What were the most disappointing books you've read in 2019?

"She decided to live her best life and shoot her husband 5 times in the face" -Emily, 2019

I love Six of Crows and the sequel but I agree, the fact that they're supposed to be teenagers is crazy. I kind of just ignored that and in my head they were all in their 20s, lol.

"Some people actually even pretend to like Star Wars" hahaha Emily, I laughed out loud, the shade!!

Emily is clearly getting the hang of having bangs and they look great!!!

You didn't like Ninth House and Daniel Greene loved it. 2 of my fave booktubers have completely opposite opinions on it. Now I definitely have to try it out and read it 😂😂😂

You know, for memoir, I suggest Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. It has some very humorous parts and then there are some very deep and emotional parts. I couldn't put it down.

So tired of seeing Stephen King win categories just because he's Stephen King. Also OH MY GOSH he isn't just a horror author! He spans so many genres, people!! Also, I COMPLETELY agree about The Last Black Unicorn. It just wasn't good and I couldn't put it down fast enough.

i dnf’d ninth house at 80% and jesus christ i wish i did the same with the silent patient because that ending made me wanna forget how to read

The cut away to you with Baby Yoda was hilarious 😂😂😂

Love your comments re. Harry Potter. I would have loved way more of the day-to-day stuff in the books!

i'll agree that in Ninth House Alex's parts were uninteresting and i was more invested in Darlington, but i still thought this was a really good book. i gave it four stars :)

“Bossy Pants” by Tina Fey is the only humor book that actually made me laugh out loud.

I felt personally attacked by The Silent Patient winning in the Goodreads Awards ;D I absolutely despised it.

In Crooked Kingdom and Six of Crows everything Was Part of The Plan! It annoyed me to no end. The only thing that was not Part of The Plan was a disaster so I was less than impressed.

I loved Ninth House. I've never read anything else by the author. That and Middlegame were two of my faves this year 😂

That sass you gave to ninth house. 😱 Did you let it have it lol! I love it!!

In some earlier video you asked for ideas for your fringe, so I highly suggest trying a fringe roller, maybe you will like it

GIRL I soooooo feel you on the Goldfinch. No joke, I always finish books - even crap ones. I legit quit this book with like 40 pages left because I just could not anymore.

Snowglobe Emily is rockin' that headband! I've learned a lot about recommending books based on what people recommend for me. I usually don't do it any more since people were most often completely wrong on what I'd like. :) But I find that although our tastes are not exactly the same, I have liked most of what you like and have found some really good books because of you. I'm going to go back to pretending to like Star Wars now.....

THANK YOU for being honest about Daisy Jones! When I finished the audiobook I genuinely thought I'd gotten a different version from everyone else because people were acting like it was the best thing to ever grace the literary world and I couldn't see why. The audiobook was great and I liked the documentary format but everything else was just okay. The characters seemed kind of flat and the ending was horribly anticlimactic and rushed. It wasn't bad, I just didn't think it was exceptional (definitely not as good as Evelyn Hugo)

I love the deer antlers (is that how you call them?) on Emily! Nice add

About the humor book recommendations in reaction to the last Black unicorn: I was gifted Christopher Moore's A Dirty Job & it got me out of a post graduate school reading slump. I fear his flavor of humor might not land with you. I really enjoyed Sacré Bleu this year. I think it might be a good entry point. Ignore the fact that it's set in 1890's Paris. I also hope Noir (set in 1947 San Francisco) might be something you could get into? This May he will publish the 3rd book in his Pocket the Fool trilogy (Started with FOOL & A Serpent of Venice).

Loving all these videos 🙏🏻🙏🏻

OMG I'm so glad someone else didn't love The Last Black Unicorn, as well. It made my most disappointing books of 2019 list, as well. I had wondered if the audiobook might be better but it sounds like it didn't improve things. And it won the Goodreads thing? Ugh. I feel like most of their winners are... not the best books.

I read 6 of crows this year and was disappointed! Even though it ended on a cliffhanger I had zero interest in reading on. I feel we probably had the same feelings towards it so I don’t think I’ll ever pick up crooked kingdom now...

I get like the author tried to fit every trigger warning she could find into Ninth House. A lot of it seemed pointless and just tossed in for shock value.

