Hi honeys, welcome back to my channel. My name is Kat and today I'm doing my biggest
disappointments of 2020. So I'm going to be a little salty in this video because these are
the books that I had really high expectations for and that I thought I was going to love and
they let me down. So these are not my worst books of the year because some of these aren't even
rated that low, like maybe I gave them three stars which isn't bad comparatively, but I expected them
to be like five stars or you know new favorites and they just weren't. So we're gonna start out
from number 10 and work our way up to number one. So number 10 Mexican Gothic. So this is a
Victorian gothic feeling novel where there's a haunted house. There is a protagonist who is going
to save her cousin. Something weird is happening in the house and I was expecting to feel completely
blown away and sucked in by this super creepy setting. And instead, I just kind of felt lukewarm.
So I thought that it was slow to start and then the twists were rather obvious and the ending was
a complete mess. So actually I gave this three stars but it could have been so much better.
I really think that if the beginning had been tightened and the end had been just rewritten
this could have been absolutely amazing. So I will be reading more from this author but this
one was just not it for me. Number nine is a very controversial one. This is The Only Good Indians
by Stephen Graham Jones. So I know that everyone is really loving this novel right now and I just
have to be honest. So the writing style and the pacing just really wasn't for me. So this
is following a group of men who in their younger years hunted in an area they weren't supposed to
and then the elk that they shot and killed is hunting them down later to take revenge.
Now the premise is amazing and Jones' imagination is top notch. However, I felt like the story was so
slow, so slow that I almost put it down a few times. And the only reason I didn't was
because I wanted to see what everyone else was loving about it. So for me, the pacing
was just way off. But I will be reading more from Jones, specifically Night of the Mannequins
I really want to read because it's shorter form and also deals with creepy store mannequins which
I think could be really terrifying. So number eight is Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian. Cat Sebastian is a
romance writer and I usually love what she writes. However, this one was not it. This is kind of a
cozy mystery set in a small town where there is the town doctor and a spy with PTSD and they're
supposed to have a romance and there's also a mystery and a murder that they're trying to solve.
Honestly, i was so confused by the murder. I to this day right now don't understand what happened or
who did what. And the romance was like insta-love and then they move in together and I was like
well that escalated quickly... And I really didn't gel with it and I won't be continuing on in the
series. Number seven is Queenie. This one I had really high expectations for because
someone had mentioned it was like Bridget Jones' Diary but from a black point of view in the UK.
That is a complete lie. So I went into it thinking it was going to be funny and witty but actually
it's just this super sad examination of this women of this woman's life where she's kind of having
a life crisis and a mental breakdown and she needs real help. So I think that if I had known what the
novel was, I wouldn't have read it because I really don't like reading mental breakdown
stories as someone who struggles with her own mental health. So it was just a case of what
I had been told was not what happened. So it's nothing to do with the book's fault, it's just
unfortunate that that is what I had been told and I didn't get what I thought I was getting.
Number six is A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik. This one I really was interested in the idea of
this magic school where it's kind of built like a top and every layer of the top kind of rotates so
the rooms are constantly moving, the floors are constantly moving, and in order to graduate you
have to just survive because all the monsters in the school are out to kill you. And it's actually...
a lot of people do die and get, you know, murdered. However, my problems with the book was that there
was very poor character development, very poor character backstory or fleshing out of characters...
There was also a very weird odd insta relationship type thing happening where like the love interest
he says like five words the whole book and we're just told that he's amazing but actually there's
no chemistry between the main character and him. And then afterwards I did learn that a lot of
people found there to be racist rhetoric throughout the novel. So that's why this is
disappointing because this was the first Naomi Novik I've read and it will certainly be my last.
I just really don't think she's for me and I don't think that the writing style is for me
at all. And maybe I'm just too old for magic schools? I don't know. Number five, Pet Semetery by
Stephen King. Let's just get it out of the way here. So I think his writing style is very drawn out.
What needs a sentence to be said he takes pages to say.
I saw all the twists coming and I just thought it was like boring and overhyped.
