Horror Aficionados discussion

No matter how many books I read I always wish I had time to read more. One or two books always stand out whether for good or bad. In looking over what I read this year I'd say most books were very good with very few not so good ones.
For me, my fav books of the year would have to be a non-horror book A Gentleman in Moscow and The Summer that Melted Everything.
Least favorite would be The Wicked. It just didn't work for me.

What are your favorite and least favorite books of 2017?

This year I “met” some stand out authors:
Catherynne M. Valente
Ursula K. Le Guin
Malka Older
Kat Howard
Joe Hill

Biggest disappointment by far:
Final Girls

Book I Loathed-So-Much-I-Had-To-Stop-Because-It-Was-Ruining-Each-And-Every-Day:
The Three Musketeers

Hat Tip to the Author that got me through Reading Slumps:
Nalini Singh

My best personal horror author "discovery" of the year would be Bentley Little, amongst the best works being The Mailman, The Ignored, The Resort and University.

My biggest cult horror dissapointment read this year: Night of the Crabs

The best book published this year is probably The Port of Peril by Ian Livingstone. It is the latest installment in the Fighting Fantasy series of gamebooks and the first new adventure to be published since I've discovered the series, and imo it said "BACK WITH A BANG!".

Favorites:

The Terror

I also read Nick Cutter's latest Little Heaven and some of Joe Hill's work Horns, NOS4A2 and The Fireman

Least favorite is hard to pin down. There have been quite a few I didn't care for but I can't think of one that seriously disappointed me. I guess, if I really had to pick one, it would be the latest one I read by Dean Koontz called Innocence. I consider him to be a favorite author of mine so not enjoying one of his books is disappointing to me.

This is a cool thread, Wendy!

Wow there were quite a few that I really enjoyed reading this year and I found some amazing authors to boot that I have added to my horror author list. Thankfully I had more favorite reads then disappointments and I am not going to be able to list all my favorites on here, so I will just name a few.

Favorite books from 2017:















Authors discovered from 2017:
Matt Drabble
Brian Moreland
Glenn Rolfe
Lee Mountford
Duncan Ralston
Angel Gelique
Monte Plaisance
Chris Carter

Least favorite books or didn't finish reading (don't worry that are not that many - lol) from 2017:







The most disappointing was Revival by Stephen King as I thought it would be more horror and it was the slowest King novel I have ever read. I had to put it down as it just wasn't doing anything for me. Though there are a lot of readers on here that loved it and gave it four to five stars.

But that was my biggest disappointment of the year as I thought it was really going to be kick-butt horror fest, but it was just a coming of age novel which might have been okay for me if I knew that was what it was going to be about going into it. But I geared myself up thinking it was going to be a horror-walk and it wasn't.

Marie, I couldn't finish Revival either. There used to be a time I read every King book from cover to cover and couldn't wait until the next book came out. Now I approach his stuff very cautiously.

Favourite: The thousand autumns of Jacob De Zoet - David Mitchell. A huge book that I'd put off reading for over a year. Absolutely amazing from start to finish. Well written, fully realised characters, beautiful setting, and heartbreaking. One to read again in the future for sure.

Least favourite: Tales from the darkside; script book - Joe Hill. I love Tales from the darkside. I have the dvd box set. I love Joe Hill, especially 20th Century Ghosts (button boy has scarred me for life!) Perfect combination I thought. Wrong. The stories were dull, lacked cohesion and structure, and I'm not surprised the network dropped the televised reboot.

Ugh. This question is a tough one.

My favorite books this year were:
The Sound of Broken Ribs
The Gargoyle
Sour Candy
The Fisherman
Bone White
The Secret of Ventriloquism
Where the Dead Go to Die
Unidentified
Phoenix
The Glorious Heresies

Least Favorite:
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things

My Favorites:

I am reading this one right now and it will be one of my favorites in 2017. Loving this book.

Least favorites:

WendyB wrote: "Marie, I couldn't finish Revival either. There used to be a time I read every King book from cover to cover and couldn't wait until the next book came out. Now I approach his stuff very cautiously."

Me too, Wendy. I use to read everything that he wrote, but I have to really check into the books now to see if they are worth reading as the newer material is nothing like the classics of King.

Jessie wrote: "My Favorites:

I am reading thi..."

Wow! Thanks Jessie, that's awesome! :0 )

Least favourite:


and a graphic novel:


What a whining in those books. Awefull!

My favourites (excluding re-reads):


Sadly, no horror fave's, I really didn't read enough horror this year! Guess I have a bookish resolution for 2018 now! ;-)

My favourites were:

Graphic novel

Audio

Books


Least Favourite

Jessie wrote: "My Favorites:

I am reading thi..."

Thank you so much, Jessie! Honored to be in such great company (RED ranks among my all-time faves) . . . .


JN

My fave book of the year was 99: Stories of the Game by Wayne Gretzky. It covered 99 years of hockey history and, for a hockey fan, it was very interesting to hear so much of the history being told. I really learned so much from it.

Least fave was Handling the Dead by John Lindqvist. It was a different take on a zombie story. The plot had potential but the book felt soooo slow and yes, there were zombies, but it felt like chapter after chapter went by with NOTHING happening. I was expecting a great, fresh horror novel and it ended up being more of a drama about how one would emotionally handle their recently deceased love ones returning from the grave. Stuff like, a father (chapter after chapter) agonizing over trying to figure out how to tell his son his mother died and was now a zombie. I'm all for a different take on a zombie story, but this is not what I was looking for. It felt like the author was trying way too hard to give the emotional feels. On top of that, a lot of the times it felt like the characters were just being stupid or unrealistic and it got old fast.

PLUS, one of the zombies killed a pet rabbit. >:( Killing the pet (especially if it is a rabbit) will always get a lesser star rating from me...

In addition two of my ultimate highlights and favourites read (not published) in 2017, from two very distinct categories/genres:

Nonfiction:




Gamebooks: