Worst Books I Read In 2019! 

What was the worst book you read this year??

I'm still floored that J.K. Rowling stole my sister's 14 year-old fanfiction about Bellatrix and Voldemort and published it.

I'm still floored that people unsubscribe over an unfavorable book review. Dude, the Dresden Files has boatloads of books. One's bound to be a clunker.

Worst fantasy I read this year was the newspaper. No decent characters, inconsistencies out the wazoo, and plot holes you could drive a fleet of buses through.

For a play, "A very potter musical" is still more canon than cursed child imo

I remember when Cursed Child was coming out Our library had a party, harry potter themed, to when the truck carrying the books would come At around 1:30 am So me and my dad(great person) stayed at the library till then, with about 20 other kids. I got bored a picked out a random book I heard about, The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the ring. I read it there and loved it. We waited till the books came. Before that I was a Harry Potter Megafan. I read it in a half hour. And died. After that I lost much of my love for the series and moved on to the book I checked out So now I'm a Middle Earth Mega Fan that is maybe unhealthy obsessed

The Cursed Child is the Cursed Child of the Harry Potter franchise!

Cursed child was the worst! Can’t believe it still happened.

“Make fun of men as much as you want” a Wheel of Time fan right there

im a simple man, i see someone criticising cursed child and i upvote

So a buddy of mine raved about Goodkind for years and after college I finally tried out the books. I had a job that had a brutal hurry up and wait cycle that kind of necessitated finding ways to stay awake and alert for an hour before I could do an operation that required pretty intense focus. Anyway, read Confessor first, and hated it. It abused it's characters in ways that made me want to take a bath and the protagonists would have been the villains in any other novel but his. I told my buddy what I thought, he'd read the entire series, and he told me to try the first book. It was basically the same beats in the plot. Same forms of abuse same shmarmy feeling after reading, only much much worse because there was the whole Atlas Shrugged vibe was a little more apparent. I hated everyone involved in the book and the arrogance of the author that each and every page was drenched with. I'm a conservative, my friend's a liberal; we're both physicists. Politics and intelligence didn't have anything to do with it. The books are just gross and derivative and pretend they're more than want they are. Glad to hear someone else agree that at least they suck.

I literally read fanfiction written by teenagers that managed to capture the characters essence better than Cursed Child. Wait, no, let me rephrase, I barely read any fanfiction written by teens that manages to capture the character's essence worse than Cursed Child. I remember trying to read it years ago and stopping after 5 pages because those were not Harry and Ginny. And I just stopped and never looked back. I've watched detailed review of it, and the plot looks completely idiotic! Anyways, I haven't read many really bad book this year (DNFed a bunch, though :p). But I hated the Legend trilogy by Marie Lu (only read the second book because I was vaguely curious about the plot. Didn't read the last. And I don't regret that cuz I can know remember nothing about the books except the agony it was to go through them.) The Reluctant Assassin by Eoin Colfer was really bad! (shame, loved Artemis Fowl by the author)

A friend reccomended me a vampire book called Guilty Pleasures. That was the worst thing I read this year.

What dark ritual must I preform to make Daniel read the onision books? I feed on his suffering.

For books I've read this year I've been absorbed in WoT for at least 1/2 of it and Stormlight Archives and Lightbringer after so not a lot of bad this year. Worst is probably Crossroads of Twilight and even then I liked that book. Being a relative baby in more modern fantasy means it will probably be a bit before I run out of top series to read.

my biggest issue with Goodkind's Sword of Truth series was the inconsistencies. He lays out rules of magic and then breaks them in a subsequent book. He writes one thing, then later on in the series says the opposite. I read the series all the way up to Confessor and was constantly irritated by those inconsistencies. I really wanted to like it more and suprised myself by how long I stuck with it. After that I started Wheel of Time and was much happier

Happy christmas eve bro

Salute for being honest about likes and dislikes of books ! Part of reason i follow you. Other is looking at lights on bookshelf! Keep telling us what really think on books. Keeping it real. Merry Christmas!

One i was excited to read but massively let down on was - The last necromancer by CJ Archer, A cool premise with likeable characters, basically nothing happens and the MC falls for a guy who doesnt give to shits about her and she consitently just cries at her problems and never impacts the world, despite the narative being that she was a strong woman who lived on the streets by herself... and the conclusion.... talk about unsatisfying.