I'm not a fan so I don't think i'll be continuing on seeing as he recently came out in support of JK
Rowling's latest book which involved a man who dresses as a woman to murder people. So
questionable. King, why would you say that you supported that book and that you
really enjoyed it??? I'm just left with a lot of questions. And yeah just very disappointed, so bye.
Number four is Fledgling by Octavia Butler and this one hurts me because I have read Butler
before and her imagination is top notch and I love what she creates. And this is a vampire story so
I was anticipating this so highly. I thought that this was going to blow my mind. So it opens and
we're following a young vampire who has just woken up. She had been murdered but her
body healed itself and as she wakes up she's very young and she's trying to find out what
happened and who killed her entire coven. It sounds interesting. However, there were two main
issues I think that I had with this book that really just
dragged it down and put it on this list for me. One is that it's described I think she has
like the body of like a nine or 11 year old even though she's older. But it's described that like
she takes multiple lovers throughout the book that bond with her and they're like adults
and she has the body of like a 9 or 11 year old and I'm like it's so weird though like icky.
The other problem is that about two-thirds of the way through this becomes a courtroom case procedural
which... why did you do that?? Why?? So unfortunately this was super disappointing and I'm really
really sad about it and a little bit bitter to this day. Number three is 77. This I had super
high expectations for. It is about a gay university professor of English who is documenting his life
under the government regime that is disappearing people. I thought it was going to
be really interesting because he's living a double life and he's trying to protect himself and
also the people he cares for. However, it was so boring so boring I almost put it down multiple times.
And I also just felt like I was drowning in the deluge of names and places and dates. So I
ended up giving this one to my husband and he's currently reading it. I don't know if he's liking
it so far but it certainly wasn't for me and I was just super disappointed. Number two is Bunny by
Mona Awad. So this I had such high expectations for. It is kind of this coveny university type book
where this girl joins this cliquey group of other girls and they do dark magic and she wants to get
in with them so she starts to do magic with them and basically I don't know the first 75%
of the book I was like "yes, this is it, how is it going to end?" and then the end *no spoilers*
completely left me puzzled. I am bamboozled. What happened? Why did it happen? What does that mean?
Will we ever know? No we won't. So I think I ended up giving this four stars and the reason that it's
so high on this disappointment list is that if the end had been better, this could have been a
4.5 or a 5 star for me because I love it dark, I love it a little witchy, and I love weird
stuff. You don't have to explain everything okay. I like an air of mystery, but you have to explain
some things. You have to explain something. Okay so yeah. That's... I just wish that this
had been better because this would have been one of my favorites and instead it fell into
the four stars. And my most disappointing book of the year was Darling Rose Gold by Stephanie Wrobel.
I had been hyping this book up all of last year. This was one of my most anticipated reads of the
year. So it's basically this woman when she was a child her mother allegedly was doing
munchausers by proxy where the mother makes her feel like she's sick and she can't do
anything and when she found that out she told the authorities and got her mother put in jail. And now
when her mother is leaving prison, the mother wants to move in with her to control her again
but it says like the daughter is ready. So I was expecting some epic cat and mouse game
where you're not sure like who to believe because both perspectives are messed up and
you don't know who's right, who's wrong, who's doing what, what's really happening. I was ready.
But actually, it just did not live up to the hype. And this might be my own fault, I will
say that, because I had been hyping this book for a year. And you know when you just think that you're
gonna love something so much it puts it maybe on a pedestal? But this was largely forgettable. Like
right now I don't remember how it ended, I just remembered that I read it and I was like "huh okay"
which is not how you want that kind of book to make you feel. Like I wanted to be blown away,
grossed out, completely surprised. Like yeah... so that is my most disappointing read because I had
possibly the highest expectations and it really didn't deliver. It was more of a middle of the
road, not bad by any means but definitely not my best book of the year. So yeah that wraps up the
10 books that I was most disappointed by in 2020. Let me know if you agree or disagree down below.
The next video coming up is my worst books of 2020 which I can't wait to film because I'm feeling
really salty today. So yeah get excited for that one and I will talk to you soon, bye~