YIKES! | Worst of the Worst | 1-Star Reads of 2024

For whatever reason, I muddled through these. I've included blurbs of my immediate reactions, unless there's a review, which I link to.

  I wish all these dummies had died in the forest.

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Review here. 

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 Review here.

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The dialogue is so awkward and stilted. characters are flat. None of it makes any sense at all. I love an unreliable narrator, but that's not what this is. This was a cheap twist that takes the easy way out.

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 For the life of me, I cannot understand how this book is rated so highly. The writing is so awkward at times and juvenile. The podcast aspect brought nothing to the story. it just seems like the thing to do now in thrillers, and in this case it didn't work at all because it was pointless. it added nothing to the story. I had a hunch pretty early on who the killer wa,s and it would've been a fantastic twist had the writing not been so poor. I considered DNF-ing the book a couple times due to the lackluster and stilted writing, but I wanted to find out if my instinct was correct. It was, hooray for me. But also sad for me because I spent time reading a book that is simply not good.

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The dumbest fucking book I have ever read. It made no sense. Surely no one is THAT stupid?

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 Started out a decent read but halfway through became disjointed and went all over the place. It was first presented as a piece of investigative journalism, but maybe 75% of the way through the author says it's a memoir. It's neither of those things in the end and I don't even know how to classify it, but I can say I skimmed the last 30% because it was so tedious and boring.

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This was a pretty solid four-star read for the majority of the book. Even with the weird reincarnation angle. But then came the final reveal. YUCK. Everyone is lying about everything. The guy who died is reincarnated into the women who then fell in love with...the guy's son. Like, I love yous and forevers and everything. Are we all just ignoring that? The major yuck factor? For real? But at the end the main character decides she's none of the things that had been proclaimed throughout the entire story. What a waste.

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 This was...not good.

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Great premise but so dull and poorly written. Flat characters and basic high school stereotypes. I kind of hoped everyone would die because at least that would've been interesting.

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 See the double review here. 

Family: What a gigantic mess. Everyone is stupid or crazy or weird or a murderer. Too many convoluted story linesentwined to try to make the obvious twists a little less obvious. I kind of wish everyone had died.

Writer: Started out decent but truly went completely off the rails - and not in a good way - after the brother was shot. It was just so absurd.

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 I was so surprised, I never thought I would rate a Sain book less than five stars. But I could not take this one seriously at all, with the ast lives thing. And everyone just believed it. East deserved so much better. Could not stand Rio at all or how Tru just automatically believed everything she said. Such a disappointing book overall, when the actual mystery was so intriguing. And then at the end we just magically find out how Dani died.

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 Absolute dumbest fucking book I have ever read in my life. Completely would never ever happen in a million years because everything just managed to work out so perfectly for Jasmine. Jasmine isn't even an unreliable narrator, which is always fun, because everything is SO STUPID. A million different points of view, all telling and no showing. Absolutely awful writing, sounded like high schoolers talking instead of 40 yar old grown ass adult women. Easily one of the worst books of 2024. From about 40% o I was hate-reading just to see how stupid it would get. Spoiler alert: it got reeeeeeeal stupid, illogical, predictable, and more stupid.

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 Ware is so hot or miss for me. I loved The It Girl, five stars. But this? Ugh. Either I love her books or hate them with fiery passion of one thousand suns. This obviously falls into the latter category. Ugh.

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Four-star read for me until the very end when it turns out that Eve is a sexual predator just like her disgusting husband.

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 One of the dumbest, most predictable, and boring books I have ever read. It was obvious from the start what was going on, and then it just dragged on forever. And ever. And ever.

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The first book was decent enough for me to give the second a try, but I won't be continuing this series. It's almost so patronizing of Molly, I can't stand it. Cheryl somehow still has a job, Molly's boyfriend is absent almost the entire book because I am guessing the author doesn't know how to write the relationship, and we find out for sure what everyone has known since the first book - that Mr. Preston is Molly's grandpa. Everyone behaves in silly and unrealistic ways and the detective is the WORST. Why does she just automatically suspect Molly AGAIN? It's all just dumb and boring and the only character I care about is Gran, but she's passed away so we only meet her in flashbacks and that makes me sad. 

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 It physically pains me to write this. I fell so deeply in love with One of Us is Lying and Two Can Keep a Secret.OOUIL is the reason I started reading YA thrillers. But this...this is not quality McManus. I don't even know what else to say.

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 Rated book one 2 stars, stupidly kept reading

Thge internal monologue of the main character is quite possible the worst I've ever read. These books are not good. At all.

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 Not well-written.

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Apparently I DNF-ed this two years ago, but I decided to finish it a couple months ago because I accidentally checked it out again when getting some of the author's other books. I forgot it was dumb and Spoiler Alert: it was still dumb. But at least I finished it this time. Can't say if I will read anything else by this author.

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 Absolutely one of the dumbest fucking books I have ever read. Despite claiming her sister is dead throughout the entire book, we find out at the end she was only presumed dead, because she's very much alive and this is one giant stupid mess that was absolutely beyond belief.

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What a terrible waste of my time. 

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Stay far, far away. Or, if you've read any, what did you think?

Horrible Reading!
Sarah