Umm… the last post in our Overrated Reads series was BEFORE I GAVE BIRTH, so we’re long overdue. Let’s jump right in.
OVERRATED READS | VOLUME NO. 12
FINAL GIRLS BY Riley Sager
Bleh! I discovered Riley Sager via Book of the Month, I read The Last Time I Lied which I enjoyed as a decently paced thriller (even though there were a million plot holes). So I decided to read his next, Final Girls. Yikes. What a mess. I liked the premise and the concept, but the execution fell very, very flat for me. Intriguing enough, but very much overrated book for me. Goodreads agrees.
American War by Omar El Akkad
God I hated this book. Even typing up this small paragraph recalling my experience reading the book makes me ragey all over again. I’ll start by saying something nice — the book began very strong, quite promising. But that’s all the book had going for it. A strong start and a great genre (dystopian). The rest was a sloppy mess with huge plot holes. It was a book that tried oh-so-hard to be politically relevant but… it just didn’t work. It was boring AF and I couldn’t wait for it to wrap up.
Exist West by Moshin Hamid
I definitely understood the larger point the author was trying to make, and it felt very relevant to 2017 (the year the book was released). I found the concept very clever and intriguing, however, I wasn’t impressed with his story telling — which, for the record, did start out strong. I wasn’t impressed with a love story, it felt so lame. I wasn’t impressed with one dimensional characters. I wasn’t impressed with the execution of the plot. The one thing this book had going for it was its brevity.
Moonglow by Michael Chabon
I know I’m the odd one out here, but I simply couldn’t get into this novel. Which felt so bizarre, because the novel had all of the elements I typically enjoy: multigenerational family saga, historical fiction, deathbed confessions. And yet… here we are. I couldn’t connect to the story. I didn’t care for the characters. The whole thing felt pointless and I had to force myself to keep going. In all fairness, I listened to this novel via audiobook, and admittedly wasn’t in the best headspace while listening (I was smack in the middle of my fourth trimester and still totally sleep deprived). But with so many books, and so little time, I most likely will not give this book another shot. Alas, it gets thrown into my list of Overrated Reads.
And that’s it for now! I read most of these pre-baby, so expect another edition of Overrated Reads with some of my post-baby books.