I know no one reads the same book. With that said, at any given time, there are always a handful of newly released novels that sing praise holier than thou, and I’m here to put a stop to this madness. Today, I’m giving you my honest opinion on three books that I dub OVERRATED.
OVERRATED READS | VOLUME NO. 6
This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijkamp
The plot seemed really intriguing. A school shooting told from four different students perspectives, the entire story is told in 54 minutes. Doesn’t that sound super amusing?! My god, the author had so much potential here! And yet, the story, the characters, the shooter himself — it was all so underdeveloped. It was never properly explained why the shooter snapped. The author just made him out to be a ‘villain’ who was simply ‘evil.’
None of the characters were likable, or relatable, if anything, they were so stereotyped it felt like The Breakfast Club, but not in the cute feel good way. Also, this needs to be noted — the shooters sister ended up making out with her jock crush towards the tail end of these 54 minutes, as EMT are pulling out dead bodies — I’m sorry, but WHAT?! It felt so out of place and made me angry. It was also BORING and SLOW. Is that even possible for a novel about a high school shooting? Somehow, it was. But my biggest gripe was how little the author scratched the surface of a school shooting. Like barely touched upon WHY an 18 year old student would snap and bring a gun to school.
My Not So Perfect Life by Sophie Kinsella
Katie Brenner has finally done it! She’s moved to London where she has her first ‘real’ job as a low-level admin, but she finally has her foot in the door in her dream field. And yeah, her commute is pretty rough, and her flat is super expensive, even though her room is so small she can’t fit in a wardrobe. But London!
At first I really enjoyed the story. The plot seemed great, and totally relatable to a young woman in an entry level job in her field in a large urban city (errrm, hello 22 year old Dara!). Totally relatable! Right?
OK so for starters, I’m wondering if I would’ve hated this book as much if I actually read as opposed to have listened to it. The narration was BAD. It overdone, dramatic, whiney, and just awful. It distracted me quite a bit. Secondly, the story went off the deep end pretty quickly. Unrealistic, ridiculous twists and turns, and an oh so predictable ending (though I’m hearing that this is common for Kinsella novels, which I didn’t know at the time of purchase). Around 1/3 in, I wanted this book to end, so so so badly. But it was a quick read listen, so I plowed through, hoping it would turn around — my hopes were too high. I might be in the minority here, because it holds 3.9 stars out of 31K ratings on GR. It gets a 3 from me.
My Husband’s Wife by Jane Corry
I’d give you a two-three sentence synopsis of the plot, but… it was just a mess. It’s so off the chain and difficult to explain that I’d have to use up three paragraphs to do so. And that’s how you know it’s too complicated, and not in the good way.
To be fair, this book started off strong. And then quickly fell flat on its face. It was just a mess. I did listen to it via Audible rather than read it, and I’m wondering (again) if I would have felt different if I actually read it rather than listened to it. About 1/4 of the book is narrated from the POV of an 9 year old, and when the narrator would read over those portions, or have to act out the 9 year olds voice, it was cringe worthy. I don’t want to trash the narrator, but she was just awful. There was also a plethora of different characters (male, female, children, etc.) and none of them were done convincingly. At one point I was like ‘is a muppet reading this?’
Moving on from the bad narration — the plot was RIDICULOUS. It was just a hot mess with too many twists and turns that didn’t really add to the ‘suspense.’ Was the author trying to convince me that the book is supposed to be a ‘thriller?’ The twists that were thrown were just so… BAD. Each and every time I rolled my eyes. I ended up giving it a 2 on GR. Stay clear of this book.