I sadly haven't read the majority of the books on your list this year, the only ones I have read are Ninth House (and if I'm being honest...I still haven't finished it) and Daisy Jones & the six. In both books, I love the atmosphere of the books and the majority of the characters, but the story for me on both is just meh. I loved Daisy Jones so much as a character and I love the seventies backdrop, but reading about famous people isn't my favourite thing to read about. As for Ninth House, I love the atmosphere, I love most of the characters, but there are certain aspects of the book I've been put off reading about (although it isn't as dark as people originally stated) I have just found it to be a very slow story! I loved this video!!! :)

Ninth House was my first Leigh Bardugo book, and I liked it because of Darlington... or the promise of Darlington, lol. My hold for The Silent Patient just came in but I haven’t started it yet 😳

“people actually pretend to like star wars” IM SCREAMING

Honestly, you're the only booktuber I trust x

Love love looooovveeee your videos, they make me want to read more. Grettings from Colombia

You and I have the same taste in books so far out of the booktubers I watch, will you be starting the eye of the world series soon? I’m reading it and it’s not bad at all but I’m just having a hard time pushing thru it.

I really love how you speak about hyped books, even if you didn't like them.You are a very "true" youtuber.

I really loved The Goldfinch in part because it is so strange and not what you expect but I also think it's not a book for everyone! My most disappointing books of the year were Educated (just could not get into her style of writing and was horrified by the amount of violence) and Parable of the Sower (a classic and it came highly recommended but it was so slow to get to the interesting part and then it abruptly ended where I finally wanted more).

Holy moly... I have been following you for a year now 😱😱

I love how honest you are!

Short and hilarious fantasy: www.goodreads.com/series/42225-myth-adventures A bit longer hilarious fantasy: www.goodreads.com/series/40838-bartimaeus A really really long hilarious series: www.goodreads.com/series/40650-discworld I could think of some others but it's 4:30 AM, so hmu if you want more :D

The only thing I liked from Six of Crows is the characters. I thought the same thing about everything being to easy! I'm not sure I want to pick up CK at this point

I loooove this kind of reviews!!! and I have to say a huge thank you Em. And maybe a possible answer to your question is that maybe YA are no longer what you expect or need as a grown up (cause life right? ), I know it sucks, cause it happened to me as well, the things that I used to like I don't care for them anymore cause I'm in my 30s and I consider myself a YA but it looks like the authors consider YA being 20s or in some cases 16 or 17 ish.... so hope you find a good YA books because it's a good genre 👌

Oooh I was wondering if Ninth House would show up. If I did a Most Disappointing list, that would show up on mine too. I didn’t not like it, but it just wasn’t as amazing as I was expecting it to be, based on the hype. It was my first book by her too, so I don’t have anything to compare it too. I do think I’ll probably try the Grisha books at some point though, just to see if I like those.

A lot of people disliked the goldfinch but i seriously enjoyed it so much and it's one of my favorite books ❤️

I feel the exact opposite on TJR. I loved Daisy Jones and the Six, but was severely disappointed with Evelyn Hugo. I think I went into it with such high expectations that it was impossible to live up to, whereas Daisy Jones I expected so much less- and was pleasantly surprised. Also - loved The Goldfinch but NOT The Silent Patient (very meh!) Loving these videos- thank you 😊

Darlington was my favorite character too. I hope he is in the sequel, but I enjoyed the book. It was my first book by Leigh Bardugo so that actually makes me want to read her other books since you seem to like the other trilogy more haha I heard bad things about the Goldfinch movie but I still want to watch it bc I'll never pick up the book. I also don't vibe with Margaret Atwood's writing. I don't get the hype other than the show really took off. Kinda like how everyone raves about Laine Moriarty's books just bc Big Little Lies was good/popular.

Oof, Crooked Kingdom. I didn't love SoC as much as everyone else and haven't gotten around to Crooked Kingdom yet but I have a feeling I will feel similarly as you once I do. I just don't feel for these characters the way that everyone else does. I also agree that Daisy Jones didn't do it for me. Daisy felt like an Evelyn Hugo wannabe imo (sorry not sorry, haha).

Humor book suggestion: Nice Try by Josh Gondelman. Also, anything by Jenny Lawson. I love her.

I had a similar problem with Lifelike...really just not for me, could see the twists coming, and didn't really care what happened to the characters.

Agreed, ninth house had such a interesting concept but I just found it kind of bland, the mystery reveal was defiantly the worst part for me!

