! 😀
I haven’t read any of these, but I love the blurb you’ve written about each. I think these type of posts are my favourite to read. More snark, please. You can never have too much XD.
Thanks, Sarah! It was fun to write. I’ll try to get Sebastian to write more of them with me. 😉
You want more snark, you will get more snark! ;D
I did not enjoy the love triangle in The Naturals. You’re right, it did really take away from the story. It would have been nice for a certain character to accept that the protagonist wasn’t interested in him earlier on though. Great list!
I hope the love triangle is over in the next book! Have you already finished the series?
I have to admit that I didn’t found the love triangle in that book SUPER annoying because at least it was interesting to find out if the guys were psychopaths but I would definitely have enjoyed the book even more without the romance 😀
I really enjoyed Nevernight, but I have to agree – the footnotes took a good bit of getting used to, and even then I skimmed a few.
Yeah, I definitely skimmed a lot of them. /o\ I wonder if there will be as many in the sequel.
A few footnotes would have been okay, but that was just too much and too long and there were times when the footnotes made me want to throw the book against a wall, that’s how annoying I found them – especially because I felt like they didn’t add anything valuable to the plot.
The footnotes were most of the reason I stopped reading Nevernight, they got annoying! There definitely should have been more death in Divergent.
My TTT: https://jjbookblog.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/top-ten-tuesday-95/
I do think it was worth reading, but only because of the last 100 or so pages. So I guess you didn’t miss much. xD
I was really close to stop reading „Nevernight“, too, but I’m glad I read on because there were way fewer footnotes in the second half of the book so that I could finally enjoy the story.
I’m glad we all agree on Divergent XD
I definitely agree with you on Time Salvager – it was very good, but it could have been great! 🙂
Lauren @ Always Me
I hope the sequel makes up for it! Have you already read it?
Let’s hope the sequel will have some more time travel fun! 🙂
I love your take on this prompt! I agree about Nevernight – a lot of the footnotes seemed like unnecessary tangents, to the point that I started ignoring them. I do like the idea of stashing away the world-building somewhere other than the main text though, as it keeps the action flowing if you don’t stop to read the footnotes. Also, yes to more romance in Career of Evil! I might have cried ’noooo‘ out loud at that ending. 😛 Fingers crossed Matthew will be gone in the next book!
I just couldn’t ignore footnotes that took half the page, also I was afraid that if I stopped reading them I might actually miss something important XD
I definitely like it better when the worldbuilding is integrated into the story but in a way that feels natural so that you don’t actively notice the worldbuilding. In „Nevernight“ it felt more like „dammit, I want to give so many background information about this world but I just have no idea how to link them to the plot, so I just put everything into the footnotes“…^^
The ending of „Career of Evil“ killed me, especially because I still don’t know if I interpreted it the right way xD