Top 5 Wednesday: Most Unlikable Characters (NOT Villains)

Top 5 Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sam @ Thoughts on Tomes and created by Lainey @ Ginger Reads Lainey. You can check out the group’s Goodreads page for this month’s topics!

This week’s topic is unlikable characters but they can’t be villains! So basically any main characters or secondary characters you found annoying or just ya know…unlikable.

Please note that these are my own opinions and I don’t mean to offend anyone who does like the characters I mention!

5.) Celaena Sardothien (Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas)

While Celaena isn’t the most unlikable character I’ve come across she still can contend in my top 5. My biggest problem with this character is that she is made out to be the kingdom’s most badass assassin and it just does not show at all, she spends far more time concerned about her cleanliness, clothes, and boys. Where was the badass-ness I was promised? I just found her to be really…annoying.

I feel scared because this is such a popular series but…

I’m basing this only off of book one since I have not read the entire series, let me know if she gets better later in the series!

You can read my full review here.

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4.) Zoe Redbird (House of Night Series by P.C. & Kristin Cast)

How did I manage to read so many of these books? They were pretty bad in my opinion and all of the characters were pretty intolerable. Zoe Redbird is the main character and pretty much all she cares about is…you guessed it, boys. Basically you have a bunch of sex-crazed, annoying teenagers and Zoe is at their front.

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3.) Alina Starkov (Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo)

Alina is probably the most special of snowflakes and it was annoying as hell. Not to mention the fact that she spends pretty much all of her time hating how attractive all of the other Grisha are compared to herself, because she’s “so plain and boring”. Almost every decision she made felt idiotic and it irritated me. All of that, for me, made for a very unlikable character.

You can read a mini review here.

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2.) Jace Wayland (City of Bones by Cassandra Clare)

This was actually pretty much a toss up between him and Clary, I find them both equally annoying but Jace won out. I found him to be too narcissistic and he was more or less a douchebag. Sorry but this guy was way too annoying for me!

You can read a slightly rage-y review here.

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1.) Bella Swan (The Twilight Series by Stephanie Meyer)

I don’t feel like I really have to explain this one, do I? It’s Bella Swan guys.

Have you read any of these books?

What did you think of these characters?

What characters do you find the most unlikable?

Let me know in the comments and feel free to leave a link to your T5W as well!

Hyped Books: The Good & The Bad

Hey guys! So today I’m just going to discuss a couple of really hyped up books in the book blogging community, ones that I’ve read at least, and share my opinion on whether I think they deserved all of the hype they got or not. Some of these are new and some are older series but nonetheless we hear a lot about them in this community.

I’d just like to remind everyone again that these are strictly my opinions and I mean no offense to any of you if you liked or disliked any of these books!

I will also link my reviews to all of these books as well!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #1) by Laini Taylor

This book and series may not be quite as hyped anymore since it ended but it is still pretty popular. Not to mention it feels like everyone who reads it ends up loving it! I’ve been seeing this series around for a while and with Laini’s new book “Strange the Dreamer” coming out this fall I decided it was finally time to see what the hype was all about.

Laini Taylor’s writing is absolutely gorgeous and I would read this book just for that but also the mythology, the plot, and the world building are amazing as well. I don’t think I found a single flaw while reading it! So in my opinion “Daughter of Smoke & Bone” definitely lives up to the hype.

Illuminae ( The Illuminae Files #1) by Jay Kristoff & Amie Kaufman

This one is a fairly recent release and so the hype is big especially since we’re all anticipating the sequel “Gemina” this October. Everybody seemed to have read this right when it came out and the reviews were a bit mixed, people either hated it or loved it. So of course I was extremely nervous to read it because I wanted to like it!

Long story short I ended up LOVING it! So for me the hype surrounding this book was worth it.

The Raven Boys (The Raven Cycle #1) by Maggie Stiefvater

Probably the second most hyped YA series out there, next to Throne of Glass. I don’t know but The Raven Cycle is CRAZY hyped, everybody loves it and talks about it all the time. Plus with the recently released “The Raven King” it was practically blowing up the blogosphere so of course I couldn’t stand it any longer and finally caved.

