a few books that i rated too highly that i would 100% change now.

Hey guys, I was looking through some of my old reviews and I have to say that I am quite embarrassed by some of the things I have put out onto the Internet in terms of my opinions on books I've read. There are quite a lot of books that I rated SO highly simply because I felt some insane loyalty to the author or because I felt bad about it or because TikTok told me it was good so I gave in to peer pressure. There are also books that I rated lowly because I didn't really understand it or wasn't in the mood for it at the time but I will not include them here. So today, I want to go back and re-rate some of the books I've read in the past (just a few, because I am not going through 800 posts) that I'm embarrassed about rating.

I just do not ever want to reread most of these for the sake of re-rating them so here we go. 


1. ANYTHING by Colleen Hoover

    November 9 --- originally rated 3 stars, would give it 1.5 now

    Heart Bones --- originally rated 4 stars, would give it 3 now

    Maybe Someday --- originally rated 2 stars, would give it 1 now

    Ugly Love --- originally rated 4 stars, would give it 2 now

    Reminders of Him --- originally rated 2 stars, would give it 1 now

    It Ends With Us --- originally rated 5 stars, would give it 4 now

The only one I would keep the same is Verity (4 stars).

So when I first heard of Colleen Hoover, it was just rumors about how incredible and amazing she was and how her books were SO good. I felt compelled to also like her books because of how incredibly hyped up she was. I think there was a point where I even proclaimed myself as a Colleen Hoover stan, which is ridiculous considering I only rated one of her books 5 stars. I think she has some merit and she's not necessarily an awful writer but the books that I did read of hers were for the most part, BAD. They were boring, they featured melodramatic prose and horrible plots, the characters were unforgivable or annoying, and it just read like a woman trying to make a bang for her buck. 

This woman is everywhere now. I honestly shudder when I see her name in the bookstores, especially when she gets entire tables dedicated to her books. I think I've read enough of her stuff to form a true opinion about her writing and it's that she does not deserve the hype she gets, she was cancelled for a reason, the cheating trope is way too prominent, and her movie is going to be incredibly awful. 

2. Punk 57 by Penelope Douglas --- originally 4 stars, would give it now 2 stars

I despise Penelope Douglas but I remember at the time when I read this, I thought it just had to be good. Everyone loved it so much at the time and I remember feeling compelled to also rate it highly. I distinctly remember not understanding what the hell was going on in a good amount of it and the only thing that really stands out to me now, several years later, is that god-awful pickup truck scene. This was honestly one of the first books I read in "new adult" or "adult" romance so I think my opinions were definitely skewed at unbelievable levels. Looking back on this and everything else that I know about Douglas's writing, this absolutely was not good and did not deserve anywhere near 4 stars. I won't be rereading it. 

3. The entire After series by Anna Todd

After --- originally rated 5 stars, would give it now 3.5

The rest are the same.

Okay, so I know I said in one of my reviews of this book that I would never change the rating down from 5 stars and that I knew objectively it wasn't worth it but that I felt in my teenage soul that they deserved more. I have to say, these are still so enjoyable and fun to read. I just think that as I've grown, I've hit the point where childhood entertainment does not equate to something being GOOD. 

Thus, I would lower my ratings down for the entire series a couple stars or two. I would definitely revisit these in the future for some fun and games but I am aware that they are not worth the 5 stars I gave each of them. However, I would like to clarify that I was ALWAYS aware of this fact but that I just loved them so much. 

4. The entire The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare

City of Bones --- originally rated 5 stars, would give it now 3 stars

The rest are the same except the second book, which was 4 stars but I would give it 2.5

Okay, I LOVE Cassandra Clare and I've never hidden that fact. The review I linked above was my first EVER review on iRead, so I've been following the Shadowhunters journey for years. I just have to say that in the end, this series specifically is NOT good. I always recommend to readers who've never tried Cassie to just fully skip this series and go straight to The Infernal Devices, which 100% deserves the five stars/six stars I gave them. 

This series was her first, and because of that, her writing was much weaker and the plots were much sillier and the characters were much less formed. I, like Cassie, have grown in my writing skills over the years and cringe at my earlier works and I think this is much of the same scenario. This series is not BAD but it is nowhere near the level of the rest of her books, which is why I would lower my ratings on each of these. 

5. Animal Farm by George Orwell --- originally rated 5 stars, would now give it 3

Anyone who knows me knows I hate this man. I hate 19*4 with a passion to the point where I censor the word because it triggers my hatred. I have to be completely honest here and say I do not remember anything about this book but I just know that I did not like it as much as I said I did. The main reason I rated it so highly is because I knew my English teacher who assigned this book to us had access to my blog (and still does, so I'm sorry if you're reading this). I don't remember this book being bad but it definitely was not enough to merit a five stars, especially given what I know about this man's writing. I am always in shock when I pull up my review on this book and see such a high rating because it definitely is NOT real. 

There are so many more but I needed to get these off my chest prematurely before I combust thinking about these embarrassing reviews. These do not represent my reading tastes and I am so traumatized by people reading these and thinking I genuinely like Colleen Hoover. As always, opinions change so take everything I say with a grain of salt because I might reread these and find that they were actually as good as little me thought they were.