trees died for you??? // ft. the books i disliked the most in 2022

I know what you’re thinking right now: Kaya, why would you put such a negative post in the midst of such hopeful times? My answer to your question? I always like to put the disappointments before announcing my favorite books of the year, because I like starting controversial and ending joyful.

anyways here are the books i disliked the most this year, starting from most tolerable to i actually should have DNF’d this. the top 3 are almost interchangeable. first though, let’s have the MOST DISAPPOINTING NOMINEES!!!

All six of these books are books I enjoyed to an extent and could see how others might love them. They just didn’t quite hit the highs I wanted them to and that’s okay!

7. now for the countdown! starting us off is, unfortunately, ninth house by leigh bardugo

Ninth House is the least terrible of the books in this countdown and yet…it’s still not great. I have no idea how this won the Goodreads Choice Award for best fantasy book in 2019. We follow Alex Stern who can see ghosts and is swept up into the dark aspects of secret societies at Yale. THIS WAS SO BORING. Bardugo has lots of triggers in this book that just absolutely feel forced and meh. I’d root for a good murder only to find that said murder did not spice up the plot at all! The writing felt so disconnected, Alex kept IGNORING her homework*, and Darlington tried so hard to be ✨quirky✨ and ✨interesting✨ but he just came across as a tryhard. This book tried too hard to be deep and dark and twisted, and just ended up being boring. Hence why it’s on this list.

*i’m sorry but you can’t just ignore your yale homework!!! that plot hole took me OUT of this book in ways you wouldn’t even begin to believe

6. i know who you are by alice feeney (this book-💀)

Look. This book has one of the most disturbing plot twists I’ve ever read but I can’t fault a thriller book for being disturbing because that’s just stupid. No, the reason this book makes the list is that it is just so mediocre. This woman’s husband is missing and we literally follow her as she lives her daily life, flirts with her hot coworker, and relives her life in flashbacks. WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE YOU DON’T CARE THAT YOUR HUSBAND IS MISSING?!?! The police are onto you! That’s not how you write an unreliable narrator! Not to mention, there are several interesting plot points that are just…never followed up on? Like, there’s one point where someone just casually mentions that a relatively important character has gone missing, and literally there is nothing else about it. Are we supposed to assume that said character was murdered? But how? And why exactly??? There’s something else but I won’t mention it in this post at the moment. Anyways, this book got me by surprise and the flashbacks were interesting. That’s all the positive praise I can give it.

5. final girls by riley sager (literally his worst book omg)

2022 was the year I read all of Riley Sager, and he’s always impressed me with how entertaining his books are. But this book??? You know, the one blurbed by Stephen King??? It was so bad. We follow a girl named Quincy who teams up with a remaining “final girl” named Samantha after another one named Lisa is murdered. This story caught the slasher feel only in the flashbacks. The rest of the time, it was snoozefest of confusing characterization. There weren’t a ton of stakes to Samantha and Quincy’s actions, no sense of urgency. Sometimes, I thought that they were villains. The final twist was fine I guess. I predicted it a few chapters before the reveal. Talking about thrillers is so difficult because everything’s a spoiler! But just know that the concept of this story sounds so much better than its execution.

4. meru peri vol. 1 by matusri hino

I enjoyed this story of a girl who meets a prince from a faraway land who is cursed to grow up physically whenever he enters dark spaces…wait what??? This really was fun until I realized that the author was setting up a romance between a child and a teenager. These aren’t ambiguous ages either, the child is literally stated to be like eight and the teenager is clearly in highschool. Just because the child physically grows into a teenager because of the curse does not mean that he is mentally a teenager. I have no idea how anyone can ignore or excuse it because it’s not really even a minor plot point. It’s lucky it even gets to be this high.

3. kingdom of the wicked by kerri maniscalco (this is probably the most controversial💀)

I haven’t written my review for this yet but I already know I’m going to rant. The first 100 pages of this book were so good, considering we follow Emilia, an Italian witch who loves to cook, hunting down her twin sister’s killer and being forced to team up with a prince of hell to solve the murder. BUT THIS IS ACTUALLY TERRIBLE. Twilight has better worldbuilding. Emilia was almost interesting at the beginning and then at the end I literally could not tell her apart from every other sarcastic, temper-driven female protagonist. For being a prince of hell, Wrath was such a pushover. Like, I’ve seen my little brother get angrier than him. And the mystery just goes in circles! Kingdom of the Wicked made me realize that Kerri Maniscalco and I don’t actually work out.

2. hide by kiersten white (hear me out!)

I actually don’t hate this book. But this really, really, really needed to be edited more. I remember really liking Brandon. The rest of the characters were just a mishmash of empty personalities and stilted dialogue. NOT TO MENTION THIS IS LITERALLY ABOUT A DEATHLY COMPETITION IN AN ABANDONED AMUSEMENT PARK??? This needed to have less character perspectives to even stand a chance at being good. After that, it needed to have not gone in the direction it went in because it ended up in this pathetic horror-thriller gray area that was neither scary nor thrilling. What a disappointment.

1. my only skim-read of the year: a secret princess by margaret stohl and melissa de la Cruz

I loved this pair’s reimagining of Little Women called Jo and Laurie. So when I found out they were doing a The Secret Garden + A Little Princess mashup, I was very excited! Which was clearly a mistake because oh my gosh this was not good. The Goodreads synopsis still has names mixed up six months after publication, not to mention that said synopsis literally covers at least 50% of the book. FIFTY PERCENT. Do you understand why I skim-read this book now??? I read the synopsis thinking, “hmmm this seems like it has potential!” not realizing that it would actually be a succinct summary of most of the book. I genuinely didn’t care about this at all.

So that’s it! Like I said, the top 3 are almost interchangeable. Kingdom of the Wicked makes me angry, I feel so bland towards Hide, and A Secret Princess was almost a laughable experience. Luckily, my BEST books of the year list are coming soon so I’m excited about that!!! Tell me: what’s a book YOU had higher expectations for this year?

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