Even though we all hope to love every book we read, that's just not going to be the case. While I didn't have a large number of books that disappointed me this year, I do still have a short list. If I'm being honest, I think the reason this list is so short is because I wasn't reading as much in 2021 and I was DNF-ing a lot more. However, a few slipped through the cracks still.
Now, just because a book is on this list doesn't mean it's necessarily a bad book or that people should be ashamed if they like it. A book mainly lands on this list because I had high expectations that weren't met. Sometimes, books on this list have often been books that I still enjoyed, even if I didn't love them. I only have three books I'm going to talk about today, with one of them being a book that I still enjoyed. Let's just dive in!
The first book I want to talk about is Stay With Me by Jessica Cunsolo. This is the sequel to She's With Me, a book that is one of my favorites. I love She's With Me and have been reading it since it was publishing chapter-by-chapter on Wattpad. However, by the time the sequel was being released in chapters, I'd kind of fallen off of Wattpad in favor of fully published novels. My nostalgic love for the first book definitely contributes to why I enjoyed it so much but I didn't have that nostalgia around the other books. While I enjoyed Stay With Me, there were some things that I found underwhelming. I also hated one specific aspect of the book that I don't want to mention because of spoiler reasons. Overall, I did enjoy the book and plan on finishing the last book in 2022 but I was let down in the end.
The next book is Corrupt by Penelope Douglas. I genuinely thought I didn't mind this book when I was reading it and when I initially finished it. But every time I think of this book the further I get from reading it, I realize how meh and bleh it was. There's a lot of things I hated and there's a lot I didn't vibe with. Basically, here's my full review where I go into why I didn't care for a lot of things. I'm honestly not sure if I'm going to continue with this series from Penelope Douglas, even if I'll still read other books by her.
The last book I'm going to talk about is Sweet Obsession by Callie Rose. Pulling directly from my review for this one: "I was so excited for this book. I'd heard amazing things, the aesthetics on BookTok were beautiful, and screen caps of different scenes had me excited. The book, itself, fell way flat though. I genuinely finished the book and sat back and could think of barely anything that had actually happened. There was hardly any plot, no real romance at all, and nothing that compelled me towards reading the sequel. It's a great disappointment as I was so excited for this book but not every book you read can be a winner, I guess." I'll definitely not be continuing with this series.
Overall, I had a mediocre reading year. There were some amazing new favorites and there weren't many books that disappointed me. However, I read quite a few just middle of the road books or rereads so I feel like my reading hasn't expanded very much. Here's to hoping this won't even be a list I'll need to make in the new year!
