Popular YA Books I Didn't Like

Hey Guys,


I've been working on a blog post for about two weeks that I planned on posting today. Unfortunately, I've been having trouble taking the pictures with it as I've got an awesome idea for some outside shots, but it's been so cold and miserable in my city that we've literally still been seeing snow, and such, and alas, I haven't been able to take the pics for it yet.


So instead I thought today I'd like to talk about some of the popular YA books that I really did not enjoy.


Of course everyone's not going to have the same opinions on every single book out there, and these are the ones that just did not live up to the hype for me.


1) An Abundance Of Katherine's, Looking For Alaska, and Paper Towns by John Green:

John Green's book were ones that I had heard about over and over again, literally from every single blog and booktube channel I read and watch, and so I couldn't wait to get my hands on them, and get started reading. I still remember the day that I picked up An Abundance of Katherines and felt my hopes sinking right from the first couple of chapters. I couldn't get into it at all, I didn't like any of the main characters, and I found it to be so juvenile that I just couldn't seem to figure out what all the hype was about. Unfortunately, I had this same reaction when I read Paper Towns and Looking For Alaska, and I had pretty much just decided that John Green's books were not for me. On a whim though, I still decided to give The Fault In Our Stars a chance and I completely loved it, so this author was definitely redeemed in my eyes, but I didn't care for these three other books by him at all, and I definitely don't understand all the hype about them.

2) The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld:

I loved the premise of this series, and since I'm always up for a new YA dystopian read, I happily picked these up and jumped into this series. Unfortunately, it just wasn't for me. I found myself not empathizing with a lot of the decisions the characters were making, especially Tally, and I really couldn't stand how selfish and shallow her character is throughout most of the series. As well, I really wasn't a fan of the way the characters kept saying things like "stay bubbly" and the whole thing once again came across as really juvenile to me. I've heard amazing things about some of Scott Westerfeld's other books, and so I'll definitely be picking up more from him in the future, but these books are actually ones that are going to be included in a book unhaul from me in the very near future.

3) Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell:

From the first time I heard about this book, I couldn't get over my excitement. After all, it sounded like something that was written exactly for me, and I knew I needed to read it ASAP. Unfortunately, once again, it was not what I was expecting at all, and I really did not like either Cath or Wren as characters. I did enjoy some of the secondary characters, and the fact that the whole book basically revolves around the world of fan fiction, but this just wasn't the story I was expecting it to be, and it fell short of my expectations. I've read other things from Rainbow Rowell though that I really enjoyed, so I'll definitely try more of her books in the future, I just won't be rereading this one again anytime soon.

4) The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey:

This was another dystopian that I went into with high hopes. Alien takeovers are something that I haven't read a whole lot of, and ever since my obsession with the Roswell TV show, I'm always on the lookout for new alien books. This one just didn't do it for me though, and a huge reason for that was it was told from way too many viewpoints. I literally couldn't keep track of which character was telling the story at a time, and I felt you almost needed a diagram to keep track of what was happening to who. I really feel if this book had just been told from Cassie and maybe one or two others' points of view than I might have enjoyed it more, but as it is, I definitely have no urge to finish this series.


5) The Jessica Darling series by Megan McCafferty:

This one's probably going to be a surprise for a lot of people, as I literally don't know anyone else who didn't love this series. I made it through the whole thing, and the only book I actually remotely liked was the fifth and final book. Which honestly was kind of ironic since that's the one that most people didn't like, as they felt it wasn't like the rest of the series. My main problem with this series was with Jessica herself. I found her so mean and callous, and I couldn't stand how she was constantly making fun of the girls who were trying to be her friends. As well, I thought her and Marcus' relationship was obnoxious and had no chemistry that worked for me. I'm really disappointed by just how much I didn't enjoy this series, as I had so many people personally recommend it to me based on other books I'd loved.



If any of you guys have read these books I'd love to hear what you thought of them! And I'd also love to hear about any popular books that didn't live up to the hype for you.


I hope your week is off to a great start, and I'll see you all again on Wednesday.


Thanks for reading!


This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are my own. The photos do not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.