Literature Worst YA book (or other) that you've read?

[apolla]

Okay, so I did alot of reading as a child/teenager/young adult. I don't read as much anymore, as I don't really have the time for it. Which does suck, but not the point of this thread.

I wanna know the worst YA (doesn't have to be YA, but that's the genre I read the most of) book you've read, and why you hated it.

Spoiler: Uninvited

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This was mine. The premise of the book is that this girl breaks up with her boyfriend, he sleeps around and then kills himself. But he's not dead, he's a vampire .He comes to her window every night, begging for her to let him in. She drinks, if I remember correctly, every night. At the end-- I'll admit it's been a long time since I read this book and I'm not reading it again-- she invites him in, but then I think changes her mind. I hated this book because there was no substance! Paper thin characters with a paper thin plot. I love vampire stories (except Twilight) but this always stuck with me as a horrible book that I shudder to remember.

 

[marshmarrow]

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas.

This book is praised as the Game of Thrones for teens, when the only thing it has in common with GoT is being high fantasy.

The overly descriptive paragraphs tend to beat around the bush when it comes to giving you a visual picture of the characters and their surroundings, with phrases like, "eyes like stars, hair of burnished gold." The language tinkers with the "old-world" lack of pronouns and verbs but it falls flat - every passage sounds like edgy poetry.

These books are meant for 12-16 year old girls, so I've already kind of aged out of the target market when the Court series became popular. The first book's story is every fantasy Beauty and the Beast-inspired roleplay or fiction on Wattpad. The heroine is Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games except she has Stockholm Syndrome, and her love interest is a sparklewolf.

I know this is relatively harmless compared to most garbage aimed for teenagers (Hate List and Delirium) and this series has a large following. I am just appalled by how anyone would dare say it's comparable to Game of Thrones.

 

[Cross]

I despised the Evermore books.

It's about a young girl who falls in love with an immortal boy. I was a lot younger when I read the series and wasn't a believer in putting a book down at the time. I used to think I should finish every novel I picked up. The couple in Evermore can't be together for one contrived reason or another and it goes on for several books.

One I read recently that I didn't like was Passenger. I feel like a lot of YA heroines are so bland? Even the time-travel and likable love interest couldn't save this novel for me. If you like these books, that's cool. To each their own. But they weren't my cup of tea.



I have read A Court of Thorns and Roses and I don't think the first book was the best but the second book was awesome. Everyone has different opinions so it's cool if we disagree. Also, Game of Thrones! Yes. I wish Martin would give us the next book already. One day, hopefully.

 

[marshmarrow]

Cross I read a different series of Noel's, starting with a book called Radiance. It's about what happens after a young girl named Riley and her family, except for her sister, die and how they live in the "Here and Now." Riley is given the task of helping ghosts cross over the bridge between life and death. Aside from some blatant pop culture references and the bleaching of themes that could take a darker turn, I remember it being a very clever read. Seeing how Radiance came out a year after Evermore, it seems Noel has improved a lot since publishing the latter.

I can't believe I didn't think of this earlier: Delirium by Lauren Oliver. Yet another dystopian romance riding on the coattails of Divergent, which rode on the coattails of the Hunger Games.

Delirium: Nuclear war makes the government evil. They say love is to blame. Our heroine feels love.
Divergent: Nuclear war makes the government evil. They say difference is to blame. Our heroine is different.
Hunger Games: Nuclear war makes the government evil. They say the people are to blame. Our heroine fights for humanity.

 

[Cross]

I remember Riley from the Evermore series. It's interesting you mention writers who improve over time. One of my current favorite authors is Maggie Stiefvater. She wrote Shiver which is a story about werewolves in the same vein as Twilight but she also gave the world The Raven Boys--which I think is a spectacular series.

Another series I didn't really like is The Selection books by Kiera Cass. The protagonist was stringing along the typical childhood friend character AND the prince like it was nothing. I barely got around to finishing that book.

 

[taliaangeni]

Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake. I don't recall why I dislike it but the feeling is strong.

