I think I actually read more awesomeness and less suckiness in 2011 than in previous years. Or perhaps it’s because I simply wouldn’t finish the truly bad books and forgot to write them down. I also decided to be an adult and read a lot more non-YA books. But I digress, here’s a quick rundown of my Rejects of 2011 (Picks of 2011 to come later).
Return to Paradise by Simone Elkeles. Have you ever read a book and thought it to be awesome, then read a sequel and think, Was this written by a ghost writer? That’s how I felt here. RtP was the follow-up to Leaving Paradise, which I dug. LP was nicely written, entertaining and all-in-all a pretty darn good read. RtP was…not. Filled with overused and lame clichés, the writing style left something to be desired. Like interest. Plot. Character development. So needless to say, it sucked. A lot.
Another Faust by Daniel Nayeri. Maybe I’m just not too bright. Or maybe because when I’m bored with a book, I tend to skim a lot. But I didn’t understand what was going on half the time. I believe me, I reread parts more than once just trying to figure out what the heck was happening. I found this book to be confusing and boring. I’m not sure if it was confusing and thus I lost interest and was bored. Or if I was bored so I wasn’t reading carefully and thus became confused. Chicken or the egg. You can read it and decide, but I wouldn’t recommend it.
Crossed by Ally Condie. This was another sequel to a decent book that fell short. Really short. The book’s predecessor, Matched, created an engaging dystopian universe in which society and governing figures dictate what you will do and who you will marry. And of course the heroine doesn't want to marry the perfect boy society has deemed for her. She wants the bad boy. While slow at times, the interaction between the characters was enough to keep you going. This was not the case for Crossed. Ever seen those Comcast commercials with the tortoises? They’d like this book because it was simply that slow. I eventually gave up after the heroine had been traipsing after her love in a desert for half the book. Because you know what happens when you’re reading about someone walking through a desert for days on end? Nothing.
