Hello Humans of the Internet! As you know it is now 2020 and like many readers I tracked the books I completed last year and decided to do a Top 5 Worst and Top 5 Best list. Why did I choose Top 5? I personally, think I didn't read enough to warrant a longer list. I only completed 35 reads in 2019 and in general my reading experience was fairly positive. A quick note though. I don't hold onto books I don't love 100% because of this I will not have the usual book edition info I provide since I don't have the books on me. All photos on this blog are taken by me of books I have purchased but I always ty to thoroughly document editions etc. so you can search for them yourself. On the Best list I will omit edition info simply for space. So without further ado here's my Top 5 Worst Reads of 2019!
5) Nightmare Hall #1 (The Silent Scream) by Diane Hoh
This book is on here because it breaks my most important mandate: A book can't be boring. It's trying hard to have nothing interesting happen and that's unfortunate. It has a decent premise for young adult horror with the teen protagonist moving into the cheap dorms for her first college semester and finding out gasp! her room is supposedly where a student committed suicide and now it's haunted. Cue spooky music. But my god, they suck anything interesting out of that premise by limiting the haunting aspect to an unusually cold room and the "sinister" aspects to high school level pranks. I will say that there is a jawdropping out of left field villain death that is a prime WTF moment that I look forward to in YA Horror but it's not enough to save the book.
4) The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
I already went over this in its review on the blog but like the prior book this novel really suffers from being boring with a capital B. More than that it's poorly written and features deeply unlikable characters and deflates any tension achieved with its overuse of exclamation points. If you really want to experience this book watch the excellent first film adaptation staring James Brolin instead. It succeeds in every category the book fails at and although not terrifying it's a creepy good time which is something you can't describe this book as.
3) The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz
Similar to Amityville this already has a review on the blog. I will say though its mix of very specific character traits and extremely dated text just made me think I now knew what the author's phobias were (seemingly lesbians and old people) and that he was a misogynist. This book is painfully dated and the main character gets shoved aside and we follow her oh so charming, patronizing boyfriend instead. Ew. If you have to experience this watch the movie adaptation otherwise it's a skip.
2) The Ridge by Lisa W. Cantrell
5) Nightmare Hall #1 (The Silent Scream) by Diane Hoh
This book is on here because it breaks my most important mandate: A book can't be boring. It's trying hard to have nothing interesting happen and that's unfortunate. It has a decent premise for young adult horror with the teen protagonist moving into the cheap dorms for her first college semester and finding out gasp! her room is supposedly where a student committed suicide and now it's haunted. Cue spooky music. But my god, they suck anything interesting out of that premise by limiting the haunting aspect to an unusually cold room and the "sinister" aspects to high school level pranks. I will say that there is a jawdropping out of left field villain death that is a prime WTF moment that I look forward to in YA Horror but it's not enough to save the book.
4) The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson
I already went over this in its review on the blog but like the prior book this novel really suffers from being boring with a capital B. More than that it's poorly written and features deeply unlikable characters and deflates any tension achieved with its overuse of exclamation points. If you really want to experience this book watch the excellent first film adaptation staring James Brolin instead. It succeeds in every category the book fails at and although not terrifying it's a creepy good time which is something you can't describe this book as.
3) The Sentinel by Jeffrey Konvitz
Similar to Amityville this already has a review on the blog. I will say though its mix of very specific character traits and extremely dated text just made me think I now knew what the author's phobias were (seemingly lesbians and old people) and that he was a misogynist. This book is painfully dated and the main character gets shoved aside and we follow her oh so charming, patronizing boyfriend instead. Ew. If you have to experience this watch the movie adaptation otherwise it's a skip.
2) The Ridge by Lisa W. Cantrell
The "First Time in Print" faux sticker was a warning. This is a mindboggling dumpster fire of poor writing, execution, and tone. This book is AWFUL. There are literally two different tones happening, the perspective is all over the place, and the characters are super badly written. Toss in elements that could have been good in a better author's hands, mainly a Jim Morrison stand in wannabe rock god trying to use a black magic infused ruby that has a tendency to explode people with its power and a local cop who's hot on the case and decently likable and you have The Ridge. I finished this book solely out of spite and I would not recommend it to anyone unless you are morbidly curious and are a glutton for punishment.
1) Sepulchre by James Herbert
I was so disappointed by this novel. If I could describe this book in one word it would be distasteful. Written by the author of such horror classics as The Rats and The Fog (no relation to John Carpenter's film) I originally thought it would be a good creature feature using basement demons menacing the rich guy whose house they are in but it was not to be. The synopsis on the back of the book doesn't even scratch the surface of what this book encompasses which is essentially a vehicle for numerous harmful stereotypes standing in for horror elements in the plot. I go into this more thoroughly in an instagram review I did of it over on my account under the handle genrebucket but I will say the stereotype that hurt the most is the one they perpetrate with a Polish character who is a lackey of the bad guy. I am of Jewish heritage and to read something by an English author perpetuating horrifying stereotypes of Polish Holocaust survivors almost made me stop reading. Essentially, there have been distasteful rumors/urban legends of survival cannabalism happening during the Holocaust specifically in Poland. If this happened or not is beside the point what I take issue with is the author using this to describe why the Polish character grew to like the taste of human flesh and if I remember correctly they also make him a pedophile. Just all of that is horrible and should have been cut. Wartime cannabalism has been a type of horror trope for awhile but to use a Holocaust concentration camp survivor character as a vehicle for that and make them unrepentently evil just disgusted me. Add to this a cast of other horrifying stereotypes and an ungoing message of English superiority and you get what I thought was the worst book I personally read this year. This was my first book by Herbert and I'm deeply conflicted if I even want to try and track down his earlier books that are considered genre classics. This novel just put a really bad taste in my mouth not only as someone with Jewish heritage but as a woman. If you find this book in a used bookstore don't be fooled by the cool cover it's a well written but deeply racist read that horrifies with its stereotype count not its monsters.
Well that's my Top 5 Worst of 2019! Have you personally read any of these? Have any thoughts on my choices? If so the comments are open and as always to be alerted to the latest on the blog give a follow or subscribe. Hope everyone is having a great New Year and my Top 5 Best Reads will be up later in the week. 'Til next time!
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