I posted a Top Rated Fiction Reads According to GoodReads yesterday and thought a worst rated one would be interesting too.
I don’t currently have all my books on GoodReads but I thought a yearly check would be interesting. So for all my read books, I sorted by average rating low to high, and didn’t count any short audiobooks or single stories under 100 pages.
Worst Fiction Reads According to GoodReads
- 1 – Everything the Darkness Eats by Eric LaRocca
- 2 – Dolly: A Ghost story by Susan Hill
- 3 – Silent Night by various authors
- 4 – The Graveyard Apartment by Mariko Koike
- 5 – You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca
- 6 – Pine by Francine Toon
- 7 – The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
- 8 – Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
- 9 – The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook by Matt Dunn
- 10 – Rouge by Mona Awad
Seeing Everything the Darkness Eats is not a surprise to me as I haven’t heard of anyone enjoying this book. I can’t say I enjoyed it either. There were parts I liked and many bits I didn’t. It is a book that I don’t know what to think of it. On the other side I don’t believe the Graveyard apartment should be there. It isn’t a great story but there are enough parts to keep you interested. Silent Night isn’t a surprise as it appears to be very low on people’s radar. Although, Christmas Ghost Stories clearly don’t float everyone’s boat, it’s not very festive. For my type of list seeing The Ex-Boyfriend’s Handbook wouldn’t be a surprise. I’m not a huge romance fan but I would of thought it was higher up for others. I can see it being a summer holiday read for many people. Could it be lower rated because it wasn’t from the female perspective?
My Worst Rated Fiction Reads According to GoodReads
- 1 – You’ve Lost a Lot of Blood by Eric LaRocca
- 2 – Pine by Francine Toon
- 3 – The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
- 4 – Into the Water by Paula Hawkins
- 5 – Rouge by Mona Awad
- 6 – The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw
- 7 – The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon by Stephen King
- 8 – Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
- 9 – Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L.James
- 10 – Mexican Gothic by Silvia Morena-Garcia
This list surprises me because I do not believe most of these should ever be on a Worst rated list however on Good Reads all of these currently have a 3 star rating from about a 3.2 to 3.6. When you look at it like this I can understand it more. Quite a few of these books like You’ve lost a lot of Blood and Rouge have had a few polarising opinions. This is the same for Mexican Gothic where people also believed this started well but the ending was unsatisfactory. Pine and Into the Water were, I can agree, OK books where a 3.5 can be reasonable. In regards to Fifty Shades I think that should be higher up the list. These were not good books but mild curiosity and mostly peer pressure were the reason I read them. Why are these not higher on this list? There is no way Rouge should be rated worse than Fifty Shades. I really liked Rouge and I get the story isn’t for everyone but Fifty Shades is just a no. I’m sad Horrorstor and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon are on here as I liked these, Horrorstor again is just a bit of fun and the Stephen King allows your brain to really wander those mountains. However in reference to the average reviews I can agree, they aren’t masterpieces but they are good. I can’t really comment on The Inheritance of Loss because I can’t remember this book or is that all the comment I really need to make on it, although of this list, it is the book I read the longest ago.
This will be an interesting list to revisit as I said most of these books should not be on a worst rated list. If I put my own personal worst rated they wouldn’t be on there (except Fifty) however maybe I don’t read enough low rated books to get a “better” worse list.
Do you think any of these should be on a worst rated list? What would be on yours? Let’s discuss.