I didn’t think I would love this one as much as everyone else but boy was I pleasantly surprised! It was a ton of fun to read through and left me craving more and that craving caused me to go out and buy the rest of the series without question. Worth the hype? You bet.

The Wrath and The Dawn (The Wrath and The Dawn #1) by Renee Ahdieh

This one came out last year with the sequel being released this year so the hype was pretty insane. Seemed like everybody was reading it and loving it and giving it great reviews!

This book gave me the warm fuzzy feelings, it’s full of adorable-ness and magic. Rarely does a romance based book win me over but this one certainly did.

Six of Crows (The Dregs #1) by Leigh Bardugo

This book was a big deal last year mostly because it was a new series by Leigh Bardugo and her Grisha trilogy is very, very popular. Since I wasn’t a huge fan of “Shadow and Bone” I wasn’t really sure I would want to try “Six of Crows” but there were just so many glowing reviews that I was curious enough.

This is SO MUCH better than “Shadow and Bone” the characters are better, there are multiple POVs, the action is better, and the world building is more complex. It is a fast paced book and it’s just awesome. So when you hear everyone talking about how great “Six of Crows” is, listen to them.

The Winner’s Curse (The Winner’s Trilogy #1) by Marie Rutkoski

Lots of love for this series but maybe not quite as hyped up as a few of these others on this list. Don’t get me wrong it’s definitely a very popular book and series BUT we don’t hear about it as much as Throne of Glass or The Raven Cycle, especially since the last book of the trilogy came out this year.

This one I was a little leery about since it looks like it’s a bit too fantasy lite for me with more focus on ballgowns and dancing and boys. While there are elements of those things in “The Winner’s Curse” it most definitely isn’t the focus, it has some great action and politics. However, with this first book it pays off to be patient with it until the end!

Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass #1) by Sarah J. Maas

This was an OK read for me, it wasn’t horrible but it was not as great as I thought it would be either. This is probably one of the most popular YA series out there and so my expectations were pretty high and honestly I should have gone in with none so I wouldn’t be so disappointed.

Celaena was not as badass as the book promises which was my biggest pet peeve, I mean how hard was it to give me some assassin action? Celaena is apparently the deadliest assassin out there and it just doesn’t show. Overall the hype surrounding “Throne of Glass” didn’t really feel worth it to me and I might have enjoyed it more if there wasn’t so much hype.

Shadow and Bone (Grisha #1) by Leigh Bardugo

You’ve heard of the Grisha trilogy, right? Probably, it’s pretty popular and still is.

It has magic and is based off of Russian culture/folklore, how could any of that go wrong? Well it went wrong with the characters if you ask me that and some very light world building. Not worth all the hype it gets to me but maybe the series gets better? I’m willing to give the rest a try.

Truthwitch (The Witchlands #1) by Susan Dennard

This book was plastered all over Twitter for the longest time up until it’s release, then when it was released it felt like the entire world was reading it! So of course when you see a book that much everywhere you look you want to check it out, right? I did and I almost wish I hadn’t bothered.

It got pretty slow paced, lacked great world-building, and the plot had quite a few holes and left me with more questions than answers. For me a fantasy relies heavily on the world that’s built for it and “Truthwitch” didn’t really have that. Not worth the crazy amounts of hype it received and I don’t know if I’m even interested enough to read book 2 when it arrives.

Soundless by Richelle Mead

Not as hyped up as other books but since it was a book by Richelle Mead it still received a lot of attention. Did you read her Vampire Academy series? If you did you’ll understand why everyone was so excited for a new standalone book by her that was “steeped in Chinese folklore”. Yeah that’s how it was marketed and it was basically just that, marketing. This book really didn’t contain any Chinese folklore or mythology to speak of and there was next to no world building at all.

Big disappointment especially since I loved her Vampire Academy series a lot but I think I may just have to give up on any other books she writes.

City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

Just thinking about this book makes me want to rage. It’s HUGE of course since it has a movie and a TV series now and there’s also tons of books plus their spin off series. Too much if you ask me but then again I’m not a fan.

