Pop Sugar's Annual Ultimate Reading Challenge discussion

Anyone have any "bad" books they actually liked? I'm looking for a Goodreads rating of 3.0 or under.

Do you have any books on your to-read list that have a low rating? Or, maybe you have an author you like and you can look for their lowest-rated book?

Looking through the list of books I liked that had the lowest ratings, I realized that most of them are non-fiction. If you read non-fiction, maybe something in that genre?

Or, try this list...https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...

lol Just found that list last night. There are a couple 2s on there. I'm going with The Gathering by Anne Enright. It has a 2.99.

Is everyone looking for under 3 star rating? I was trying to find one with under a 2, but then looking through some other lists of bad books I thought I'd try one a celebrity wrote you know that'll be bad haha. My library has L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad, it's got 3.37 stars on goodreads, but I just saw so many 1 stars in amongst the 3,000 reviews... Do you think over 3 is kinda cheating? Have you guys all decided what books your gonna read for this one?

i happened to run into a bad review book on my TBR Girl In The Arena. it has a 2.99 rating. it actually wasn't that bad, but it was pretty slow in tone and didn't promise action like the blurb sells it as. have you checked your TBR? it might have some surprises like that. otherwise, i think anything less than 3.5 is acceptable personally.

Crystal wrote: "Is everyone looking for under 3 star rating? I was trying to find one with under a 2, but then looking through some other lists of bad books I thought I'd try one a celebrity wrote you know that'll..."

I think finding under 2 stars is almost impossible. Even the worst books seem to have over 3. The lowest I think I've ever seen it like a 2.5. I don't think, however, that a 3.0 or above can be considered as a "book with bad reviews". But that's just me. Everyone does this challenge differently.
I did end up reading The Gathering (2.99 rating). It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either.

Yea, I was kind of thinking that too Heather, that a 3 star average rating isn't really a book with bad reviews. Maybe I'll just leave this category until a little bit later in the year

Goodreads ratings, like Amazon ratings, tend to be skewed upwards, because for some reason people see 3 and think "oh gosh, why did you hate this??!?!" instead of "liked it okay but not exceptional."

Yeah, I rate most books 3 stars. I don't understand people who give away 5 stars like candy on Halloween. 5 stars to me, is a *perfect* book. I can point out no flaws and have no complaints. Those books are few and far between, let me tell ya. If I just liked it, it's gonna get a 3 star rating. I like most books.

I am giving you a bad review for a book I have just finished! "Where'd you go Bernadette?'. What began as an entertaining read lost its way by the last section. The writer made some incomprehensible choices.

Heather wrote: "Yeah, I rate most books 3 stars. I don't understand people who give away 5 stars like candy on Halloween. 5 stars to me, is a *perfect* book. I can point out no flaws and have no complaints. Those ..."

Some people are just really positive about what they read and love lots of things, I don't really understand it either and I can't lie sometimes I get really annoyed when I see people LOVING books I thought were terrible but, what can you do? I give mostly 3 stars (seriously, my ratings could occupy a bell curve.)

Some people are also really good at knowing ahead of time whether they'll like a book and avoiding books they'd rate 1 and 2 stars. I think I've gotten slightly better at this over time but, sometimes a book is really well written and recommended by friends and I'm just not feeling it so... I still read some 2 and a few 1 star books.

Athol-mary wrote: "I am giving you a bad review for a book I have just finished! "Where'd you go Bernadette?'. What began as an entertaining read lost its way by the last section. The writer made some incomprehensibl..."

I liked that one but I had a friend who said much the same thing as you! Sometimes preferences vary greatly by book.

I just finished a book with bad reviews (2.88 average, lots of 1 star ratings) that I really liked. It was quirky and amusing - a good fit for my sense of humor, I guess. Even better, it's less than 2 1/2 hours on audio, so if you hate it you won't need to commit a lot of time to it. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...

Well there is always The Twilight series, counts as a tril, bad book, non human, love triangle, high school, female author (among many others) ---just saying

I found a book with mostly 1 star ratings on here, and on amazon. It's called "The Girl in the Coffee Shop" by Caedem Marquez. Hopefully it's not too terrible, but it's got a 2.28 rating, one of the lowest I could find on here... I'm sure there are tons with lower ratings though, just must have missed them.

I was so happy when I found out I have alreay read a below 3 stars book this year so I don't have to find another. One was way more than enough!