2 things I liked about Cursed Child: - Albus is in Slytherin with Scorpius. Slytherin REALLY needed some not evil characters (in the books there's Slughorn and....no it's just Slughorn. I don't really count Snape as a very good person). - Albus and Scorpius are friends. That premise is just... really sweet, and I liked their relationship Things that I disliked about Cursed Child: - everything else

I read onision 😨😨😨😨😨

"Wise Man's Fear", No.2 of the Kingkiller Series by Patrick Rothfuss. "Name of the Wind" was OK but #2 went downhill so far that #3 won't be attempted. Would like to hear your review of some of the classic SF such as Amber by Zelazny or anything by A.E. Van Vogh. Merry Christmas.

As you said “I do not like it,” I thought, “Sam-I-am.” Love how our brains went right to the same place. #DrSeuss2020

Really agree with your assessment of Terry Goodkind's "Wizard's first rule". For me it was so bad I couldn't even finish it. The overt and unapologetic stealing of other authors ideas and tropes was bad enough but what really killed it for me was the whole S&M torture of the protagonist that made no sense at all.

Woah, I had the same reaction to "the city in the middle of the night" and I was so mad at myself and could not and still can not articulate why I was so unaffected by it! It was so we'll written but I just did not care. Everything in it is usually my cup of tea.

Sword of thruth... oooh I just wanted to burn that book after reading eat, it was not only bad writtiing (in term of history, character, plagia ect...) it just make me sick at some point, I'm sorry it's physical and it's rare that I don't even find one reason to understand why someone could like something I don't. And then I discover a bit more about the author, and now I think I don't wanna talk about those book ever, nor even see the cover of one of his book. But watching an interview made me understand why the main character was so irritating... His creator is.

As primarily an audiobook reader, if I'm not liking something I don't finish it. And then I just forget about it.

The Cursed Child is the worst thing to have been created ever! I hate that I have it on my shelf and need to throw it out next time I'm near a bonfire.

I love that for the Goodkind book he included the release version where the publisher is essentially saying "look, if you'll take 2 of these steaming piles, we'll only charge you for one." So glad I got mine at Half Price Books.

Even when I was an avid reader who'd read a book in a day or every other day every time I tried to read wizards first rule I would just straight up pass out every 15 pages and wake up like an hour or two later. Honestly that's super iregular for me. I usually just fall asleep to most movies within 35 minutes while in the car.

I was really happy to see The Savior's Champion on here. Jenna is a marketing genius, but she can't write at all. I even returned her book to Amazon and got my money back. This is one of the reasons I just can't get behind self-pub.

5. The City in the Middle of the Night - Charlie Jane Anders 4. Blood Rites - Jim Butcher 3. The Savior's Champion - Jenna Moreci 2. Wizard's First Rule - Terry Goodkind 1. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - J.K. Rowling

The Desert Spear, The Daylight War and The Skull Throne (DNF'd about 1/3rd way into The Skull Throne). What an atrocious series of sequels to a pretty decent first entry.

Now I feel like I have to defend Blood Rites, lol. Is it the best book in the series? Maybe not. But you have the introduction of Mouse, the reveal of Thomas and Harry's relationship, the introduction to the White Court, the destruction of a major power, and a great battle scene with the Black Court vampires. In a way, it's a move away from the original noir detective background of the series, as the case becomes secondary to the issues with the White Court, but the case is what leads into that. Harry's moving on to bigger and better (more dangerous?) things. In regards to the worst thing I've read this year...I would have to say any supposed to be fantasy fiction book that brought up real world politics, especially those that demonize one side or the other. I read to get away from everything, and that does not help.

I remember arriving early at the store so I could be the first one to buy Cursed Child from the shop. Imagine my delight after reading that garbage.

When I started reading Wizard's First Rule, it was so bad that I honestly thought I'd lost my desire to read at all. I couldn't even get halfway through it.

I can't agree more with your assessment of Wizards First Rule. As a bookseller, I try and be neutral when customers ask for books, but I really cringe when they ask to order Mr. Goodkind's series. I will always try to, nonchalantly, introduce them to something more exciting. ;)

Im a new sub here what other review with a negative response was he talking about???

My wife’s 10-year old just came home from the library a couple of days ago and exclaimed happily ”It’s a NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK!” and this christmas weekend has been like seeing something meant to be a happy childhood memory unravel in real time to pure depression. Yikes.

As someone who got through the whole Sword of Truth series I have to say: Just reading the first book doesn't do the series justice....it devolves into utter garbage! Seriously the train wreak that was the last two books (I'm not counting what he has written since no need to beat a dead horse) was a travesty. I don't want to spoil even this, but the beginning of book eleven was the oddest thing I had ever read. If you do want to see what I mean give it a try, you will regret it!

Wait which review did you delete? Im trying to think of the one with the greatest backlash.

"I'm don't mean to disrespect the author..." Aaaaand subscribed. Well done.