This book just failed to captivate me I was left wondering what the heck the big deal about is was. I have no interest in ever reading anything else by Cassandra Clare either since it seems she won’t write anything outside of the Shadowhunter universe.

Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

Don’t hurt me, please,I know The Lunar Chronicles is a super big deal! It seems to be yet another one of those books/series that pops up everywhere and everyone’s read them. I actually read “Cinder” a long time ago and didn’t really enjoy it because I thought it was too predictable. I mean the “big twist” at the end of it wasn’t even a little surprising and to me that makes the book a bit boring.

However, I do own “Scarlet” and it seems that that the series may get better so I’m willing to continue with it and find out.

So are there any books on this list that you thought were worth the hype?

How about not worth the hype?

Have you read any books that received crazy amounts of hype, not on this list?

Let me know in the comments!

Book Tag Thursday: The Pastry Book Tag

I was tagged by Michelle over at Book Adventures to do this tag, so do us both a favor and go check her blog out! This tag, as far as I know, was created by Writing On A Vintage Typewriter.

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1.) Croissant: Name A Popular Book/Series That Everyone (Including You) Loves

Harry Potter

Honestly, is anybody going to do this tag and NOT say Harry Potter? Usually I’m not one to read a whole series just because everyone else loves it, but Harry Potter is the only exception. The ONLY exception!

2.) Macaroon: Name A Book That Was Difficult To Get Through But Worth It In The End

A Song of Ice and Fire Books

Normally I wouldn’t have said any of the ASOIAF books were hard to get through, but since the question is asking to select one that was worth it in the end then I will definitely pick these books. Pretty much all of the books in this series are at least 1,000 pages plus they’re fantasy books with TONS of information. It took my a while to read each one but ultimately they were worth it in the end.

3.) Vol Au Vent: Name A Book You Thought Was Going To Be Amazing But Fell Flat

With as much love for this book that’s out there you’re dang right I expected to love this book! And it was awful, horrible, and tedious to read through.

4.) Pan Au Chocolat: Name A Book That You Thought Was Going To Be Something But Turned Into Something Else

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

Um…I usually know what a book is going to be about all the way through. So I’ll go with this book since I THOUGHT it was going to be all about zombies, killing zombies, zombies eating people, and running from zombies. What I did end up getting is a very touching and emotional tale about two brothers trying to keep their brotherly bond and survive in a post apocalyptic world. Are there still all of those other zombie things? Of course. I just wasn’t expecting all the feelings that came with it.

5.) Profiterole: Name A Book/Series That Doesn’t Get Enough Attention

This series needs more love! It’s thrilling, it’s gory, and it’s down right fascinating. Jasper “Jazz” Dent was raised by his father to be the world’s next greatest serial killer, but can he overcome this in order to prove to everyone he’s not his dad? Classic tale of nature vs nurture. If THAT doesn’t scream “Read Me” I don’t know what does.

6.) Croquembouche: Name A Book/Series That Is Extremely Complex

Okay first off I’d like to say you could use ANY fantasy series for this one, but since I already used the ASOIAF books then I’ll select something different. The Inkworld Series is pretty complex for something that’s supposed to be middle grade. There’s many different locations in the worlds and a wide cast of characters to keep track of.

7.) Napoleon: Name A Movie/Series That You Liked Better Than The Book

Literally none, I tried to think of some I really did! But there are absolutely no movies or shows that I like BETTER than the book.

8.) Empanada: Name A Book That Was Bittersweet

It’s about a girl who makes tapes of the thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. If this book isn’t bittersweet then I don’t know what is. I don’t read a lot of heart wrenching contemporary books.

9.) Kolompeh: Name A Book That Takes Place In A Country Other Than Your Home Country

I never realized how many books I read take place in the United States…..like almost every single one. I’m assuming they wanted a REAL country and not a completely fictional one so I’m going with Italy! Rome, Italy to be specific. I would absolutely love to go to Rome and I will tell you a completely geeky fun fact about why, because I love Assassin’s Creed II and Brotherhood. “Angels & Demons” amplified on that however, I love reading anything where Italy is the setting.

