Least Favourite Books of 2017

Like many in the book blogging community, I consider reading to be a form of escape, and 2017 was a year when we all had a lot to escape from. Many of the books I read captured my imagination and took me on moving, well-plotted journeys, populated by sympathetic flawed characters. Some… did not. My favourite books of 2017 can be found here, but I’ve also compiled a list of five of my least favourite reads of the year.

The good news is that only two of the books I read this year are so egregiously bad that I’d actively discourage anyone from reading them, the other choices fall more into the category of novels that either disappointed me with their execution, or that were simply not my cup of tea. Some of my choices will likely be controversial as they are critically acclaimed, so keep in mind that this is simply one person’s opinion. These books did not appeal to me personally, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be exactly what someone else is looking for!

5. Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi
I feel a little bit badly about sticking Sonora on here because it’s such a clear case of a book that just was not my cup of tea. A contemporary, literary fiction work that reads like an extended fever dream, Sonora is pitched as a lyrical coming-of-age story about Ahlam, the daughter of a Palestinian refugee and his Israeli wife, and Laura, the wilder, bolder best friend. Together they move from the desert suburbs of Arizona to explore drugs, sex, and boys in New York City, but the highs and lows of the drug-fueled lifestyle threaten to destroy them both. The writing is both the best and the worst thing about Sonora. At its best, Assadi’s prose is lush and poetic, as in her descriptions of setting, from the stark Sonoran desert in Arizona to the bustle of New York City. However, I found the ornate language distracting, to the point where I read the discussion questions at the back of the book and realized that I had missed key plot and character elements because the prose was so stylized! Sonora offers little of substance and reads less like an engaging and effective novel than it does an experiment in form, devised by the author to enable her to play with imagery and language freely without being constrained by plot. As someone who reads little in the way of literary fiction, it was a slog. Putting aside the plot and form issues, Sonora is a book populated by characters who only ever feel surface deep, making it difficult to connect with them. Ultimately I was left wishing the story had been more cohesive, and that the book had drawn more on the interesting familial relationships between Ahlam and her parents, than on her more cliché connection to party girl Laura.

4. The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich
The Love Interest is certainly the most readable book on this list, taking me only a few hours to read cover to cover, but it’s also one of the most disappointing books I’ve encountered. The problem? It’s a textbook case of a fabulous concept executed poorly. The fault appears to lie with author Cale Dietrich who doesn’t seem to know what he wants the book to be. At times The Love Interest appears to be a straightforward satire of the traditional YA romance genre, with laugh out loud funny lines. Yet it also tries to construct an original dystopia, in which boys are groomed from childhood to be “love interests,” lifelong spies who keep tabs on potentially important people by becoming their significant other. The result is a mess of a novel that doesn’t do either of these things well.

The idea behind The Love Interest is a subversion of the traditional YA love triangle. Pitting Juliet’s two love interests, a nice boy-next-door type and a bad boy against one another to win her heart, they instead fall for one another. Sounds fascinating right? Unfortunately the in-story subversions and lamp shading of YA tropes just don’t make sense within the context of the, rather shallowly constructed, world. Take for example the Nice vs. Bad formula. Each “love interest” is rigidly groomed to fit one type or the other and one Nice and one Bad are sent after each chosen girl, yet the in-world explanation for WHY these tropes have to be adhered to is hand waved. Ultimately, I found myself asking why a lot while reading this book and never getting much in the way of satisfying answers. Despite some incredibly funny lines, the inconsistency in the storytelling, the shallowly-rendered characters, and the lack of logic in the world building add up to a book that never fulfills its potential and that fails to do justice to a terrific concept.

3. War & Peace by Leo Tolstoy
My first experience with classic Russian literature did not go well. I believe that somewhere in War & Peace‘s 1,300 pages there is a genuinely good four or five hundred page book, but War & Peace as it exists now is an unbalanced work. The first half of the book is stronger, offering interesting, if enigmatic, characters and wry commentary on how young men romanticize the war, but mid-way through Tolstoy abandons all pretense that he is writing a novel. The remainder of War & Peace reads like a dissertation that exists only for Tolstoy to spout his thoughts on war, The Great Man Theory, and more. Even the (100 page!) epilogue reads more like the rambling conclusion of a Masters student than a novel. There’s a brief stretch where Tolstoy remembers that he has actual characters and returns to their lives to quickly sum things up, but even this seems like an afterthought. More accurately titled War & War & War & War & War & War & Peace, it often feels like any emphasis or development of plot and characters are a digression for Tolstoy, instead of the main event. If you’re especially keen on military history I imagine War & Peace makes for a fascinating read. If not, don’t read War & Peace, read Les Miserables instead.