The worst this year for me was trying to read Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series. I know many people praise it for the magic system, but I just could not stand any of the characters. I was constantly annoyed, so I left at around 200-250 pages in.

After I read Wizards First Rule in high school, I had to take a shower. Reading it made my soul feel dirty. But then I was introduced to Wheel of Time afterwards, whichhelped.

I still have nightmares about reading Wizard's First Rule. That book bored me to death. Luckily, someone found me and gave me CPR. I am not sure why it is such a popular book and series. Maybe I'm missing something. Weirdly enough, I had nearly the same reaction to Game of Thrones, but I persevered with that series and came to love it.

I LOVE Dresden Files.......but not all books are equal in the series lol.

omg I LOVED Wizard First rule. Loved loved loved it. But, it was the first fantacy I ever read (except harry potter) and I was... 15? maybe. So I hve no clue what I would think now

I almost want to reread Wizard’s First Rule just to recall how bad it is. Almost. But what was the review that had to be taken down?

Daniel! I sent you some books and USPS tracking tells me they've been delivered today. Just in time for Christmas! I hope you like at least one! :D Cheers, Jan (there should be three, though likely in separate packages. Two by Greg Keyes and one by Scott Bakker.)

My least favourite book this year was alloy of law. I honestly should have just DNF'ed it, but i was determined. I dont think im going to continue the series though. Good list on your part daniel; makes me trust your reviews more.

The Holy Moliness continues XD

You should read "All the Birds in the Sky" by Charlie Jane Anders, it was my favourite book of this year! I haven't read the City in the Middle of the Night, but you should give her another chance, she's pretty great!!

Im digging the mustache brother... Very fancy while you crush Terry Goodkind fans

Read Storm Front - Death Masks a couple of years ago and life kind of got in the way of continuing on. I literally just started reading Blood Rites last night because I heard that Peace Talks has a release date. Interested to finish Blood Rites and then actually watch your review. Of the five I have read I think Fool Moon is the weakest but I still liked it a good deal.

Cursed Child was so sad for me. I was so excited about this because I seriously wanted more from the world following the gang as adults but jesus. The book was just insulting to the fandom as a whole. It had some pretty awesome concepts but execution was genuinely horrid.

Add that makes you feel nothing is, objectively, probably less worthy than art that might be bad but still gets people talking about it, thinking, debating.

You need to read a later book in the Wizards first rule series. The first book is actually the best book in the series, or as far as I got anyway.

I bought a bunch of terry goodkind novels in a used bookstore a few years ago, hoping that id be starting a new fantasy series that would keep me enthralled. Boy was i wrong. After the wizard's first rule i gave all the books away for free. I was very disengaged from the get go. Not an enjoyable read IMO.

Love your videos! If you are into sci-fi that makes you think, I highly recommend Recursion by Blake Crouch (has Inception vibes). Also as a fellow software engineer/tech guy, I recommend Neal Stephenson's work. His books are heavy in tech/scientific concepts but some of his books have awful endings. Some of his books that arguably don't fall into this trap are The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Anathem and Cryptonomicon. Anyways, you got me into reading the entire First Law series till The Little Hatred, and starting the Stormlight Archive!

the HP franchise is indeed rolling in money now days, happy holiday :). p.s read the belgariad.

Worst? Probably Children of Blood and Bone, Regenesis, Firstlife, and Red Queen. Yuck on that last one, but it reminds me of how far YA fantasy has come as a genre in just a few years.

Hey, Daniel, I've been enjoying your vids lately! I will agree with you 100% about cursed child. Also, if you thought Wizard's First Rule was bad, you would vomit your insides out reading the last 5 books he wrote starting from the Omen Machine. I actually enjoyed much of the Sword of Truth series, but hated the additional ones he put out. I'm also one of those readers who must finish a series that I start :)

Merry Christmas to you and yours, bud. Thanks for all the solid recs all year.

I am addicted to your channel now. Keep up the good work!

I’m very glad I didn’t read Wizards First Rule until I was already a seasoned, adult reader. I hated it from the start. My distaste wasn’t nearly as nuanced as Daniels... I just thought it the single worst case of “like, omg, will they? Won’t they? But omg if they do, it would be evil, but like, true love, but like, sex torture, but like, he’s an amaze balls Mary Sue with a macguffin sword of ultimateness”. Nuance be damned, I hated that book.

Big agreement with you on Dresden Files. Blood Rites was so bad I haven't had the will to pick up another Jim Butcher book since. If you think that Dead Beat helps the series pick up the pieces I might give it another go.

Just going off the thumbnail: I am so ready for a Terry Goodkind Christmas roasting.