10.) Pat Au Choux: Name A Food From A Book/Series You’d Like To Try

Butterbeer from the Harry Potter Books

Yes, I know people make real versions of Butterbeer and no I have not tried it yet. It kills me on the inside, I must know what you taste like Butterbeer!

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I tag anyone who reads this post and wants to do it as well! Feel free to leave a link to your Pastry Book Tag so I can check it out!

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Definitely DON’T Recommend

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish

It’s freebie week, and I was looking for ideas and all I kept seeing were books I’d recommend for _______ and so on. So I’ve decided to do the top ten books I DON’T recommend. Now it doesn’t necessarily mean I HATED the book or anything, I just wouldn’t go around recommending them to people. Instead of 10 I only have 8, which is good right? It means I haven’t read that many books I dislike. Granted some are grouped into the series as a whole but that’s not the point is it?

8.) The Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer

 

Do I even need to explain why this is on here? Let me say this: I remotely enjoyed them while I was reading them in the 9th grade. THEN I realized how bad they actually were. I, like a sheep following the flock, was suckered into reading the ENTIRE series just because everyone else did. Is this series really that bad? No. Are there TONS of other books that are so much better? Yes. “Twilight” suffered from a serious case of the “over hype”.

7.) The (Entire) House of Night Series by P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast

These are all the ones I read, 1-9. How I managed to read 9 of these remains a mystery to me. Our MC spends the whole series getting with EVERY, SINGLE GUY. I’m serious. Every single one. She will sit there and flirt and wheedle her way into the hearts of all male characters, it is the single most annoying thing about this series. It is very clear that this series came out during “The Great Vampire Fad”. You get all the awfulness of that PLUS high school drama. Yay! (said no one, except me…sarcastically). If you want to read an AWESOME vampire series that deals with the high school aspect then please refer yourselves to Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy series. It’s great. I recommend that series highly…not this one.

6.) Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

“Cinder” is actually, probably the best book on this list (which is saying something). I can honestly say I enjoyed it more than these others, but I still had major issues with it. You can check out my full review of Cinder here for an idea of why I wouldn’t recommend.

5.) City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare

So many people LOVE this series and the hype (to me) couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d recommend going and reading “Twilight” before I’d recommend this one. If you want my FULL thoughts on this book you can check out my review here and then you’ll definitely understand why it belongs on this list.

4.) Fallen (Fallen #1) by Lauren Kate

NOOOOOOOOOOO. I haven’t even heard of anyone liking this book. Don’t read it! This is one of the worst PNRs out there, I’m certain. Lucinda (the MC) spends the entire book being gaga over Daniel (the douche love interest), and all he does is act like a dick to her and she STILL stalks the crap out of him! Take a hint girl and leave him alone! I forced myself to to finish this thing, the characters were all two dimensional. I could have gone and drawn a stick figure on a piece of paper and it would have more personality than these guys. Instead of me recommending this book to anyone, I’m going to recommend you go onto Goodreads and read all of the reviews.

3.) Spider’s Bite (Elemental Assassin #1) by Jennifer Estep

No, this is book is just….no. The description for this book sounds amazing, and I read the whole sample and it was amazing, but the book was…not amazing. It was actually really boring, and Gin (the MC) is not as funny, hot, or badass as she thinks she is. I expected to love this book but I hated it, even though it promises something unique it really is your basic run of the mill PNR. And I’m not really a fan of romance so that may explain why I disliked it. Point is, not a book that I would recommend…at all.

2.) Bliss by Lauren Myracle

This book is fucked up, it’s weird as hell, and nothing about it was enjoyable. That is a basic summary of “Bliss”, it is seriously messed up. I bought and read it years ago thinking I was going to be reading a good YA horror book, and man….was I wrong. All it was, was gross and not scary. There’s the whole “don’t pick on unpopular kids because they’ll commune with the dark side and fuck you up” thing going on, plus the whole “high school mean girls” thing. It was an annoying book, don’t waste your time with this one like I did.