2. An Untamed State by Roxanne Gay
Roxanne Gay is a noted feminist and writer of non-fiction and I certainly don’t intend to take away from her contributions, but her debut work of fiction is, quite frankly, awful. The first half of the novel deals with Haitian-American Mireille’s abduction at gunpoint outside the walls of her father’s multi-acre estate by men seeking ransom. When her captors do not receive the sum they’re looking for, Mireille is repeatedly, and graphically raped. The remainder of the novel deals with the aftermath of this trauma. Part of my hatred for this book comes from the fact that it aims to comment on complex themes of racism, sexism, and classism, yet offers nothing of value to the conversation. Rape and trauma are subjects that should be handled with delicacy, particularly in a time when shows like Game of Thrones have been criticized for their gratuitous use of sexual violence, yet Gay’s take is upsettingly exploitative. Gay appears to be trying to create a mirroring panic in the reader during the kidnapping scenes with her use of staccato prose, but the effect is just choppy and poorly written. The dialogue is even worse, full of over-the-top, corny conversations that wouldn’t be out of place in a cheesy romance novel or a B movie. The relationship between Mireille and her husband Michael is immature at best, and the two characters appear to be in constant competition for the title of most irritating character. It doesn’t help that An Untamed State suffers from pacing issues, thrusting readers into the midst of kidnapping within the first few pages, before we have time to become invested in the characters, but my biggest issue was with the graphic depictions of Mireille’s sexual assault. It’s difficult to believe this book was even written by a woman, let alone a noted feminist, because the rape scenes are so frequent, graphic, and disturbingly voyeuristic. The ending breaks even the tenuous grip that An Untamed State had on reality with a twist that is so implausible and unnecessary that it had me rolling my eyes at the page. The only redeeming qualities here lie in Gay’s portrayal of PTSD following the kidnapping and in the fascinating, but sadly all too few, insights offered on the immigrant Haitian-American experience.

1. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
Although I found it dense and too “hard science fiction” to be my kind of book, I admired the merits of The Three Body Problem, the first book in Cixin Liu’s Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy. Unfortunately, the sequel is not only dull and devoid of interesting characters, it’s also shockingly misogynistic throughout. Without going into too much detail, the book deals with an incoming alien invasion of Earth by the Trisolarans. Although their ships will not arrive for 400 years, the Trisolarans have planted subatomic particles that give them access to all human information on Earth, making it nearly impossible for humanity to form a response that the aliens will not see coming. In response, humanity appoints four “Wallfacers” and provides them with unlimited resources to design separate and secret strategies to mislead and foil the Trisolaran attack.

Cixin Liu’s strengths clearly don’t lie in character development, as his creations have so few distinguishing characteristics that they blend together into one bland, not particularly likable, type. The female characters, of which there are few, fare even worse. Liu’s women exist primarily as love interests for the male characters, who lead, make the tough decisions, and generally hold positions of importance, including all four Wallfacer appointments. Many of the female minor characters betray their husbands, leaving me to wonder if the author has some unresolved issues, and The Dark Forest opens with the womanizing protagonist unable to even remember the name of his latest fling when she is killed off! But the most offensive portrayal of all occurs in a plot that has to be read to be believed – except that no woman should ever read this book. Main character Luo Ji falls in love with an imaginary perfect woman that he has created (which his doctor describes as a totally normal experience?!) and his infatuation is so overwhelming that it destroys the only close relationship he has with a real woman. When he is appointed a Wallfacer and has the resources of the world at his disposal, he decides to use them to find a real woman who fits exactly the image he has in his head, by describing her to a bodyguard. Unbelievably, the bodyguard finds a woman who exactly matches this description, brings her to Luo Ji and they proceed to fall in love and have a child together! An impending alien invasion is more believable than this entire plotline. Throughout, the woman (Yan Yan) is infantilized, described as innocent, childlike, in need of protection, and possessing less education than our male protagonist. After they’ve been together for a few years (long enough for her to procreate), Yan Yan is quite literally fridged! The author puts her into refrigerated hibernation, along with her daughter, held as hostages against Luo Ji’s good behaviour, and they’re never heard from again. Never before have I read something so disturbingly, casually misogynistic, yet The Dark Forest holds a 4.4 rating on goodreads and has been critically acclaimed! My suspicion is that the blatant misogyny in these books is being tolerated because the author is Chinese. I’m all for diverse voices, particularly in the traditionally white male written SFF genre, but they should not come at the cost of three-dimensional female characters. Fans of Science-Fiction and Fantasy deserve better.

What were your least favorite reads of 2017? Comment and let me know!