The Six of Crows is my favorite duology! It's really the only book on Booktube that I've read and actually liked. And I read it before I read the Grisha trilogy(I read SOC in 2015, I read the Grisha trilogy last month) and you really don't need to read the trilogy before hand. I think the only thing that confused me was the civil war, political, aspect of Ravka. But the magic system wasn't hard to figure out at all. I could pick up what she was laying down. So far my book rating are SOC>KoS>Grisha Trilogy. SOC being 5's and the others being a 4 and 3's.

Well that was something. I love The Goldfinch, The Nine House and The Crooked Kingdom for different reasons. The Goldfinch to me is a literary feast. I like her writing style and I was so engrossed with the whole thing (it was one of those 'stop everything and read' type of novel for me) and I was really interested in the main character's journey through places, people and emotions. As for Crooked Kingdom I just bought it right after I finished Six of Crows (and I have read it before the Grisha trilogy and I wished I have known to read them beforehand, it would have enhanced my reading pleasure for sure) and I loved them both so much. Leigh Bardugo's writing takes me from where I'm and places me to where ever her novel is, The Ninth House got me very interested too (and I'm not even really that into urban fantasy) I liked Alex and once again I felt that I was right there. It is escapist entertainment I suppose and I'm thankful for it. It is not a literary satisfaction (as Donna Tart's novel) but it is a reading satisfaction nevertheless. I have not read Elevation (maybe if I can find a cheap used copy, I'll give it a try) but I can recommend a genuine horror called Thinner (which is about a man, getting thinner day by day) written by Stephen King. It is not as well known as his other novels and it may not be as good but I loved it and scared by it. The ending, you'll probably not like ;) I like the way you express yourself so even when we don't agree, I can see whether I'll like a book or not based on your thoughts about it. Also that lipstick colour suited you very well. And if everyone liked the same things, the world would be very boring!

the silent patient was such a let down 🙄 every time a customer asks for it at the bookstore where I work, something dies in me..

Hyperbole and a half is a great humour read. I loved it. U will also love it if ur into graphic novels.

Elevation sounds a bit like Thinner also by King

I read six of crow and crooked kingdom last year and had exactly the same reactions as yours in my reviews. I loved the characters, the description of Ketterdam but I didn't care about the stories at all...

I was also disappointed with six of crows and crooked kingdom. I enjoyed it but it was a mediocre plot. I did really like some of the characters.

King of Scars, Vicious, Strange the Dreamer. Pretty much all really hyped books I read this year that I thought I was going to love and all missed the mark.

I am 100% with you on The Goldfinch. A lady I used to take care of recommended it to me and I was floored by the drug use, and hated the jumping back and forth between time frames, and all of the unlikable characters.

Completely agree with you on The Silent Patient. I saw the twist coming and the whole thing just irritated me.

Honestly? Read Six of Crows before Grisha and I *did* actually understand the magic system. Sure, she had a list at the front of the book explaining what the powers meant XD which I kept referring to. But CK was a disappointment after the first.

I have to say that I loved the Six of Crows duology, but I completely agree with the fact that they don't seem like teenagers at all. Basically, in my mind they were all in their twenties... Also, you're the first booktuber to agree with me on the fact that the death in the end of the second book is a complete afterthought. Really didn't enjoy that scene, as it undermined the power of the rest of the ending. Also; couldn't agree more on Daisy Jones and The Six!

Ranty Emily is always my favourite. I have not wanted to read the goldfinch in fears that I will be confused and hate it as it seems to be a mess. LB has some great ideas I just feel let down sometimes by her execution of said ideas. And badly written books are painful I also try not to DNF but sometimes its gotta be done!

I started listening to Ninth House and it just sort of got pushed back till I just never went back to it. 😐

I love character driven stories, but after reading The Lies of Locke Lamora, (which was character driven *and* had an amazing heist plot) The six of crows duology was soo lacking in good plot that it bothered me too much.

Fingers cross for the testaments, it's under my christmas tree. I enjoyed the worldbuilding on the handsmaid' tale sooo... maybe.... greetings from Argentina.

I started reading The Goldfinch a few months ago but still have not finished. I'm only 150 pages in. I find the story quite interesting so far but everything is just a little bit too detailed and too stretched out...

I was surprised by Daisy Jones because I wasn't expecting to like it at all. That being said there were things I didn't like or things I felt needed to be expanded

I'm late to this video but that "What the fuck...people?" is my favourite thing you've said this year. LOL

The Emperor's Blades by Brian Stavely. It basically summed up why I dont like multiple POV books because 1 character got like 75% of the screen time and good development, whereas the other two didn't change or do anything at all and really shouldn't have existed.

