Books I’d Gladly Throw Into the Ocean

Top Ten Tuesday is a book blog segment created by The Artsy Reader Girl to spread the love of list making about almost everything under the sun – especially books.

“Books train your mind to imagination to think big.”

Taylor Swift

I always believe in the great power of DNF-ing books. Nothing destroys the pleasure of reading a book than forcing yourself to read something that isn’t vibing with you just to finish it. I’ve DNF-ed a number of books in the past that weren’t at par with my personal tastes, but there are still some that had managed to escape being DNF-ed because I thought that the book’s ending might redeem itself. Apparently not.

This list contains the 5 books I would very gladly throw into the ocean without any regrets. I got really excited when I saw this week’s prompt, and it couldn’t hurt to feature some books that might make up its way onto this list.

Disclaimer: These are my own personal opinions. I won’t take it against you if you liked some of these books on my list.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling

The Harry Potter books have made a huge impact in my childhood and reading career, so while She Who Shall Not Be Named personally buried herself in deep hole constantly that ostracized her from both the book and writing community, I do still separate the books from the author in this case. However, when I read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the first time back in 2017, I was floored with how much I hated it. Sure, it still held the magical feeling of the world, but I just had a lot of issues with how the characters were projected into this story that it even offended my mother – who is an even bigger Harry Potter fan. Thank the lucky stars I just borrowed a copy from the school library, because I would really throw this book in the ocean so fast if I bought it for my self.

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Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

I first read Eleanor & Park back when I was still in high school many years ago, and I just borrowed it from my sister’s shelf. That time, she loved it, so I trusted her enough because even before then I wasn’t into contemporary novels. When I finished it, I got so disturbed and I really didn’t like it at all, because even with my small scope in reading, this book was so racist and presented an image that would offend both the Asian community and mental health advocates. I could never get what people found amazing about this book, although I’m glad to see things being shed into light recently within the book community space regarding the issues this novel had that I already had problems years ago.

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Furyborn by Claire Legrand

Furyborn was a book that I thought I would love when it was released a couple of years ago because it was comprised with a lot of things I love seeing in any YA fantasy novel. After reading the book, I was in the opposite spectrum of it. I remember feeling very frustrated with everything, and things weren’t just executed right. There was promise in the story, but the way it was executed just threw me off immensely. Sure, I see other people liking this series and even finishing it, but I’m not getting on that boat again. This book is also probably the reason why I started to steer clear from really overhyped books that wouldn’t eventually meet my expectations later on.

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Four Dead Queens by Astrid Scholte

Four Dead Queens is one of my most disappointing 2020 reads. I read this book with a friend for our buddy read, and surprisingly, both of us did not like it one bit. Like the case in Furyborn, it had all these promising concepts but it wasn’t executed right and things were all in jumbles that it was really so confusing to any reader. The premise of it being a YA sci-fantasy with a hint of mystery and thriller would catch anyone’s attention, but after reading it, it didn’t hold up to its promise. Also, it has a strong “kill the gays” trope that would unsettle people, too.

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Charming Like Us (and onwards) by Krista and Becca Ritchie

The Addicted and Calloway Sisters series are probably one of my most favorite new adult contemporary romances ever since, and I would constantly reread my favorite scenes and chapters from time to time. The newest series spin-off which is the Like Us series features the Original Six’s kids – and there are a lot of them. I actually enjoyed the first 6 books, though not as much as I would have thought, especially after following a really strong series that featured the parents. I think it was around the time of book 4 that I was slowly feeling that the story was starting to fizzle out (pun intended), and the rest of the upcoming books don’t make much of a sense anymore in the over-all storyline. Other hardcore Addicted fans have also given up around book 7 (Charming Like Us) because of a lot of issues.

What books would you gladly throw into the ocean?