Cleaning Out My TBR: 4 Books I'm Not Taking Into 2025 With Me 👎
Today's post might get a little long, so grab a snack and a drink to enjoy as you read!
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Welcome back to the blog, and happy new year! I've spent the last semester on the study grind since it was exam season and worked on a bunch of different things during the summer. I finished a big project a couple days ago, so I decided to try and get out at least a few posts on my blog and my bookstagram in this short period of downtime before I get busy again.
I spent some time brewing over new post ideas, something to bring in the new year. I decided it would be fun to clear out my TBR for 2025, and I picked 4 of the books I took out to write about.
Whether it's because I'm not interested in the genre, or the plot doesn't seem as appealing to me, I have decided not to spend my time on these novels. Just because I'm taking a book off of my TBR does not insinuate that I have negative feelings towards the book or the author (unless I mention it below).
Reading some of my older reviews, I noticed that all of my negative reviews sounded like positive ones! I'm a huge people pleaser, and I struggle with getting my true thoughts and opinions out without covering them up with incessant praise. Constructive criticism is my main goal when it comes to making negative reviews, but I noticed that my criticism in those posts was nonexistent. I'm going to use today's post to improve on this, and hopefully this year I can get better at providing criticism.
Take my opinions below with a grain of salt, especially if you see a book you really like on this list. My interests change very quickly and its hard for my TBR to keep up with them. I want to make sure that my To Be Read list is easy to use and efficient for me, and only contains titles that I don't feel 'forced' or 'pressured' to read.
If you think my judgement was unfair, or if your favourite book is in here that you really think is worth the read, please do not hesitate to let me know. I'm always open to new book recommendations, and I trust the opinions of my friends and my readers!
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1. Ugly Love by Colleen Hoover
I've been ranting to some of my friends about some of the more infamous quotes from this book, and I think once you take a look at those, my reason for including this novel on this list is pretty self-explanatory. I read my first Colleen Hoover novels a few months ago, and posted them on my booksta. I thought they were decent enough, but I definitely understood where most people's dislike for this author came from.
Hearing all the things people are saying about the It Ends With Us movie is enough to make me question watching it. Seeing how the hatred was multiplied by about ten times that amount for Ugly Love is barring me from reading it.
You may be asking, "Don't you think it's unfair to judge a book based off of biased reviews online?"
This is a great point, since some of my favourite books have some of the most atrocious reviews. Goodreads reviewers can be ruthless.
Although, this is CoHo we're talking about. It's not like she has the greatest reputation in the book community.
Maybe it's best if I trust the millions of people online who put themselves through this book, and the questionable quotes I've read as I was flipping through it at Chapters. The plot of this novel overall also did not appeal to my tastes. If you're wondering how bad the quotes could be to completely bar me from opening this book, a deep dive on google will give you all the answers you need 🙂
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2. The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer
This is one of the series on this list that I don't know how to feel about entirely. All the interest surrounding the novels and the movies has died down compared to a couple years ago.
I'm a firm believer in the idea that the books are always better than the movie remakes (although there are some exceptions), but I can't get through the first book no matter how hard I try. This is probably due to the fact that I've watched the movie so many times and know the plot pretty well, and it's definitely not one of my favourites. It had some potential but the execution in the movie felt unserious.
I love all the Twilight memes and unhinged whispers on Pinterest, but I'm afraid that my Twilight journey will end with the movies. If you really think I'm missing out by not reading the books, let me know and I may consider trying them again (very slim chance, though...).
The size of the books also intimidate me. Sure, you could argue that I read all of SJM's novels (with Kingdom of Ash being almost 1000 pages), but it's different when you're actually invested in the plot and want to know how the conflict is resolved. The average number of pages per book in the series is around 600, and I'm scared I'll end up wasting my time on a series I'm already familiar with when I could be reading a book I'm genuinely excited to check out.
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3. The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard
If I'm being 100% honest, I'm not too confident with completely giving up on this one. Although, past experiences + my research into this book online is telling me not to give it another shot.
I vaguely remember signing it out of the library and reading the first few sentences and not being able to go further. 😬
A lot of my friends LOVE the series, but it's just not for me. The genre and the plot doesn't interest me too much either, since I've been trying to take a break from fantasy. Honestly, that's all I have to say about this series, I'm feeling pretty nonchalant about it.
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4. Wildfire (and the rest of the Maple Hills series) by Hannah Grace
I have a lot to say about this series. Half of it I probably shouldn't put on the internet so I'll summarize. The entire reason why I will not be revisiting this series is because of the first book.
I read the very first novel in this series, Icebreaker, for a book club. We expected it to be interesting, but ended up disliking it more than we thought we would.
I ended up skimming the second half and skipping a few chapters because I got bored, and the language used in the book was so repetitive. I took a screenshot for every time the same sentence was used more than three times in the book, and now my storage is full.
It was funny how much I disliked the book at first, but then I just got annoyed. I wish the author understood that you absolutely do not need to swear in every single sentence. One sentence had 4 words in it, and two of them were the same swear word. One after the other. Side by side. It didn't even make grammatical sense! How this book got through an editor is beyond me.
Maybe the writing style and the plot just isn't my cup of tea. I saw lots of good reviews online for this series, and BookTok was all over it for a while.
I'll stop my Icebreaker rant here, but if you'd like the in-depth version, DM me and I'll be more than happy to send it to you.
After the reading slump the first book put me through, I believe it's best for my wellbeing and yours that I don't read the second book. I also don't want to offend any more readers than I already have by criticizing Wildfire as well.
You'd think that the most confusing thing is seeing negative reviews for your favourite book. Just wait till you see five star reviews for a novel you didn't particulary enjoy. I have never been more confused in my life, did we really read the same book?
It's safe to say that I will not be revisting that trauma by reading Wildfire.
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Let me know what you think of my selections! It's always freeing to take a book off of a lengthy TBR. I'm excited to see what books I'll be enamored by in 2025, now that I've cleared up some space on the list.
I've been reflecting on all the growth me, my blog, and my booksta have gone through in 2024, and I'm so incredibly grateful for all the love. My blog hit 10k views and my booksta is always growing, with 700+ followers so far.
Rather than all these numbers, I'm the most grateful for the community I've become a part of online. For all the kind bloggers/bookstagrammers who have offered their support, the sweet comments and DMs, and the tags on posts– thank you to all of you for helping me accomplish my goals and giving me a safe space to go to.
I wish you all an amazing 2025!
Sincerely,
Sapphire
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