I do agree with you that a lot of people vote in the Goodreads Awards who haven't read the books they vote for BUT I have noticed that if you mark a book read and don't give it a star rating (maybe if you also don't write anything) then it doesn't count on that number of review, which is dumb but 🤷

talking about adult fantasy: I really don't understand why no one (the ones who love huge books with excellent world building and "magic systems" and action), like literally no one is talking about Roger Zelazny books, in English i think its called Amber series (?) not sure. they are huge and some people might get bored but i think if you really pay attention you get really invested in it. from 14 y/o i've reread the series like 5 times? plannong on doing it once again after graduation

I liked Six of Crows way better than Crooked Kingdom. I do love character driven books though. Oh and I agree with you about the death. It was like what?Where did that come from lol. Overall I did like the series a lot though and I love Leigh Bardugo but I feel like she can be hit or miss sometimes which I can’t believe I’m even saying since I’m such a fan. Im writing this as I watch lol and Omg I felt the exact same about Daisy Jones!!! I definitely had high expectations though because of Evelyn Hugo but I won’t recommend this book to anyone I know except on audiobook! And it definitely needed more.

Totally agree with Crooked Kingdom and Ninth House, although per se I wasn't disappointed because I hadn't expected to like them. Unpopular opinion but I love the Grisha trilogy and when everyone started raving about Six of Crows and how it was so much better I was so hyped... only to be massively let down. That was my most disappointing read of 2017 so my expectation for CK was pretty meh. Turns out though CK made me absolutely despise the whole duology because I actually freaking hated it :D Ninth House was an okayish 3 stars but I'll definitely won't continue it soooo yeah, you're the only one I can trust, Emily 😂

You should try Bossypants by Tina Fey if you want a good celeb memoir! It came out awhile ago but It’s the best one I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot ha ha

I definitely agree with you about Elevation as well. I generally love SK books, but this one felt so preachy to me and that preachy storyline just didn’t feel relevant to the main plot. And especially considering how short this one was, that aspect was very irritating to deal with.

literally couldn't even finish the goldfinch, i gave up halfway through and i checked out how the book ended on wikipedia lmao

Totally agree on Six of Crows duology, also read it this year and it just left me feeling like 'meh'. Another one is The Goldfinch. The Secret History by Donna Tartt is probably my favourite standalone book so I had very high expectations. Unfortunately The Goldfinch was just way too long and just not as intense and thrilling IMO. Another series is Winternight Trilogy by K. Arden, I pushed through the whole thing hoping it's gonna become more interesting and enjoyable. It didn't.

I'm the opposite of you in regards to the Grisha Verse books: I love Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom, and the first three books are just 'meh' to me. For me, The Gilded Wolves was so disappointing. And Foundryside, just because I was expecting to be 'into' the story from start to finish, and I really didn't start getting intrigued until about 3/4 of the way through.

For funny books I'd recommend Frankisstein by Jeanette Winterson, The Bus on Thursday (whose author I can't remember just now) and The Sundial by Shirley Jackson. All fairly dark comedy, and Frankisstein is quite literary and lacking in plot or resolution, but all of them had me laughing out loud, which is something I rarely do at books

I was disappointed by Six of Crows and I knew the fate of my fave in Crooked Kingdom, so I felt no need to continue. The first book was SO HYPED that there was no way it could ever live up to my expectations (and it didn't). Ninth House was actually one of my favorite books of the year (and I have HATED every other Leigh Bardugo book before this). I really liked the dual timelines and the mysteries and I agree, Darlington is SO MUCH BETTER than Alex. I was super hesitant to read Ninth House because I couldn't stand anything else Leigh Bardugo has written, but I literally could not put the book down. However, I know that a lot of people who do like Leigh Bardugo's previous books did not like Ninth House, because it's definitely not what people were expecting.

I am of the opinion that the best things about the Leigh Bardugo books are their covers. Don't think I'll probably ever pick them up again but god damn they look nice and I refuse to get rid of them. :D

I agree with you on Daisy Jones and the six

I remember The Silent Patient being pushed on Facebook so much. A month or two before it was released, I swear it would come through my feed five times a day, along with lots of giveaways for it. To be honest, all that hard marketing turned me off and made me not want to read it. Clearly it worked for others.

I read Six of Crows last month and was a 3 stars. I liked the characters a lot but the backstory was so undercooked and I didn't care for the plot at all or its progression.

I liked Silent Patient but I didn’t think it was great. I too was shocked it was so hyped.

