The books.
Rowena: And we end our week of Best Of lists with a list of the books that just didn’t work for us. Our worst reads of the year.
Here are the books that I just could not for the life of me like.
- Close Enough to Touch by Victoria Dahl: The characters left a lot to be desired. I wanted to punch the heroine in her face too many times to count, the hero made me want to puke with how he’d just roll over for the heroine and well, I could go on.
- Finally Home by Helen Scott Taylor: The heroine drove me to want to drink myself dead. She drove me up the wall with her excuses for pushing the hero away and when she took her kid away from the hero at the end, I wanted to run her ass over.
- Blaze of Winter by Elisabeth Barrett: Both the hero and the heroine drove me crazy. So much so that I almost didn’t finish it.
The other books that I didn’t really care for are YA so I’ll be posting about those on my YA book blog but here are the romance novels that didn’t make the cut for me. Either the characters drove me nuts or the story just didn’t work for me. So there you go, my list.
Holly: Every year Rowena makes me feel like a raging beeyotch when we do these Worst Of lists. She’s all “oh, I didn’t really have that many” and I’m all “OMG, I can only list five?!?!”. Sigh.
- The Greet Tycoon’s Ultimatum by Lucy Monroe: I generally like Monroe, but this was just wrong all the way around. The heroine was a limp dishrag and the hero was a complete ass.
- Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire: The book started out great but fell apart halfway through. I can’t deny it worked on one level, but I was left with a bad taste in my mouth when all was said and done, which is why it ended up here.
- Tucker’s Crossing by Marina Adair: Another book with a good premise that wasn’t executed well. I love the idea of reunited lovers, but the story was all over the place and the characters wishy-washy.
- Rules of Engagement by Ann Bruce: This book made NO sense. The heroine shows up at a cabin in the middle of the night and the hero punches her to knock her out, then handcuffs her to the bed. When she comes to she decides she needs to give him her cherry, because that’s totally what a sane person would do, right? It was full of WTFery from beginning to end. Blergh.
- The Fifty Shades Trilogy by E.L.James: This is another WTF series. To be honest, I really enjoyed the first book when I thought it was less a romance about Christian and Anna, and more a look at the darker side of relationships. Had I stopped there I probably would have given this a much higher rating. As it stands, I went on to read the rest of the trilogy and it just went from bad to worse. Awful books.
Dishonorable mention goes to Crazy on You by Rachel Gibson: I generally love Gibson’s books, but this novella fell very flat. The “I Love You’s” came way too quickly and ruined the story. Meh.
Here are the books that made it onto our guest reviewers worst reads of 2012 lists:
- My Mistress by Justus Roux (Judith)
- A Perfect Stranger by Jaden Skye (Tracy)
- Gabriel’s Inferno by Sylvain Reynard (Ames)
- Addicted to Love by CJ West (Lori)
Thanks for sharing your lists ladies…Ames, I totally remember your rants for Gabriel’s Inferno.
What books did you not like in 2012?
I see Holly sneakily got her list up to 7… 😉
Have to agree on the books I’ve tried.
I’m with you on Finally Home, it DROVE ME UP THE WALL
Such a bad heroine.
Ooh, let me know when your worst YAs are listed!
You guys are too funny! Maybe I am not that picky, or maybe I just got lucky & read all good books! I generally put a book down if I am not loving it (usually a library book – I don’t buy them unless they are a sure thing)and I return it & would not remember the name.I haven’t read any of the ones you mentioned.I did like Marina Adair’s Kissing Under the Mistletoe, though.