Worst Books of 2020

This list is in no particular order.

1.Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid: I know, I know. Everyone loved this, right? It even made it onto Reese Witherspoon’s book club list.  However, I found it to be fluffy and cliché. I suppose what I was expecting was something more literary and full of badass rock n’ roll chicks, but all I got was an eye-rolling love story. I found myself much more interested in Camilla Dunne and Karen Karen (one the wife of the male lead singer/guitarist of The Six, and the other the keyboardist for the band). They were the women who drew me in. Not the bratty, faux Stevie Nicks I found represented in Daisy Jones.

2. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson: Snow Crash sounds like it’s a wild and wacky sci-fi futuristic adventure. It involves a pizza delivery service run by the mafia, eerily accurate representations of future technology, a Metaverse where our pizza delivery boy protagonist is transformed into a warrior prince, an evangelical Texan oil magnate who is brainwashing people using a binary code, etc. That being said, it was not a fun read. This was recommended to me by someone in my life who I greatly appreciate, but I hated this. Hated it, hated it, hated it! Sci-fi/cyber punk/futuristic stories have never ever been my favorite genre, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t enjoyed the likes of Emily St. John Mandel, Douglas Adams, Ray Bradbury, Kurt Vonnegut, etc. I just found Stephenson’s writing to be clunky and juvenile.

Here’s a couple of “gems” from the book that made me scoff:

“. . . in the background she can hear the shopping carts performing their clashy, anal copulations.”

“Hiro’s father, who was stationed in Japan for many years, was obsessed with cameras. He kept bringing them back from his stints in the Far East, encased in many protective layers, so that when he took them out to show Hiro, it was like watching an exquisite striptease as they emerged from all that black leather and nylon, zippers and straps. And once the lens was finally exposed, pure geometric equation made real, so powerful and vulnerable at once, Hiro could only think it was like nuzzling through skirts and lingerie and outer labia and inner labia. . . . It made him feel naked and weak and brave.”

Oh, that’s right. . Stephenson named his hero/protagonist “Hiro Protagonist”. I realize it’s satirical and “meta”, or whatever, but it made my eyes roll for a mile. 

At times I wondered if Stephenson was trying to mimic Tom Robbins in a way. However, I can stand that man’s sexism, and unnecessary sexual metaphors. I even like them a little bit, they’re funny. Stephenson’s are oddly placed, and have a pompous air about them that made whatever humor there was to be found dissipate, and it just didn’t jive. 

Not to mention his shortened lingo. He calls refugees, “refus” which is no doubt a cheeky commentary on social matters, but other abbreviations he utilized simply bogged down the story. I read his usage of “poon” in place of the word harpoon, one too many times, and I eventually began to wonder if while writing it Stephenson wasn’t getting any “poon” himself (it would make sense after having to read all of those sexual metaphors as well as that awkward sex scene between a 15-year-old girl, and a much older man), or if he was just trying far too hard to be funny and smart. Oh, and my god. . . The infodumping. . . long winded expositions on Computer Tech, Sumerian myth,  or Neuro-Linguistic Programming (just typing the phrase out makes me yawn). . .It was all so very trying to me as a reader, and bogged down the narrative. Sheesh! The book is already a 500+ pager, but it felt like it took me an eternity to finish it.

On a lighter note, I did like the bits with the dog.

3. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman: An urban fantasy that gives a whole new meaning to the “London Underground”. I almost didn’t want to add this book to the list, and I have to admit that this is a fun romp through the real and unreal, but it reads like some creative writing undergrad’s thesis paper, and the writing was redundant at times. I swear Gaiman used the metaphor of beads of mercury slipping from palms and through fingers a handful (ha!) of times. I’ve mostly only read Gaiman’s YA books, but this one doesn’t seem to stretch too far from that genre. The sexual tension, and stray curse word here and there made it “adult” I guess. Perhaps I should give Gaiman a little bit of a break though. This was his first solo novel, and he’s got quite the imagination. It just wasn’t executed as well as I’d hoped. If you know you like Gaiman’s work and haven’t read this, give it a go. It’s worth a read even if it isn’t his best.

You’ll notice that I’ve stopped linking to Amazon pages for the books listed above. Instead, you will find links to bookshop.org pages. This is an ecommerce start up that has made it their mission to give independent bookstores a fighting chance in this ever increasing online world of bookshopping that Amazon has dominated for so long. I am not sponsored by them. I don’t get any money for writing this silly little book blog, but I am a girl who loves her independent bookstores. So, if you’re looking to buy a new book via the interwebs, please check them out. You can even search for an indie store to support, and they will receive the full profit off of your order!

Also, please. . . indulge in some books included in this post. We’re all different people and we like different things. Just because I found something not worth liking in these books, doesn’t mean you will too.

Anyway, here’s some REAL Stevie Nicks. Watch and listen, it’s good for your soul.

Check out 2019’s “Worst of” list by clicking here.

Want to know what else I read in 2020 that didn’t make this list?
Click here to access my Goodreads profile.