Reviews Made Me Reconsider

Posted July 12, 2019 / Discussions, Features / 5 Comments

I’ve been thinking of writing this post for a while but was afraid it would come across as mean or bashing these particular books and authors. I know a lot of people don’t enjoy writing bad reviews for books (I love a good rant sometimes, but not all the time!), so I wasn’t sure how to approach this. AND THEN I said screw it, because it’s my blog and I do what I want. There are plenty of books out there that make their way onto my TBR and then the reviews start rolling in… and I change my mind about reading them. Of course, the reverse is also true: I wasn’t sure if I wanted to read a book and then some glowing reviews came in and I decided that I should try it out. Here’s a little list of some of those books and why they’re on or off my radar now, thanks to my favorite bloggers.


Again, but Better The Wedding Date

Again, but Better by Riccio | I did actually start reading this one but didn’t jive with the writing style, to be honest. I stopped reading it because many, many others did not enjoy this one as much. I saw Chelsea discussing her thoughts on it, plus reviews from Madalyn (which wasn’t necessarily bad but just mixed!) and Amber (mostly about the writing and telling instead of showing) that didn’t make me want to prioritize finishing this book.

The Wedding Date by Guillory | This is a weird one because I went on to read and request the rest of the books in this companion series, but probably will not go back and read this one? After seeing reviews from Cristina and Marg, I decided to hold off on this one. Cristina in particular has a similar reading taste to me and I could just tell from her review that I wouldn’t love this one. My biggest pet peeve lately is when miscommunication or lack of communication is the entire reason the romance has its black moment in the story. I prefer more nuanced issues that prevent the couple from working things out for a while.

99 Percent Mine The Dead Queens Club

99 Percent Mine by Thorne | To be honest, this is the saddest one on my list. I absolutely adored Thorne’s debut and was so so so eager to read her next book! I saw some negative-ish reviews roll in initially and was still thinking I MAY give it a try… but the reviews and ratings from Alexa, Nick, Lindsay, Brittany, Hannah… the list goes on… made me decide officially to not bother reading it. I’m certain that I would be constantly comparing this to THE HATING GAME and it sounds like anyone who did that did not have a good time.

The Dead Queens Club by Capin | I was generally excited for this one for a long time. The summary promises “Mean Girls meets The Tudors … a clever contemporary YA retelling of Henry VIII and his wives (or, in this case, his high school girlfriends).” I really enjoyed the last retelling I read about Henry VIII so I was intrigued about this one! However, the overall Goodreads rating and reviews from people made me decide to pass on this one. Madalyn discussed that she couldn’t decide if she hated this book or didn’t care about it, and that’s not a winning review LOL. It sounds like the book was overall a bit disjointed and confusion and I honestly just don’t think I’ll read it.

We Hunt the Flame (Sands of Arawiya, #1) Never-Contented Things

We Hunt the Flame by Faizal | I’ll be honest: fantasy books are not always my thing and I have a hard time reading them, but I was thinking about this one because I wanted to support a blogger-turned-author. While this book does have a looot of positive reviews and a great rating on Goodreads, reviews from Wendy and Nick made me decide to probably pass on this one? I need a really engaging fantasy and I saw multiple people updating Goodreads statuses that it was really hard to get into and people thought about putting it aside constantly. I just can’t read fantasy books like that right now.

Never-Contented Things by Porter | I was so incredibly excited about this book when I saw it announced. It gave me major dark fae/CRUEL PRINCE vibes and I was into it. I didn’t see any specific reviews from friends for this book that made me change my mind about reading it… but every person I saw reading it on Goodreads ended up DNFing it. It now has a super low rating on there and I just can’t imagine picking it up, unfortunately.

5 responses to “Reviews Made Me Reconsider

  1. I just finished reading Again, But Better. Honestly, I don’t think it was horrible, but I do have mixed thoughts on it. It’s really unfortunate but it just wasn’t a book for me. Also, I’ve never read The Hating Game so I have nothing to compare it to but I really wasn’t a fan of 99 Percent Mine. I’m so sorry you’re experiencing the same as me – it sucks when you’re disappointed by a book/push it off your TBR!

  2. There are lots of books that I delete from my TBR after seeing not-so-great reviews for, especially if the overall rating on GR is low and I was kinda iffy on the book anyway!

  3. Amanda

    I really enjoyed Again, but Better at first….and then things just got weird. I finished it, but it definitely wasn’t a favorite by far.

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