The Top 10 Books I Could Have Lived Without

Evening everyone out there in the world wide web and welcome to another edition of Ink Stained Fingers. The place were all books get their day in my court. Some are innocent until proven guilty while others are guilty until proven innocent.

In this edition of Ink Stained Fingers, I’m going to be delving into the books that are just plain guilty. And I’m not talking about those nice guilty pleasures that you enjoy in the privacy of your room. I’m talking about the books that are simply the kind I could have done without.

Let me describe this type of book before I move to far ahead.

Any book that made this list is guilty of one or more things. Those things can be but are exclusive to: too many plot lines, too little of a plot line, boring characters, characters you can’t relate to, too much information, trying to be funny/epic/romantic/serious/etc. and failing miserably at it, getting the reader’s hopes up, and lame endings.

There’s much more I could add to that list but then this would be list that might last me all night and that’s not what I’m here for. I’m here to reveal my top 10 books I could have lived without and tell you why that is.

These books are in no particular order but all belong on this list.

Enough with the teasing, let’s dive into the top 10 books I could have lived without and this time I have pictures.

                                                     10. Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton

    Now, normally, I'm a huge fan of the Anita Blake series. I read this whole series over and over again till most of the people around me can't stand it anymore. But this book upset me. The story line wasn't horrible, the characters were all the same, and it was the same writing style. However, it was the way this book was ended that did it in for me. Having followed all of the characters this far I tend to think I know them rather well. The end of the book made no sense to the rest of the series and made what could have been some epic into a lamely written confrontation.

9. Memnoch the Devil by Anne Rice

     Again, I'm traditionally a fan of the Ann Rice series and something of a vampire lore junkie. I like following the lives of Lestat, Louie and all the rest. I even loved the individual books in the series. But Memnoch the Devil definitely shows the author when she decided to be uber religious. I'm all for reading about people's different ideas of what Heaven, Hell, the Devil, God, demons and angels are like. However, when I pick up an Anne Rice vampire novel I expect it to have something more to do with vampires than Lestat having some weird religious out of body experience.

8. The Witches by Ronald Dahl

     Again, another author I like. I loved Matilda and they did a great job with the movie rendition. But this is one book that I really didn't want to wrap my head around. This is a sort of children's book so it's not hard to follow by any means. It's a quick read and that's about the only good thing about it. But the idea they are trying to pass off with who "The Witches" are is just so silly and stupid that the only type of person it's good for is a scary story for five year olds. But scary in the manner of all those "scary stories" for teens that were more meant to scare them out of  going to park out on some hill in a guy's car to make out. All in all this is a book that tries to take itself too seriously and that's what makes it fail.

7. Skellig by David Almond

     Like in my comments about Memnoch the Devil, I don't mind different thoughts on religious ideas. A couple of years at a community college and a Comparative Religion class helped that along. But this story has nothing to do with religion in any sense of the word. There may be one or two little things at the end of the book that hint towards some of the teachings in the Bible but it's like an afterthought. I'm not even sure what the author meant to get across in this book. Is it supposed to be scary? Is it supposed to express some idea? What is the reading supposed to feel for the characters? All questions to which I still have no answer.

6. The Ear, the Eye, and the Arm by Nancy Farmer

     It surprises me how many of the books on this list are from the Children's Literature class I took in college. I liked a lot of the books we read and I don't mind reading children's books. I even recognize that I might not like some books because they are for a much younger audience. However, this book gets more confusing as you go on. The idea was a great one. But there is little to no explanation for how we got to this point in time. As if the reader is simply supposed to accept a society that they are unfamiliar with set a thousand years more or less in the future and using terminology and technology that are suddenly something common and everyday. The descriptions make it hard to picture what's going on and only adds to the confusion. All in all this is a book that left me wondering what all I missed and not in a good way.

5. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening and The Struggle by L.J. Smith

     Now, I'm putting these two together because I read them together. Doesn't seem fair when I can't keep the stories from mixing in my own mind. As I said before, I'm a sucker for different ways of using vampire lore. I'm not stuck on Dracula as the one true vampire. But these two books simply didn't do it for me. I guess the author was trying to make it more down to earth and real for a teenage/high school setting. Well, they succeeded better than the Twilight series on that one. However, save for the vampire angle it was too close. It was too much like a typical high school drama. Heck, you could have removed the vampire angle and made every character human and it really wouldn't have taken much away from the books. The female lead in these book is better than most by far. She's far from being a true damsel in distress...like some emo chics I could name... However, I still couldn't feel drawn into the story.

       4. The Group by Mary McCarthy

            This book wasn't all that bad to tell the truth. It had it's good moments and the characters weren't bland in the least. It was simply hard for me to handle the writing style of this book. It tended to jump between story line to story line of each girl in "the group" of friends. I ended up missing more of the things going on then remembering them. It was simply too much information to keep in my head till all the story lines converged in the end of the book. If you can juggle multiple storylines in one book then I would actually recommend this book to you. Fair warning, this book is uncensored and for adult reader's only. Graphic sexual content is the norm here not the

exception.

    3. Peyton Place by Grace Metalious

        If the last book had graphic sexual content as the norm, then this book would end up in the back room with a curtain hanging in the doorway with a sign that said "for adults only". This book pushed way to many buttons all at the same time to make this a comfortable read. I might be only half joking to say that even the hardcore liberal might need to pause in reading this book to get some air and a cigarette. If it had one less controversial topic or one less story line then it MIGHT have been enjoyable. To me it was simply uncomfortable. 

     2. Troilus and Criseyde by Chaucer

          If this book alone doesn't prove that I obtained an English degree, then nothing will. As an English major I've read a lot of Chaucer's other works. He was an author that I did enjoy during college. But this is a book that I struggled through for a class. It's not that the material was about an era that I couldn't understand. All of Chaucer's works are like that. But this book seemed to be so forced. The characters were unreachable, unbelievable, the story was way too chalked up and left me wanting. It would be like if they were building up to an epic battle and they ended with a handshake and everyone happy and smiling. It's like Romeo and Juliet without the undying love and double suicide.

1. New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

    If you've read my review of the whole Twilight "saga" then you know my thoughts on this book so I won't rehash them too much. This is the one place where I truly agree with my friend TheCinemaChick. The only good thing about this book was Jacob and the fact he was shirtless and muscled. Even that lovely eye candy can't distract the reader from the psychotic roller coaster that the reader is dragged through all in the name of something that is unfortunately and mistakenly called love.

Whew, there you have it folks. Those are my top 10 books that I could have lived without. Maybe you'll agree and maybe you won't. Maybe you'll want to read the books yourself and make up your own mind. However, I've made up mine and I'm stickin to it.

If you have a list of books you could have lived without then feel free to comment with your top books that you could have lived without. Just maybe you can save a friend from the horrendous fate of a soul destroying book.

I'm Creative Karma and I really really REALLY need a good book right about now.