Unfortunately, I haven't had much time to read this year and what I have read has been all pretty quality or a textbook. The two books that stand out in 2019 are Haruki Murakami's Killing Commendatore and Frank Herbert's Dune, a series I should have started long ago. Terry Goodkind is the living embodiment of a Dunning Kruger author. He thinks he's writing magnificent high art in a genre he looks down on (presumably because he can't cut it in literary fiction publishing) and it's unoriginal, boring, meaningless trash that he doesn't take seriously enough to not insert his fetishes into.

Potterhead here. I didn't even finish the book. After 3 chapters of The Cursed Child I dropped it and conditioned my mind that it was just a poorly written fanfic. Then, to forget what I read, I watched HP movies and read again The Oder of the Phoenix.

I refuse to read Cursed Child. I've heard enough about the plot to know that I have read better FanFIction when I was 15 than the fanfic that book is. The worst book I read in 2019 would have to be Wildcard by Marie Lu. I didn't like Warcross, the first book, but book 2 (the finale) was just not good. And it's a shame because I love all her other books, The Legend trilogy, and The Young Elites trilogy. Everything in the Warcross duology just didn't work for me. The characters weren't interesting and the world didn't make sense to me, not to mention the plot. It was well written, but I didn't like anything else about it.

My worst book read this year must be mage against the machine. Not because it were bad, it had great consepts in it and some interesting world building but i feel it fell short of its potential / failed to capture me the way i hoped it would. On a positive note, the best were definitly the 3 stormlight Archive books

Hey Daniel, you'll be happy to know that purely based on your love of the WOT series, Im giving it another chance. I just started book 4 today.

You hit on one of the biggest problems - the eternal series and that guaranteed "hit". Few are consistently good (Dune, the "Map" novels by Palma,, the Expanse, the Deadly Sins by Delaney, etc) and most end up devoid of ideas, plot and drive. All those awful "number series" by Evanovich became indistinguishable. If you want "bad" try the "self-published" books on Amazon for "free". If it can go wrong, it does - grammar, spelling, punctuation, writing (paragraphs are single sentences or run for pages, quote marks are optional). Most are on a middle-school literature level -the story from their view, farther/further, it's/its, horde/hoard, "irregardless, etc Stories are repeated - hundreds of EMP, serial killers, zombie apocalypses, alien invasions, nuclear wars, etc. Moralistic preaching with all the nuance of a jackhammer on high, caricatures vs characters. Of course, most have a five star rating! LOL

Feel like I might ruffle some feathers here, but 2 books were very disappointing for me this year. The Gunslinger by Stephen King I like King and wanted to get more into his expanded universe. My biggest issue was that I felt like I was dumped into this world and barely given anything to ground me there. I don’t need authors to hold my hand but I just could not get into the story. I might try again, but it was tedious at times. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman (Don’t shoot! Hear me out) I first heard about this when the Amazon show was released. The concept and scenes I’d seen online were fun and intriguing. So I used my Audible points to buy the audiobook and listen before trying the show (don’t judge, I work a lot). Unfortunately, like Gunslinger, this was difficult to finish. I’m normally all for quirky humor, but it became too much for me here. Jokes just run into the ground or not that funny. It was also surprisingly slow. It felt like a lot of buildup and talk that was taking its sweet time to go anywhere. I know that both of these authors have done great work that I’ve liked before, but this just wasn’t doing it for me. Here’s hoping the show is better.

Daniel uploading video about his worst 2019 reading experience on Christmas Eve is honestly just the best present.

As read this as a child and now you got me thinking i should reread it! I really loved the first few books of this series!

You summed up my feelings about City in the Middle of the Night perfectly. So much cool stuff, but over all just meh. When Cursed Child came out I was like “Ooo, new Harry Potter.” Then I realized it was a play and not written by Rowling and I was like, “Uh, pass.” Never read it and never will.

Have you read any David Gemmel?

I decided to read " What if it's us" a YA romance contemporary book by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertalli and...I regretted it deeply

Glad to see thast I'm not alone in disliking "WFR". I found that it not only committted several cardinal sins, as you described.. but also you left out the sins of "Predictable" and "Boring".... I tried to read this 3 times and always gave up, twice at the same point, the third time in the very next chapter. Life was too short for that sheep.

The Sword Of Truth is a guilty pleasure of mine. I don't read the series often, as I KNOW it features a lot of stolen ideas, poor world-building and isn't the best Fantasy series I can name, but I low key like it anyway.

