Five Friday Favourites is a weekly event hosted by Amanda over at Book Badger. Each week she chooses a subject and everyone is welcome to join in and answer the question. Check out this link for more information and the future subjects.
This week the topic is Five Not-So-Favourite Fantasy Books. Any sub-genres can also be included in the topic, which is a big help! My choices don’t fall into just the fantasy genre, most blend into paranormal and urban fantasy.
Five Not-So-Favourite Fantasy Books.
Something that is guaranteed to get me looking at a book in a less than favourable light is repetitiveness. This can be in several ways, but the main annoyances I have is when a book follows the plot of another book very closely, or if there is back-tracking over things that happened within a book.
Sealed with a Curse
by Cecy Robson
Carrier of the Mark
by Leigh Fallon
Four out of the five books on this list are guilty of being incredibly similar to other books or TV shows. Carrier of the Mark is a Twilight rip-off. Evermore and Finding Sky follow the same structure we see time and time again in Young Adult paranormal without bringing anything unique to the genre. Sealed with a Curse is a mish-mash of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, True Blood and Charmed. None of these worked for me. I can live with and overlook a little familiarity, and let's be honest with the amount of books out there it's inevitable we will come across something that seems familiar at some stage. What really gets under my skin is when it's constant throughout the book. Or what's even worse: when you can put the timelines of two books side by side, and they are virtually identical!
Evermore
by Alyson Noel
Finding Sky
by Joss Stirling
The writing in The Night Circus is absolutely beautiful, and this to me is its saving grace. But, I need more than pretty words to make me fall in love with a book. The characters were not developed as well as the world, and I remember struggling to finish reading the book. I didn’t care what happened to them, and that's the point when I begin to think it's time to give up and move on. It was such a let down.
Great picks! I am actually happy to find all of these on here. These are all ones I have had an interest in at one time or another but not read because I felt they'd disappoint me or not be very good. I think I was probably right to avoid them all because they don't really sound like the kind of books I'll enjoy. Night Circus is still pretty tempting but I am still not really sold on it. Nice choices, here's mine.
ReplyDeleteThe first four I don't think you're missing out on anything. Night Circus would be one I'd say read if you're on the fence. A lot of people love it, but it didn't work for me. I love both connecting with characters and world building, but the characters always win out in the end. I can't remember their names, but they did absolutely nothing for me. It's billed as an epic battle - I didn't get that either! Thanks for stopping by, have a great week :)
DeleteWhattttt you didn't like the Night Circus? Well, then again I don't remember much of it. Time for a reread!
ReplyDeleteLOL, yeah, it didn't work for me. The world building and writing is beautiful, but the characters didn't work for me at all. Hope you love it again if you reread! Thanks for stopping by, Val.
DeleteI haven't read any of these, just I've HEARD of Night Circus and I really want to try it. Kind of sad the characters weren't well written. For me characters are like the GOLD of a book!
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by @ Notebook Sisters!
Oh do try it, and I hope you love it. I'm the same with characters: if I don't connect, I don't really like the book. I thought the world building was done so amazingly, and the writing was beautiful, but the characters felt non-existent in comparison. I was hoping to love it, but wasn't meant to be. Thanks for stopping by Cait, have a great week =)
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