We’re thinking about the future here (we’re second semester seniors in college, it’s all we ever do), and we need your opinion as a reader! We’re getting pretty close to the end of Bared to You, and as you may or may not know, there are sequels. Bared To You is the first in Sylvia Day’s Crossfire series. There’s a second book, Reflected in You, and that’s all that’s been published so far. We have no idea if this is supposed to be a trilogy, like Fifty Shades, or will go on even longer. Somehow. Speaking of Fifty Shades, we’re almost done with that series too.
So we have a very important question to ask our readers.
If you feel especially strongly one way or the other, please leave a comment. We’d love to see some discussion on this.
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I was worried at first, but it became pretty clear after awhile that this series REALLY sucks, so I think continuing with it is a good idea unless it wildly improves. We’re already familiar with Gideon and Eva, so we can enjoy the various shitty shenanigans the author cooks up for them even more!
Agreed, I didn’t think it would be possible but in many ways this series is even more awful and disturbing than FIFTY SHADES. Who’d a thunk it?
I nominated you for a Liebster Award. http://ladybuglizziegail.wordpress.com/2013/03/20/my-liebster-blog-nomination/
Your blog always makes me laugh. Thank you for enduring the world of EL James.
I am looking forward to reading more posts.
I think you have the awkward erotic fiction thing pretty much nailed. I do enjoy how you two rip it a new one, but honestly, it’s the same thing over and over. Unless you want to forever be ‘those guys’ you should expand beyond this one genre…after all there’s a whole world of shit to explore!
These are pretty close to my own thoughts on the matter at the moment, but I’m mostly interested in what our readers would be interested in. The last thing I’d want is some sort of revolt over how suddenly we’re not doing erotica anymore.
Since you asked my opinion, I am not that interested in Bared to You sequels. I would also like to see you expand to other genres, perhaps focusing on bestsellers. There are some fantastically crappy fantasy novels.
I agree with Hanna, on literally all of her points. Twinsies! But seriously, Bared to You is somehow boring, and offensive to actual abuse victims, and a dull ripoff of Fifty Shades (which you’ve already read/reviewed in entirety).
If you (or anybody else for that matter) have anything in mind and would like to make suggestions for other fantastically crappy novels, we’d be happy to see them.
You might as well keep reviewing the Bared to You sequel and, at the end of Fifty Shades, choose a different genre. I would love to read your Reflected in You review! 🙂
I really like this idea. Sadly, I’m curious to see where Bared to You goes and what other idiocy we can mock from it.
Well, Hunger Games is pretty obvious one
Ahn, I don’t know where else to ask this, so it’ll be here, why there’s a Wuthering Heights photo on the top bar? Do you guys think is that bad of a book, or it has more to do with the people that misinterpret and believe that Cathy/Heathcliff is a healthy love story? (anyway, I’d like to see your views on WH).
About the poll, I think you should start exploring new genres.
It’s because in Twilight Bella says this is her favorite book, and I think there are supposed to be parallels between her relationship with Edward. I wish I didn’t know these things. Very similar to the misinterpretations of the Cathy/Heathcliff relationship as well!
Any genre suggestions :)?
Oh, I get that. My WH copy has “Bella’s favorite book” written on the cover and I hate it!
I think fantasy must have some real good bad books 🙂
Eragon is a great candidate. And I didn’t even hate it. Still, it’s often looked at like the Twilight of the fantasy genre (real fantasy, not “paranormal teen romance”.
It’s a bit of an inside joke. I despise Wuthering Heights and Ariel likes it, and there’s that Twilight-esque WH cover that we use in the banner that’s just too funny either way. I’d kind of like to do WH for the blog, but we’d need a slightly different angle to go with.
So it turns out Ariel doesn’t actually like Wuthering Heights, just doesn’t hate it to the same extent that I do. My bad.
You should try reading some of those really terrible paperback romance novels.
You should do the Casual Vacancy. I absolutely love J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series is still my all time favorite (I hope I could meet her one day, actually), but the Casual Vacancy was bad. Not the level of mind-bogglingly awful that Fifty Shades and Bared to You are (she’s far too talented to be THAT bad), but VERY awkward and mockable.
Warning though (spoiler too, but whatever): There is a rape scene at the end, and it’s not badly handled. The ending is serious. But the book is mockable throughout that, like we got through that section of “Bared to You”, I think we can get through that section of Rowling’s new book.
Worth considering.
There’s a rape scene at the end? Dood… glad I decided not to finish that book.
It’s not handled badly. And don’t worry, I didn’t actually finish the book either; when I got to boring parts I’d just skip ahead until something interested me.
Which highlighted another troubling problem. By the time I got to the end I didn’t really feel as if I missed much, and I don’t see how the death of the councilman really did much as a catalyst. They could have used anything. I don’t see how the death of the councilman, specifically, contributed to the plot, which was rather scattered and vague.
First off, have you heard of Nightlight? It’s hilarious because it points out everything that’s wrong with the writing in Twilight. Second, the worst book I’ve ever read in my life was called Afterlight by Elle Jasper. It’s another “romance” and about half way through the book I realized, “Hey, this is one of the most boring, stupid, pointless books I’ve read in my life.” It’s ALL tell, no show.
I wouldn’t mind the Bared to You Sequels but if you need some bad books, I’d definitely recommend Eragon. I see someone else already recommended it so I won’t really go into why.
I personally have a strong feelings about Mockingjay being a despicable book but not everyone agrees with me.
I have a few lesser known titles that you can check out. And some of them are even free.
Black Waters by Maja Barnett. Mermaid fantasy-romance. God awful too.
