Feeding Frenzy! Worst Books Ever!!!

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Today’s Topic :

Feeding Frenzy! The Top Ten List of Worst Books You’ve Ever Read.

If the end of the world occurred, with my luck the only books to survive the apolocylpse these would be these beauties:

MacRieve by Kresley Cole – This was a great story featuring a strong, lovable heroine, a sexy, damaged hero and sexual tension galore. It was wonderful up until the moment when our damaged hero finds out that his human mate is in fact half-succubus and he is so disgusted by his own lust for this “abomination” that he vomits after taking her virginity. This is not the only time regurgitation occurs. MacRieve spends half his time lusting and half his time vomiting.  I was actually disgusted that Chloe forgave him without making him grovel–for years.

Dead Ever After by Charlaine Harris – I was a fan of True Blood.  As a book lover, I know that most movies are missing all the intensity, emotion and extras that are missing from a novel.  I started reading the Sookie Stackhouse series, but I didn’t enjoy the characters or the storyline as much as I did True Blood.  When Dead Ever After came out as the final book, I wanted to see how Charlaine Harris was going to end the series. I must say as a series finale book, it was the most boring book I ever read.  The absolute worst scene is listening to Sookie listing all of items in her nightstand.    This one didn’t end with a bang, it ended with a What??

Under the Dome by Stephen King – Stephen King was the first author whose novels I ever sought out, and The Stand is one of my all-time favorite books.  Although I fell in easily with Mr. King’s writing style, I was thoroughly annoyed after meeting all of the main characters because I could easily start picking out exactly what other novel I met them in.  His characters were all standard Stephen King characters.   The nemesis in this book was suffering from a brain tumor unlike the others novels where he would have been possessed by the devil, etc., but all these characters can be found in almost every Stephen King novel.    I have always had a problem with Mr. King’s endings, that is why I enjoy his short stories so much more.   Although I won’t give away the ending to this story, I have to tell you it was the stupidest explanation for this town being trapped under this dome.  When they made the TV miniseries and it was getting rave reviews, I looked at my husband and said, just wait until they find out why.

Sail by James Patterson and Howard Roughan – I really enjoyed James Patterson’s Alex Cross series and this book had peeked my interest. It was one of the first audiobooks that I tried and I had to listen to it on CDs.   In this story, someone is trying to kill the family and when they take their boat for a sail, it explodes in the middle of the ocean.  The story was somewhat interesting and the family made it to an island and although no one else know that their boat blew up, somehow the bad guy found them on this remote, uninhabited island.  The last thing before I changed to the final CD was one of the main characters being chased by the bad guy.  I always had the next CD prepped and ready for the change and when I changed it, they were suddenly home again.  I pulled over at the first opportunity figuring I must have switched the wrong CD, but no, the story just sort of dropped off from a fight for survival to a recap of what happened from the point of the chase onward.  After a big build up, it’s like the author just ran out of ideas of what to do next.

Her Dark Knight by Sharon Cullen – The hero in this story was an immortal Templar and the heroine was the reincarnation of his love from the 1400’s.  This story was well written in that it bounced you back and forth between their former relationship and current day where he tries to convince her of their past connection and protect her once again from someone who wants to do her harm.   I really couldn’t put it down.  But her life in the 1400’s was the most depressing story.  Her husband is a sadistic bastard who rapes her just for the hell of it.   His most trusted adviser lusts after her and tries to molest her whenever possible.   Our hero is the only one who shows her kindness and wants to help her, but he is a knight for the lord of the castle and if the husband ever found the Knight near her they would be killed.   We know from the start that she was reincarnated and we know that she dies young, but reading the horrible life that she was subjected to in 1309 solidified my desire never to read any more stories from this time period.

Beautiful Disaster/Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire –  Beautiful Disaster is a first person story told by Abby.  Walking Disaster is the same story told by Travis.  These stories were getting a lot of buzz so I downloaded audible copies of both books which I intended to read back to back.  To begin with, I hated these characters.  HATED THEM!   Abby played hot and cold and spent the whole book jerking Travis around.  She liked Travis but didn’t want to get involved with another boy like him.  She kisses him, but doesn’t want to get involved with him.  She has sex with him, but doesn’t want to get involved with him.  He is on his knees, begging, crying and pleading for her to give him another chance, and she walks away.  The premise of the story is that Abby loses a bet to Travis and ends up having to live with Travis in his apartment (more particularly sharing his room).  They shared a room but didn’t have sex right away.  Because of this Travis fell in love with Abby.   Travis had a violent temper and Abby was the first woman whom he dated and not just had sex with.  Most other “dates” included quickies on his couch.  In fact, he made her understand that she was the first woman he had sex with in his bed.  How romantic!   I tried to listen to Walking Disaster, but just couldn’t listen to these two all over again just from his POV.  It was only on many recommendations that I skipped to the end of Travis’s book to get an epilogue.  I did like grown up Travis much better than college Travis, but it doesn’t make up for two novels of these two awful characters.

