We didn’t exactly read a whole ton of books that actually came out in 2016 (new year’s resolution, maybe?), but we still wanted to talk about our favorite and/or “favorite” moments and characters from the books we read this year. The best of the best. Which, on this blog, invariably means the worst of the worst.
Most Useless Love Interest:
Matthew: I don’t think we can JUST talk about the all-around worst love interest (though I’ve got one in mind for that), but my personal winner for most useless is definitely Armada‘s Lex. Nothing says Book Written By A Dude like a female love interest who’s infinitely more badass than the main character but immediately enamored with him anyway. Then instead of ever playing a role in the story, she’s just a computer wizard who can just magically handle any issue Zack had. More than a manic pixie dream girl, Lex was a manic pixie sonic screwdriver.
Ariel: Hahahaha I think you need to coin that phrase, although, I have no idea when we’d get to use it again. Definitely still going to keep it up my sleeve for the future.
I’m torn about this one. I agree completely with your manic pixie sonic screwdriver assessment, but I don’t think she’s the most useless. Walk with me here, at least Cline tried to establish a real connection between Lex and Zack. They shares jokes and interests (even though they’re the same jokes and interests that pretty much everyone in the entire book shared.)
That’s more than I can say for a lot of the books here where I can’t think of a conversation that the main characters had that wasn’t just about Their Love and a Problem With Their Love.
And she helped save the world, which was arguably pretty useful.
I’m going to propose alternative, and I know we’ll argue about the semantics here, but I’m still going to do it.
I’m going to say it was Jackson from Beautiful Redemption who, despite being Liis’ gross ex, was still presented as a potential threat to TJ and Liis’ relationship. He added no real value to the story, and despite the fact that Liis always acted like she hated him even though she stayed for like 7 years with him, it still seemed to be the thing that somehow defined her character the most.
“I always run away from relationships! Like the one I was in for seven years that was my only relationship.”
Matthew: Ooooo that’s a good argument. I did totally forget about Jackson, who Liis talked about dating for seven years, never talked about why, and then one time he showed up very drunk and sad and immediately disappeared forever. Somehow I forgot about this man.
I think my counter argument would be mostly semantic – someone who’s already the main character’s ex isn’t exactly a love interest.
He was only a viable threat to the relationship for anyone not actually reading the book, at the end of the day.
And perhaps giving her her only character trait makes him THE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER OF ALL?
Wow, we ALWAYS overthink these things. I propose we move on to a new category.
Worst Villain:
Ariel: I would argue it’s Carpathia given any villain who is voted Sexiest Man Alive is too hilarious to actual invoke terror into my heart.
Also, his main skill seemed to be just listing countries and pronouncing them all correctly.
Matthew: Yeah, no contest for this one. A villain so underdeveloped they literally didn’t even write half of his dialogue. His first handful of scenes were just like “he gave such a great speech everyone was in awe”.
And then when he finally did villain stuff, he just mind-controlled everyone into doing what he wanted. So all that stuff about fearing the temptations of the antichrist was kinda… not relevant.
So I totally agree it’s Carpathia. But honorable mention has to go to Armada’s aliens with unclear motives who created fake aliens with unclear motives. But “worst” isn’t quite the same thing as “absent”.
Ariel: Yeah! And those aliens didn’t even TRY to give an awesome speech, damn it.
I think one showed up at the end to cryptically speak to Zack. Terrible!
Another honorable mention should go to Kalona who so far has just been a sexy fallen angel with seemingly no other motive than wanting to sleep with Zoey.
Matthew: True, but he’s just shown up and there’s about 600 more books in the House of Night series, so it seems far too soon to judge. But I feel fairly confident predicting that he’ll never even TRY to give a dramatic speech listing every country in the world. What a chump.
Sassiest Best Friend:
Matthew: I have another category near and dear to our hearts: Sassiest Best Friend
Ariel: YAAAAS I’ve been waiting for this moment.
Lay it on me, who do you think is Sassiest Best Friend, Matthew?
Matthew: Oh man, so many to choose from! Calendar Girl‘s Gin, Beautiful Redemption‘s Val, every single House of Night character! So many writers who shoot for fun, snarky characters who instead just land on oddly abrasive.
I think Val might be the sassiest one I can recall, but it might be a boring pick since every single Jamie McGuire novel features the exact same sassy BBF stock character.
Ariel: Val certainly took it to a new level with her vulgar talk about those burgers she loved so much.
At least I remember one thing about Val personally, even if it’s stupid. I just remember America dated Shep.
Are House of Night characters besides Aphrodite sassy?
Matthew: I think the Twins are supposed to be sassy. I don’t think they particularly succeed.
