Worst Books of 2019

This list is in no particular order.

1. Flights by Olga Tokarczuk: Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and the Man Booker International Prize, I really wanted to like this. It was just so mentally heavy though, and it took me far too long to finish. Either I didn’t have enough mental capacity to take this in like I should have at the time I chose to read it, or something was lost in translation. Hint: The original Polish title of this book “Bieguni” is actually a term for a Russian religious sect of runaways who believe that being in constant motion is a trick to avoid evil. That right there would’ve given me a much better head start in understanding where this fragmentary novel/book of short stories/philosophical text was going and what I should take from it. If you have the time, and want to be challenged a little, I do recommend picking this up. It just wasn’t one of my favorites that I read this year.
2.  No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy: You want my honest opinion? Just watch the film. This is one of those instances where the film is actually as good if not better than the book. Cormac McCarthy’s writing was simple and boring for the most part. He might’ve intended it to be more methodical than anything, but at a little over 300 pages I could not wait to finish it, and not in a good way. The Coen Brothers were able to basically take the novel word for word to make the film, because it was almost written like a script.
3.  The Testaments by Margaret Atwood: I cannot believe the Man Booker People couldn’t resist this. Oh, Margie. . .why? Just for the money? A novel that takes place 15 years after The Handmaid’s Tale with three different narrators with intertwining stories. The Aunt Lydia portions of this book were the most enjoyable by far. The other two narratives read like a YA dystopian novel, and were a pain to get through. It took me two months to finish this book. TWO MONTHS! I don’t know what the hell Atwood was thinking. I felt like maybe she was confused about what and who she was writing at times. The odd patches of eloquence in the prose for the two young narrators did not jive.

Check out 2018’s “Worst of” list by clicking here.

Want to know what else I read in 2019?
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