His Dark Bond by Anne Marsh –  The premise of this story is that there is a group of fallen angels living on earth.  They will grant your greatest wish but you have to bond your living energy with them for a period of time depending on the value of your wish.  They learn that bonding with the women of the thirteenth tribe of Israel (which disappeared) could return their wings to them.  In the first book, the heroine created a pee-on-a-stick DNA test which they forced her to use herself to determine that she was one of the descendants.  In this second book, they had a list of possible women that the non-fallen angels were using to kill the women so that the fallen angels couldn’t get their wings back.  They beat the non-fallen to the heroine, save her and then proceed to abduct her so that she can choose one of the fallen to bond/mate with so he could get his wings back, never disclosing to her that they intended for her to mate/marry one of them.  Although the head angel wanted her to pick another worthy angel and not him, he had no problem feeling her up and in fact, sticking his fingers in her hooha while taking the elevator down so she could have her speed date with 200 prospective fallen angels.   First of all, they abduct this woman and tell her she has to make a wish and bond her energy with (read:  have sex with) a fallen angel.  She declines but they force her to accept.  That it forced prostitution, making her have sex with a stranger in exchange for a gift.  Secondly, they never mention that the gift/bond must be witnessed by another angel.  So not only do you have forced prostitution, but forcing her to perform live sex acts for an audience.  Thirdly, since she is a scientist, they want her to use her skills to DNA type possible candidates so they can make their own list of other women they can abduct to get their wings back.  Hmmm…shouldn’t a fallen angel do something good to earn back their wings, not rape unsuspecting women for their prospective DNA, or is that just me?

Eternity’s Mark by Maeve Greyson –  This was a ho-hum paranormal romance involving a half-human/half dragon hero.  I am not much for dragon shifter stories, because my brain always makes them a cartoony Puff-the-Magic-Dragon type character which isn’t hot at all.   I was not overly excited by this book but I have to say two things which turned me completely off (and there will be a spoiler here):  the first was that the hero made his lady love a token of affection from his birth shell.  What???  He was hatched from an egg.  That would make his mom a dragon and his dad a human.  How–how did that work?  Is it bestiality if she’s a dragon?    Here’s the spoiler — he is killed in the final battle protecting his love, but apparently, he is reincarnated? when she dumps his ashes into her magic hot tub?

The Werewolf’s Wife by Michele Hauf –  Here is another story which was an okay paranormal romance.  I had read another vampire book from Michele Hauf that I had like so I tried this werewolf story.  I was unaware that one of her world building story points  involving the mating habits of werewolves included him turning from human to werewolf during sex so he could mate with her.  Personally, I would be pretty F’ing freaked out if the man I was having sex with started turning into a hairy beast and started biting me.   I think this one does qualify as bestiality.

Desire the Night by Amanda Ashley – This book started out pretty interesting.  A witch captures a vampire and drains his blood to drink to keep her youth and beauty.   Whenever he is weak and close to starving, she tosses him a pretty girl for dinner.   This last time, the girl she abducted was a half human/half werewolf .   He holds back his hunger because he know if he waits until the full moon she will be strong enough to break them out.  A friendship develops between them which buds into romance.   Upon their escape, the plot points of this book go all to hell.   I’ll believe that your vampire can turn into mist if that’s what you want to write, but you can’t make me choke down things that don’t make sense.  Her Alpha werewolf father hates humans.  So first of all, why was he dating her mother whom he got pregnant and had to marry?  Hmmm?  If he was so controlling, why did he allow the heroine to leave the werewolf compound to live with the humans for a year, especially when he planned for her to marry the son of another local Alpha?  Then, the witch can’t use magic to find him since as a vampire he is dead, but she could find him through the heroine.  So to keep her safe and to keep the witch off his back, he sends her back to the controlling father for safe-keeping, who takes her over to the other Alpha.  They then disavow her marriage to the vampire, and force her to marry the Alpha’s son who then forces her to have sex with him.  Since the vampire can’t go where he isn’t invited, he can’t get onto the compound to rescue her.  *Spoiler*  Her mother commit suicide as a distraction so her daughter can escape, and then our heroine returns to the compound to attend her mother’s funeral!   (Thanks, Sweetheart.  Glad I died for you.) That’s just a few issues I had with this story.  Plot wise, this story made no sense.