2018 Favorites and Disappointments

A bit late but, hey, better late than never. In my defense, I JUST got to the point where I know how to use this crazy site and make it look attractive. So bear with me, here…
2018 wasn’t the BEST year in books for me but it certainly wasn’t the worst. My problem this year was getting caught up in a series that had 7 books in it. SEVEN BOOKS. WHY??
It would have made a huge difference had one of them not been drug out and beaten to death with it’s own spine, and the other was just… well, I hate to say this EVER about ANY book… but it was just awful.
We’ll get into that…

First, lets show you this cute little thing Goodreads does for you at the end of every year so you can get a feel for how many I read and such…

So let’s start with the bad. I always like to try and end on a positive note even when I’m talking about things that tried to outright murder me. And a couple of these books certainly did. But DAMN IT, I’m still standing!

Here’s my top five ‘most disappointing’ from 2018:
5.

I tried everything with this book to keep trucking through. I even bought the audible version! But I hated the narrators. So I was reduced back to reading with my own eyes. I think by this last book, I was just tired. Tired of the same shit on a different day in the story. The first two books intrigued me! I was soooo into it. And then King’s Cage came along and wrecked me. I don’t know what it was about the last two books that I loathed but I sure as heck wouldn’t read them again.

With War Storm fresh in our minds here, you shouldn’t be surprised that next on our list is King’s Cage. What a mess. What a bloody (literally), stupid mess. Mare has PTSD, she and Cal can’t just FIGURE IT OUT. It was a mess. I wanted more from Maven’s character and I never got that either. Which is why this book is here, on this “most disappointing” list.

This. Series. Dragged. ON. And it drug me with it. Why? Because I’m too proud to quit anything. Including terrible, awful books. Ok, wait, that was rude. This series wasn’t TOO terrible awful, but good lord I was exhausted after the 7th book. I know people who truly enjoyed the entire series from beginning to end, and while I admit, I connected to many of the characters, I was also incredibly over the rehashing of the same fight scenes over and over and over and… get the idea.

The Gender War… and the war in my psyche. Again: long, redundant, TIRED.

Annnnnnd the MOST disappointing book of 2018, ladies and gentlemen:

Not only was this a VERY disappointing book, but it was an INCREDIBLY disappointing series. I like to chalk it up to the fact that I couldn’t relate to the main character. She was always so worried about her hair and her makeup and if her jacket matched well with her pants. WHO CARES, GIRL!? There are fae shades out there that want to kill you and the guy who’s put you up in his bookstore for his own personal gain. Which, that reminds me, this was in the ROMANCE section of my bookstore… Where da romance at, man? This sweet little lady recommended the books to me and she was SO CUTE that I bought every book in the series. And that’s where I think the curse started. Never buy every book in a series, or it’s bound to be bad to you. Not to mention all these books were 600 pages long. Woo-hoo! Lucky me! 600 pages times 7 books of nothing but the main character fretting over breaking a nail and having to be rescued because she makes terrible decisions. Gag me with a spoon.

Now for the part I actually enjoy…
The BEST list.

2018 Best Books of the Year:

Sabaa you sly little fox, you…
This series was AMAZING. Nothing was all dreamy fairy tale nonsense. It was RAW. REAL. HEARTBREAKING. It was amazing. Just amazing. Just wow. There was death, there was love, there was tragedy… this book had everything. Even likable characters! Which seems hard for me to find these days. Do yourself a favor: READ THESE BOOKS.

This was a hauntingly beautiful short story. I wanted so much more than this. I wanted it to go on forever. It was so good. Dive deep into the mind of a sailor who has gone under a mermaid’s spell… I can bet you’ll never want to come back to reality.

This was a wild ride! I was constantly going back and forth when it came to who I thought was behind it all. People started dropping like flies and trust wore thin, even between best friends, married couples, childhood companions… And that last chapter… WOW. Maybe I’m a psycho but I smirked at that last bit.

THIS. This was so beautiful. The story of a girl who loses her mother and fiercely loves her father and siblings. A girl who feeds the spirit creatures just out of the kindness of her heart. The girl who tames the Frost himself. Frost was my absolute favorite character, by the way.
I was whisked away to another world and I never wanted to leave. I was literally yelling at people for interrupting me while I read this one. Such a great story. Can’t wait to read the next two books in the series.

In 2018, I found my new favorite book and my new favorite author. Rosamund Hodge. I haven’t found anything of hers that I didn’t like. But Cruel Beauty takes the cake. A dark spin on the classic Beauty and the Beast story, Nyx is betrothed to the evil ruler of their kingdom. No woman has survived the evil king. But when she arrive to his castle, he’s not at all what was to be expected. Ignifex is witty, charming, daring, and straight up cold. I LOVE Ignifex so much. He is, by far, my favorite character to have ever come from a book. Nyx just has to decide which is more important: defeating the evil king, or giving in to her love for him. This book was sad, it was funny, it was adventurous… I was in tears at one point and in the next sentence I was laughing my head off. I will be reading this one every year I think. It was THAT good.

Lastly I’d like to mention Rosamund Hodge and her short stories.
There are so many you can read for free here.
A few of my favorites were:
Rules For Riding the Storm
Desires and Dreams and Powers
Ways of Being a Mermaid’s Daughter
But World Enough and Time
Of the Death of Kings
Situation Normal
Don’t Look

Cheers to a new year and a whole bunch of new books to discover!