 

[SandraDeelightful]

I don't think that I've read a YA book that I didn't like. But the book I remember hating the most was Like Water For Chocolate. It was required reading when I was a softmore in high school. I'm pretty sure that everyone, at least in my grade, hated it. A few years later, my younger brother read it, and he had the same reaction.

 

[Abendrot]

Easy target I know, but I hated Divergent. Beyond the generic tropes and terrible writing, nothing made sense.

 

[Moonshadow]

There are two I hate so very much I can't even describe. First is:

This book is so freaky and weird. Although the premise is cool with the idea of clones from dead people, they ruined the whole cast characters and plot. There is one thing in there I despise.

Spoiler: Not for the faint of heart

So all her 'friends' like to use these pills to basically have something similar to sex. They take it everywhere and it's gross when they describe it. Also, the main character takes one of these and starts kissing this dude in the water. Barely knows him, but she knows she loves him. People get addicted to it and it's basically the whole idea how the real one is better. Mind you I think all of these kids are 16. My memory might be fuzzy for this, but I think she gets pregnant too. Which is weird because SHES A CLONE!!!

Okay, the second isn't as bad. Just terrible writing and bad characters.

Now this was a huge let down. Beatiful cover, interesting storytelling dynamic, freaking Perks of Being A Wallflower backed it up. Perhaps this might be for you, but I hated it. The character just grows super unlikable and all she talks about is 'being like the cool kids'. It could have been great! But, it's honestly not that good and is a let down on too many levels. It was better than Beta though (it didn't really set the bar high enough to begin with.)

 

[Shazam]

Probably The Hunger Games. It's more or less just a toned-down version of Battle Royal that lacks most of what made that book good in the first place.

 

[KingofAesir]

I can't quite remember if it was a YA novel or not, I don't think so, but I absolutely despised The Witch Of Blackbird Pond for reasons I don't know. We had to read it as a class when I was younger and I just....couldn't bring myself to like it. The Salem witch trial time period is my most favorite setting but....aghh, I don't know, it kinda felt like I was being dragged along.

*shrugs*

I was younger, I might try reading it again to see if I can pin-point why I dislike it or if I'll like it now. The thing won a Newberry Award, man. Perhaps I was just a weird kid.

 

[taliaangeni]

Shazam Have you seen the movie version? If so, is it anything like the book? I watched the movie. A friend told me it was gruesome and a hella good movie. I hated it. All I remember is the kids professing their love right before death.

 

[apolla]

THIS PIECE OF CRAP

I mean look at the cover, it is so cringeworthy. The story tells about this gloomy girl who goes to vampire high school and has five friends all of whom develop an odd element power when they stand in a satanic circle (???)

She has a love triangle with her teacher and some blond guy and fucks them both

Then the oddest thing, one of her best friends is gay. Not that it is odd to have a gay character but the way he is described in the book is as "This is our friend Darren. He is gay. We are okay with it. He laughs gayishly. But we don't mind." "Oh look, there goes Darren. Our gay friend. We are not close minded so it is okay that he is gay." In each book she tells it a hundred times, always stating that it is not a problem. It is not the 1800s so why should it be?

I really liked the Marked series when it first came out, though to be fair I haven't read it in years and the way you describe the writing about Darren really makes me shudder. However, the fact that the series just dragged ON AND ON made me turn away somewhere around book six, I think?

 

[SandraDeelightful]

I just thought of Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. I've never read it, but a friend of mine did. She said it was one of the worst things she ever read.

 

[Mattt4004]

This book called H2o it was really bad. it had a good premise but terrible execution.

 

[farewell]

In retrospect, there are probably a lot of books I read and enjoyed that I'd hate if I read now. So the only books I can recall reading and hating as of the time I read them were Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, The Circle by Dave Eggers, and If I Stay by Gayle Forman.

 

[Kalopsian Dreamer]

I'll likely get a lot of hate for this..

Harry Potter.

I like the films, and I LOVE the idea of the book. So much so I'm a proud Hufflepuff and enjoy everything about the HP universe- but in terms of how it's written, the books aren't great. It has some great aspects, but ultimately, I can't stand reading them.