Silent Hero by Christine E. Schulze. Honestly don’t know how this even got published as it is a straight fanfiction of The Legend of Zelda. And not a good one either.
Reckless Magic by Rachel Higginson. So this is like a Twilight Hogwarts Romance. Definitely lawls worthy. Probably better written than Black Waters but no less awful.
Legon’s Awakening by Nicholas Taylor. Extremely bloody fantasy but all the characters are so terrible you just want to punch them in the face. Prepare to laugh at the video game esque violence while heads and limbs go flying off willy nilly.
Wizard’s First Rule by Terry Goodkind. It starts off normal… and then ENTER RANDOM BDSM! I also have some personal beef with this book as I feel like the main protagonist goes against every hero rule possible- murdering indiscriminately even when the people no longer pose a threat.
The Entire Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull. Technically they are children books, but they infuriated me so much… I feel like I must share. Might not get much lulz from them though. They really only get bad towards the end of the series.
That’s all I have for you at the moment. But I’m sure I’ll come across some other terrible books in the future, should you be interested.
Eragon is an obvious crappy fantasy bestseller. Derivitive of starwars, plus dragon, it felt like it was written by a 15 year old, because it was. I found it particularly hilarious the way Paolini would try to use archaisms mixed with modern language.
Continue on with the Bare to You books, keeping one known quantity, and add a new genre crap best seller too the mix. You did great job in the fall with the R.L. Stine books. That ended up being a lot of fun and received well by the blog readers.
I see a lot of people suggested fantasy and I think it’s the best option, yeah. But you can do ~~romantic~~ supernatural YA again. I’d recomend Firelight or the House of Night series. Both are so cliched that sound satirical at first. Oh, and Firelight’s protagonist is a dragon-human-something and HoN’s, a vampyre. With an Y.
To be honest, although you’d definitely do a good job of pulling apart the Bared To You sequel, I don’t think it’s worth it. It’s just too… disturbing. And boring.
I’d like to see you take a crack at The Mortal Instruments which are also bad, overrated, borderline plagiaristic, and getting a movie adaptation.
I agree with the earlier posters who suggested Eragon (even though I personally would love to also read the continuation to Bared To You. This book is just so *bad* I can’t wait to see how much worse the series gets). It really is the Twilight of the fantasy genre. The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind – that starts with “Wizard’s First Rule” – is also terrible, and unlike Eragon not a lot of people have dissected it yet. It’s a long series, but it only gets worse as you go on. And I think there would be a lot of ground to cover even in the first book, since it goes from ridiculous to offensive to laughable in almost every chapter. I’d spork it myself if I had the time, or was, y’know, funny. Heh.
Those are the two best suggestions I have, because the books are not only bad plot-wise, they contain awful writing errors. Eragon is the worst when it comes to that. However, Terry Goodkind has some asinine, ridiculous ideas about his own writing and how even though his books contain magic, dragons, and every single fantasy element in the genre he’s still not writing fantasy because his books are about ~people, and that sentiment offends me so much I would love to see his books properly sporked if only to release my rage.
There are other bad books – the House of Night series, pretty much all the recent YA supernatural romance novels, The Host by Stephenie “Twilight” Meyer – but I think those two deserve it the most. Eragon because it’s just *awful,* and the entire Sword of Truth series because it manages to be both awful and offensive. The main character is the least heroic hero I have ever read. Period. And the worst part is, he’s obviously not intended to be seen that way.
Oops. I forgot to include the infamous “The Mortal Instruments” series that the poster above me mentioned. Yes, those would be good too. Terrible books, insane author, and some of the worst elements found in YA today. It ties with Eragon and the Sword of Truth series for how bad it is, IMO.
Interestingly, I didn’t actually hate Eragon. Didn’t like it enough to buy/read the last book, though. I wiki’ed the plot and ending.
The “Charlie Bone” series was an awful Harry Potter rip-off that I gave up on as soon as Charlie was sent away from his abusive Aunts to a school of magic after seeing pictures moving. In other words, very early on. It was bad. I mean, of course there were differences, but…it was bad.
how about immortal by gillian shields???
I’m torn. I want to suggest Beautiful Disaster, which I hated way more than Fifty Shades of Grey (yeah…exactly). But I only want you to read it if you promise to only get it from the library and not ever ever ever pay a single penny for that shitfest.
Pretty much any book you pick in the “New Adult” category is bound to be a winner. * weeps into hands*
I’d love mortal instruments, eragon or shiver. I think going high fantasy like eragon could work for you and maybe alternate a new genre with a romance book that’s a best seller yet awful. I think you’ve milked bared to you and it’s too disturbing and fifty shades like to still be interesting.
I agree you don’t want to be “those guys.”
Also there’s “Save the Pearls, part 1” which is a total train wreck of epic proportions. The Host or Casual Vacancy would be cool.
Maybe Eragon for bad kids’ fantasy and the host OR the casual vacancy for how NOT to follow up blockbuster series?
The Host is actually what we’re leaning towards doing especially since the movie just came out! I’m intrigued by this Save the Pearls and Casual Vacancy – will add this our list of books to look into!
I’d like to see you guys do the rest of the series. I’m curious of what happens and if you guys don’t review them i’ll have to read the books myself…
that is a very good point. we can’t let the people suffer.
Very late to the party, but I’d love to see you do Beautiful Disaster and/or Walking Disaster. I read whichever one of them is from the guy’s perspective and spent a lot of it wanting to throw the book across the room (I refrained only because it was a library book). So I’m sure you and Ariel could tear it apart for your readers’ entertainment.