Everyone I knew who liked Fantasy in High School & even several people in early college read The Sword of Truth series. You're right that at the time it was pretty good because we were 14, haha. While the series had it's high points it had a lot of low/meh/ugh/really?! points as well! If you think the book was bad, DO NOT watch the TV show! That was a HUGE letdown!

Now I want to know about the video you deleted!

I've never read any of the Harry Potter books but hearing your take and the comments below comes off reminding me of what the Star Wars movies have become so.........are you sure Disney didn't get Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams to write Cursed Child. The worst book I read this year ( and I use worst lightly because I can see why people might like it) is, damnit I can't remember the Title but you recently did a review on the book, there's like 3 or 4 different colored Londons and magic is fading, I just couldn't get into it, like I said I can appreciate the quality of the book but it just didn't grab me. Merry Christmas er' body

Has he already done his "best books of 2019" video? Is the "goodreads best fantasy of 2019" supposed to be that?

While i did not perticularly love the Cursed Child script, and i've read a ton of scripts through the years. Watching the actual play itself was an incredible experience. It was clearly a text without proper visual descriptors, written for an extremely visual and auditory show. Sure there are some characters that behave in differing ways from the original series, but in the moment, and performed by talented people, i rarely struck me as odd.

Mine was Lev Grossman's The Magicians. The characters were obnoxious, and the book was a rushed collection of allusions to other fantasy series that should have been done in at least three novels with more originality.

I've read your bottom two, and I'd have to agree. Though I'd still say Wizard's First Rule is worse. At least Cursed Child had the decency to be over quick.

Harry Potter and the cursed child is a multiple award winning play that’s been running for a while now so there must be something to it. I like potter but the thought of reading a script leaves me dry and is not how the story was intended to be experienced which is why I haven’t read it. I bought it for my wife though and she says it’s great. Jack Thorne has done a brilliant job adapting His Dark Materials (and The Aeronauts was very well reviewed this year) so there’s definitely talent involved

I just finished The Savior's Champion, and I really liked it!

Worst fantasy I've read in recent memory was "The Unremembered". Fitting title, since it was so forgettable. Its always sad when a new story ends up being bad.

Totally agree about City in the Middle of the Night. I DNF'd it because the characters and dialogue were so bad and elementary. It is a shame, because the idea of it was cool, and I wanted to know more about the crocodiles, but I just can't slog through the other crap for that...

How much you didn't enjoy Wizards First Rule makes me want to read it every time! I love a great negative review!

The sword of truth was dope! My second favorite right after WOT

Worst on my list: - Obsidian sun (temple chronicles ) this was really bad for me, it's a book where you are rooting for the MC to die in his adventures the entire time. The second book is much better but overall I dropped the series after the third book which was OK. -Saviors champion - too much obvious foreshadowing but the main part is where Tobias is able to leave the tournament but then decides not to even though to that point it's was his only goal, still to this day confused as to what happened. Also the main bad guy the King father of the savior's motivation doesn't makes sense at all, like if he kills his daughter the world ends, but I mean he is like 99% the ruler of ALL right now, but is trying to kill his daughter to be 100% ruler of all even though all the plants will die as a result and the populace will quickly die off. I does not make sense at all. -- comment on, from years ago. -Wizard's First rule and Sword of truth series - has TOO many one-off's. The only wizard in the world just so happens to be the most powerful currently in the world and his Uncle who helps him constantly. Richard is the only one with Superhero sword fighter powers and is also the most powerful wizard X10 ever to exist (later on). The last confessor in existence is his partner and the most powerful version in history. practically no others with magic exist except the main bad dude. Later in the series, you can't have a story with Richard because he is too OP to have any conflicts that are meaningful until he gets all his powers taken away because he is dumb. his sister is the only one who exists who is not effected by magic, like this list goes on and on, The only dragon is the biggest and befriend the MC which has never happened before (it's endless.) other than that is got some great concepts and is well written. The later books are very good but all persist this same theme of One-off characters. (THE ONLY DREAM Walker) like it's everywhere.

As a DIE HARD Dresden Files fan, I have to agree. Blood Rites isn't very good. There's only 1 that's worse imo. Blood Rites have one good thing about it, and that's the introduction of Mouse But, my best book of the year, as in new books I've read, would be The Burning White. It's a GREAT ending to the Lightbringer pentology

New to the channel who is the “one “ that you don’t like.

My least favorite I read this year was Red Rising, I couldn't make it through the first book because I hated the main character.

I THREW CURSED CHILD IN THE TRASH AND I NEVER DO THAT EXCEPT THIS ONCE.

Blood Rites get better as you read the series. There are many events that happen in that book that become plot elements on later books. It definitely isn't the strongest of the books but it was necessary>