And Gin is overshadowed by the much sassier/”sassier” Mia, so I think Jamie McGuire’s pretty much got this category on lock.
Ariel: I wish we could present her with an award for sassiest BFF characters, I think the look of bemusement on her face would be priceless.
Worst Expression of Love:
Ariel: We’ve talked about the most useless love interest, but what worst expression of love between characters?
For me, it’s definitely how Gideon handled Eva’s mother’s diaries. How he was like, ‘I’m going to read all of these and then decide if Eva should see them, and if so, when she’s ready to see them. Also, I’m not going to tell her that her mother is dead right away because I need to wait until Cary and her dad get here because I know best for her.”
Matthew: Ooooo that’s a good one. Especially because that should have been SO serious but Eva was just like “nah I get it” and it was immediately brushed under the rug that he fucking gaslights her about HER MOM’S DEATH.
SEEMS LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A BIGGER DEAL.
I think that’s the winner, but I gotta throw in a shoutout to Calendar Girl’s Alec, just because his understanding of love was so weird. So he was all “I love you! I love our time together! You should love yourself!” It tried to be so deep but in execution it was more like an entire book of “I love lamp”.
Ariel: If it was one book earlier it totally would have been! But Day needed to wrap that shit up.
She was like: ‘Uh…Eva isn’t mad because…character growth??’
OMG GOOD SHOUT OUT!
Matthew: Alec was such a ridiculous, obnoxious character just oozing with privilege. I mean, really, how do you fuck up “you need to learn to love yourself”? THAT’S A GOOD THEME. HOW’D IT GO SO WRONG.
So it’s not really worst expression of love so much as an expression of worst understanding of love. Which, thinking about it, it a totally valid nuance for the types of mistakes our books make on the regular.
Ariel: He is definitely the perfect representation of this. Ug, and what made it all so much worse was how PROUD the book was of itself for all the artsy ways Alec taught Mia to love herself.
“Look at how she has kissed her own lips on this painting. LOVE. Look at how our bodies intertwine in this painting. LOVE. Look at this other man touching himself alone as she is intertwined with me. LOVE”
Matthew: “I paid for you and I love you but our contract is up at the end of the month so then I won’t. LOVE.”
That’s actually a summary of how Alec explains himself to Mia. Can’t make this shit up.
Ariel: YES and then Mia is like, “The lesson here is that sometimes you can love people in different ways and it’s meaningful even though it isn’t always forever.” Again, a good lesson, but, my god, the execution!
Matthew: It’s a good lesson tacked onto an experience that totally doesn’t deliver that lesson. It’s like if you eat too much ice cream and get sick and you’re like “ugh I’m never drinking again”. Good lesson, but how did you get there from that???
Ariel: hahaha exactly! “Eating Taco Bell gave me the shits. That’ll teach me to smoke cigarettes!”
Fuck this could be a new wacky game
Matthew: Oh, good thing you said “wacky”. The next joke I was working on had the punchline “better vote for Brexit!”
Hahaha ohhhh 2016.
Worst Artist:
Matthew: Before we wrap up though, can we take a second to really appreciate something we had to kinda gloss over in the chapter summaries? That Alec sounded like a REALLY TERRIBLE ARTIST?
“It is TRUE ART about LOVE! I will paint a man rubbing one out! A lady will leave lip prints all over the paintings! THIS IS THE DEEPEST POSSIBLE EXPRESSION OF LOVE.” Dude this sounds hackneyed as fuck.
Ariel: YES YES we really need to take a moment to discuss this. I mean, it sounded abysmal. I get it’s hard to have to describe awesome art, especially when art exists that is like, “This is a mirror. It’s art.” But he sounds just so terrible and like every art movement would collectively agree that he sucks.
Matthew: It’s kind of generally inadvisable to write a story about a better artist than yourself? For obvious reasons.
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Poetry counts as art, so for Worst Artist I nominate the poet chick from House of Night whose poems are supposed to tell the future, but are really just terrible poems. Nyx really knows how to pick ’em.
Now that I think about it, I also nominate Nyx as Worst Villain. All she does is hand out useless gifts and inflict her terrible followers on the world.
And yes, the “twins” are supposed to be sassy. I hate them so much.
Back to my painkillers.
May I propose some additional superlatives? I’ve thought of Most Self Obsessed Protagonist ( I nominate Gideon/ Eva/ Gideva -they think anything anyone does has something to do with them. I’d list examples, but it’d basically be the whole book), Most Serial Killer-esque Expression of Desire ( you should,erm, probably use the blog for this, because of a certain Mr Grey) and Least Healthy Relationship. Have fun, and thanks for the hilarious content!