1.) Night World, No. 1 (Night World #1-3) by L.J. Smith

“Night World No. 1” is composed of three short novels in one book, and they all drug on with the intensity of watching grass grow. In other words they were tedious and uninteresting. There was a lot of insta-love going on, and I found all the characters to be dull and undeveloped. I even read this when I was a preteen (which is definitely the target audience) and I STILL didn’t enjoy it. I’m fairly convinced that every other vampire/PNR related book out there is better than this one, including the others on this list. I wouldn’t recommend reading this book even if it was your only company on a desert island.

That’s my (belated) Top Ten Tuesday, are there any books you agree/disagree with me on? Let me know! I’d love to hear from you guys.

Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Characters You Just Didn’t Click With

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, this week’s theme is “Ten Characters You Just Didn’t Click With”.

This is both easy and hard for me to answer because I find a lot of characters to be super annoying or just bad, but coming up with ten that really stick out won’t be easy, but here goes.

10.) Ginny Weasley (The Harry Potter Series)

I don’t hate her, I just never really was a fan of her character. She was always just so….blah. If anything would have happened to her in the Harry Potter series I really wouldn’t have cared at all, I didn’t find her to be impressive. I will never understand why Harry wound up with her.

9.) Tris Prior (The Divergent Series)

Not a fan. I don’t really have a lot to complain about her …… I just didn’t click with her character. I didn’t care about her, I didn’t care what she did, I didn’t care that she looooves Four. I don’t care. She’s the reason why I STILL haven’t picked up the second book in the series “Insurgent”.

8.) Prim Everdeen (The Hunger Games Series)

I didn’t really think she was this adorable, cute, never do wrong little girl. We were supposed to feel so great when Katniss volunteers for her and then some other bad stuff happens and you have everyone going like this:

And I’m just like:

Because Prim is only there to make us like Katniss. I don’t like Prim. Sorry.

7.) Alice Dean (The Last Apprentice Series)

I don’t like Alice, if any of you have read even one book of the Last Apprentice series then maybe you’ll agree. She literally does NOTHING but make TROUBLE. And our hero keeps trying to be BFF’s with her when she is NO GOOD! I spend all of my time yelling at Tom Ward for trusting her! She acts like she wants to help but goes about it in STUPID WAYS!

6.) Sam Temple (The Gone Series)

He thought he was the shit. Just because you got super powers and you try to do good with it doesn’t mean you’re the world’s greatest person…..that is all.

5.) Iko (The Lunar Chronicles)

Now I don’t really like any of the characters from “Cinder” but the most annoying one by far was Iko, Cinder’s little android friend. She forgets that she isn’t human a lot and this isn’t as endearing as you think it’s just ….well… annoying. Yeah that word is really the best one to describe why I disliked Iko.

4.) Alina Starkov (The Grisha Trilogy)

One again I rant about why I dislike Alina Starkov, basically you can see this week’s segment of “Making Up for Monday” if you want to know why she made it on this list or you could see my review of “Shadow and Bone”. She really gets me all fired up…with hatred.

3.) Edward Cullen & Bella Swan (The Twilight Series)

Do I even need to explain this one? They’re both equally dis-likable, they act like the world revolves around them. We have Bella: “Oh no I haven’t seen Edward all day! How am I alive?!” And then we have Edward: “Instead of talking to her I’m just gonna go creep into her bedroom and watch her sleep.” That’s why I don’t like either of them. That’s the whole thing summarized basically.

2.) Zoey Redbird (The House of Night Series)

She is literally the worst heroine ever, Zoey is the definition of a Mary-Sue AND a special snowflake. If there’s a male character in this series Zoey HAS to get with him. I am dead serious. Every. Single. One. Why did I even read 7 books from this series?

1.) Everyone From “City of Bones”

Yep, that’s right. Everyone. They’re all horrible, annoying, and unimpressive. I just want to Hulk out and go into a rage just thinking about this sorry excuse for a book!

That completes my Top Ten Tuesday for this week! I now realize that I barely have any male characters on here but …oh well. So what do you guys think of my list? Do you agree or disagree with any characters?