Flights of Fantasy discussion

What book/story did you read in 2019 that you wish you could erase from your memory??

For me, I think it was Hexes & Pros by J.J. Andrews.

Don't let the title fool you, it is NOT a Romance and it is NOT funny!

It's a very straightly written Urban Fantasy that just...irritated the living shit out of me.

The hero in this story is the Viking god Loki who has been hexed by a prostitute witch (why? no real reasons before I started skimming). Loki has been turned into a lawful good cop. Also hexed is Baldur into a homeless drunken beggar with VD and ODIN into a Catholic priest. *facepalm*

The story goes ON and ON and it's not fun and I kept reading because with a title like that and a plot like that... you expect the funny times. I HAD NO FUNNY TIMES.

Maybe it will be fun/funny to other people. I was just...unable to believe the flipping plot.

It was either The Power or that
Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories one.

I'd probably have to say The Power was worse, which is saying something...

I'll go ahead and say Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories. But I didn't read The Power. :)

Ala wrote: "It was either The Power or that
Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories one.

I'd probably have to say The Power was worse, which is saying something..."

Ditto, on both. Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories contained some not great writing, but it was just unpolished... it had potential. The Power contained pretty good writing, but the story, and the theme and concept and everything else about it was terrible and stupid and insulting.

Of books that I finished, here are my 1 stars, in order of least favorite:
The Power - Absolutely consider this to be my most hated book of 2019.
Scythe
The Tempest

Plus these that aren't FOF genres:
The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Ones) Saved My Life
The Killer Next Door


DNFs:
Island of the Sequined Love Nun
The Day of the Triffids
On a Red Station, Drifting
The Black Company
The Left Hand of Darkness
Recursion
Zone One
Ninth House

Plus these DNFs which aren't FOF genres:
The Anatomist's Apprentice - HF
The Right Stuff - nonfiction

I find it interesting and a bit sad that the majority of my dislikes this year were genre reads. :(

I'd forgotten about Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories (thank goodness!). Yep. That one is right up there. I think Hexes and Pros wins only because I mostly finished it.

But it's a pretty damn close race.

The only book I rated 1-star this year was The Mere Wife, so that wins for most hated.

I had several 2-star reads, including Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories (which I'd also forgotten about), but I think for "most disappointed" I'm going to go for the following 2-star books which were actually on my TBR list and, therefore, which I had higher hopes for:

A College of Magics
Amberlough
The Bullet-Catcher's Daughter
A Tale of The Children's Crusade: Free Country
Muse of Nightmares

I don't think I hated a single thing I read this year. At worst I was disappointed. But there were quite a few of those.

Of the books I finished, the sole 2-star was Gardens of the Moon. A fascinating world, with g*d-awful, near-unreadable prose (imo). I've now read the first two Malazans, and have the third one, so we'll see if I'm "two and done" as seems to happen to a lot of people.

A Memory Called Empire - I'm not mad, just disappointed. This thing was hyped so hard, and it didn't live up to it.
Sorcerer to the Crown - this one killed me, because I was 100% expecting to love it after thoroughly enjoying Cho's novella The Perilous Life of Jade Yeo. I ended up feeling tepid about it from beginning to end.
Jade War - Jade City was awesome!! But this one was mostly "okay" with only a handful of parts that lived up to the greatness of the first book.

In the DNF category I'm having trouble remembering them all. The one that first came to mind was Kushiel's Dart. I'm completely fine with the subject matter, by the way. But at about the halfway point I decided I wasn't up for yet another series that's a big pile of thousand-page books with decent, but not exceptional writing. Not its fault, really. I'll get back to it.

Ala wrote: "It was either The Power or that
Glimpses: 16 Short Fantasy Stories one.

I'd probably have to say The Power was worse, which is saying something..."

Speaking of Glimpses, I had to go back to that thread and re-read your review, Ala. LOVED It, lol.

I only got to read/finish 19 books last year and the lowest rating I gave - for six of them - was three stars so it seems I was a relatively content reader in 2019.

I think this group needs to stay away from short story collections.

Felina wrote: "I think this group needs to stay away from short story collections."


Seriously. Unfettered will be in contention for most hated of 2020, and it's only January.