T5W: Most Disappointing Reads of 2018

I shared this before in the Best and Worst of 2018 post, but I thought it would just be outright cheating if I did it again for Top Five Wednesday to just link to that post [again]. So, instead, I'll put it here: the five most disappointing books I read in 2018...again, they are in no particular order. 

1. Hummingbirds by Daniel Lipari - This book was just a waste of time. I understand what they were trying to do when they made the little book series, but seriously it did not do a good job of it. There are so many types of hummingbird in the world (mostly the southern hemisphere) that even a fully trade sized 150-odd page book would not have been enough space to fill it. I just found the book to be a perfect waste of time and space.

2. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara - Another weird childrens' book that was not at all what I thought it was going to be. I had checked it out in the school library a few times and must not have been remembering the right story when I asked for it for....Easter 2018? Christmas 2017? I don't remember off hand. Any way this lovely story I was expecting about a horse and his boy turned out to be garbage about a spoiled kid who didn't do anything his was told to do by his parents and they still gave him what he wanted. His dad thought it would teach him responsibility, but it really just taught him that even if he misbehaved he could still be rewarded. Bad bad bad.

3. Slaughter by James Beltz - It wasn't even that it was bad, it was just boring. The fight scenes read like he was watching a Liam Neeson film while writing and literally just wrote down what he was looking at. Over done to death. Not my cup of tea and likely not an author I am going to read again.

4. Shen of the Sea by Arthur Bowie Chrisman - I'm sorry, even if he just compiled them, I don't understand seeing an English name on a book of Chinese fairy stories (even for children). The stories were passable, but clearly made for less intelligent children. I didn't much care for them and will definitely NOT be rereading this one.

5. Butterflies by Diana Ajjan - I didn't like this one either. It was another of the small books like the hummingbird one. Though it did somehow manage to cover more than the hummingbird book, it still didn't cover enough. I am glad I got them for $0.25 each.