Most Disappointing Reads of 2017

I'm stealing borrowing from Shannon @ It Starts at Midnight today after reading her post about her most disappointing reads of this year. You've probably guessed by how few and far between my blog posts have been this year that it hasn't been the best reading year, which is a shame considering 2016 wasn't the best reading year either, but I feel a little better knowing that a lot of other people haven't read many amazing books this year either. Is it 2017? Probably not, I think I just need to get back into the swing of reading regularly which is something I know I haven't been doing well this year.

These aren't necessarily the worst books I've ever read - if I'm really not enjoying a book I'll DNF it, and it didn't seem fair to include DNFs here - but they're books I was hoping and expecting to enjoy a lot more than I did. These also aren't necessarily books published in 2017, but books I read in 2017 - read on to find out my most disappointing reads listed in the order I read them!

Now to be fair to it, As I Descended is probably the book I enjoyed most of the three on this list - I did give it three stars, after all - but I was hoping to love it. Macbeth is my favourite Shakespeare play, so to find out that Robin Talley, whose debut Lies We Tell Ourselves I loved, was writing a YA lesbian retelling of it incited so much excitement in me. I'd yet to come across any lesbian retelling of Shakespeare (though I'm sure there are more out there) and I've never seen an adaptation of Shakespeare in which Macbeth is a woman (though, again, I'm sure there are more out there). It wasn't terrible but it wasn't as good as it could have been and sometimes that's more disappointing than a book that's simply terrible. Check out my review here!

Another book that didn't meet my expectations after enjoying previous work from this author. Seanan McGuire also writes as Mira Grant and if you've been following my blog for a while you'll know Feed is one of my favourite books ever, and I also really enjoyed her horror novella Rolling in the Deep - I'm looking forward to reading the novel-length sequel, Into the Drowning Deep, hopefully soon! I adore the concept of Every Heart a Doorway but sadly this novella didn't work for me. The story became something of a murder mystery that isn't particularly difficult to solve and I didn't think it needed to be taken over by that story when the characters themselves were interesting enough to follow without an overarching plot. Not for me sadly - check out my review here!

Cornwall is one of my favourite places in the UK and I love fairy tales, folklore and mythology, so when I discovered Lucy Wood's debut collection, Diving Belles, was a collection entirely inspired by Cornish folklore I knew I had to get my hands on a copy. Unfortunately I didn't like it anywhere near as much as I'd hoped. To me the stories often felt like they weren't really going anywhere and, had I not known Cornwall was the inspiration, I don't think I would have picked up on that while reading it. The folkloric creatures Wood chose to feature in her stories are the kind of creatures I do associate with Cornish folklore, but she didn't play around with Cornish dialect or the Cornish language and there was no mention of Cornish place names. It felt a little like she'd been inspired by Cornwall but didn't want to make it too Cornish in case people couldn't relate to it, but it was the promise of that Cornishness that made me want to read it most. Sadly I only gave this one two stars in the end and you can check out my review here!

Now that I've got that off my chest, hopefully the rest of 2017 and all of 2018 will be full of amazing books that stay with me. What have been some of your most disappointing reads this year?