All but two books on this list, I completely agree with you. Especially the last one. I think I listened to 5 mins and was like this is crap 💩. Great to know I am not the only one thinking this way

ninth house was a huge disappointment for me too which really sucks because i was so excited since it was right up my alley and sounded like a great book but it just fell flat

Oh and you wondered who would vote for Ninth House. I did but only because I didn’t read anything else in the category. 😂 I definitely think if I had read more of the other books, it probably wouldn’t have gotten my vote bc it wasn’t great. So I don’t think the votes are necessarily all coming from people who didn’t read it - but likely quite a few like myself who just didn’t read anything else so couldn’t vote for anything else. This is a great example of why people like me who didn’t read most of the entries shouldn’t be allowed to vote though! 😜 It just turns the voting into a popularity contest and whichever book got read most or has the most recognized author will win.

Totally agree with Ninth House. I DMFd it. And I was so pissed off that it won best fantasy on goodreads after reading some incredible fantasy this year that deserved it way more. 😡

My Family and other Animals by Gerald Durrell is a hilarious book about the naturalist growing up on and Island off Greece. I picked it up by accident and it's one of the best books I've ever read!

"Elevation" is certainly not a horror story but I loved it because, for me, it worked on so many levels. I also really enjoyed the ending. I viewed this more as a story about illness and how to best deal with it.

Strange Planet by Nathan W. Pyle. It's an amazing humor book. Aliens discovering human life very literally in four panel comics. Pyle is also on Instagram if you want to read some of his comics to be get an idea of what they're like.

I didn't like much Six of Crows but the characters were likable and the world seemed interesting with the magic system, so I gave another try with Crooked Kingdom...and I agree completely, I found it very boring, I had put it down halfway... :(

Completely in line with your most disappointed books: i recently finished Dear Girls by Ali Wong and boy oh boy.. it won this year's best humour on goodreads, but something like 80.000 people voted for it and i think about 10.000 people have read it. Major popularity contest vibes! Anyway, i thought it was okay at the beginning but i got bored soooo fast, and even began to find it rather offensive.. luckily it was only a 6 hour audiobook (3 hours on double speed hehehe).

Oh God! YES! I was disappointed by Daisy Jones and the six too. I feel like it might be one of the most unpopular opinions on booktube at the moment. Well, on certain parts of booktube anyways. The more I think about it, the less I like it. The audiobook is brilliant, but it felt too...underdeveloped. I feel like it's great to add a couple of quotes on IG posts and that's about it. This author needs to come out with a new format for her books because things become too repetitive too soon.

Tbh Emily I was angry that Ninth House won out in Fantasy over other better fantasy books in the genre category.

Agree with you totally on The Silent Patient. 😕

Humor book: hitchhikers guide... if you haven’t partaken already...

My most hated or disappointing reads of 2019 were: - ninth house (the only Leigh Bardugo I didn't like and saying not liking it would be the understatement of the year. I hated it so much. So bad and in my eyes so freaking overruled). - when we left Cuba (I just absolutely hated the romance but the rest was so great) - the chalk men (soooo boring and not interesting and reminded me waaay too much of King's IT which I despise. And the whole mystery element was so bad). - the secret history (hated it, I think if we were villains is waaaay superior and so much better than that shit show. Loved if we were villains and hated the secret history). - we contain multitudes (one of the most unhealthy romances I've read in ya) - the seven deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (boring, didn't care, hated the mystery, hated the writing style) - hot dog girl (the main character was so insufferable and mean. This is also the only book that includes my favorite trope aka the fake dating trope but oh my god the friend deserved so much better than the shitty insufferable main character who also literally acted like a freaking three year old). - twice in a blue moon (was there even someone that did like this one?) - the witch doesn't burn in this one (couldn't deal with the man hate and the poems I could tolerate were just meh at best) - the prom (one of my favorite musicals got destroyed by this book. The rep was horrible, it isn't even accurate to the musical, heavenly stereotypes sexualities, erased a character's sexuality & written very badly) - wilder girls (I hate open endings so much, wasn't creepy or scary or good horror. Felt so pointless)

I read the Six of Crows duology before the Grisha trilogy and enjoyed it very much but I would be lying if I said I understood the magic system back then. It's an enjoyable story but I agree that it doesn't explain the magic system whatsoever, also I didn't catch the cameos as well, of course.

Maybe consider not continuing the handmaid’s tale tv show)) seasons 3 and 4 are insane, I was very disappointed