Hype Or Like Friday | Tragically Bad or Superbly Awesome Books

A weekly meme created by three book bloggers after sharing their opinions about overly hyped books. Each week we’ll discuss everything from fantasy to contemporary, as long as it’s a hyped book everyone’s been talking about. This is a group created by book bloggers for book bloggers, booktubers, bookstagramers, etc. Whatever method you use to review books you are welcome to join.

Hello! Welcome To Hype or Like Friday! This week’s topic is “tragically bad or superbly awesome books.” So I’m going to go with the controversial side of things and discuss a book I thought was tragically bad, Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines. It wasn’t that this book was written hysterically bad (although, it’s not exactly classic literature material), but this book was, in my opinion, ridiculously problematic. YET EVERYONE LOVES IT!!! Before I get all ranty on you, let me show you the cover and give you the Goodreads synopsis.

To everyone who knows him, West Ashby has always been that guy: the cocky, popular, way-too-handsome-for-his-own-good football god who led Lawton High to the state championships. But while West may be Big Man on Campus on the outside, on the inside he’s battling the grief that comes with watching his father slowly die of cancer.
Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s life fell apart when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. Even the move to Lawton, Alabama, couldn’t draw Maggie back out. So she stayed quiet, keeping her sorrow and her fractured heart hidden away.
As West’s pain becomes too much to handle, he knows he needs to talk to someone about his father—so in the dark shadows of a post-game party, he opens up to the one girl who he knows won’t tell anyone else.
West expected that talking about his dad would bring some relief, or at least a flood of emotions he couldn’t control. But he never expected the quiet new girl to reply, to reveal a pain even deeper than his own—or for them to form a connection so strong that he couldn’t ever let her go…

Okay. Let’s start at the beginning. At the very beginning, Maggie and West’s (the main characters) “romance” begins with West forcing himself on Maggie by kissing her roughly and out of pure aggression, without her consent. And what does Glines do? SHE ROMANTICIZES IT!!! Maggie’s all “Oooh, a hot boy kissing me! He’s mine now!” WTF? Girl, first of all, he’s not kissing you because he likes you, second of all, did you miss that HE FORCED HIMSELF ON YOU!!!!

If that’s not enough for you, the “relationship” is cringe worthy. West is possessive and aggressive to the point of fighting with anyone who so much as looks Maggie’s way. Then the author and Maggie try to justify his abhorrent behavior by saying “But his father is dying. He’s such a broken boy. I [Maggie] have to save him!” Um? No. You don’t let someone treat you like crap because they’re “broken.” And you don’t have to “save” them. 

THEN! There’s the implied slut shaming. Maggie is your typical pure heroine figure, who West idolizes and every girl who’s not her is immediately labeled a slut. West talked trash about how literally every other girl in town just wants to sleep around, but Maggie, she’s so different, so virginal, so pure!

And if you can wade your way through all of this problematic, offensive crap, you don’t even have good writing to read. Glines’s writing is mediocre, at best. There’s no beauty or elegance to it!

All in all, this book disgusted me. I’m beyond shocked at how much everyone loves it.

What do you guys think? Have you read this book and if so did you feel the same? What tragically bad books have you read and what made them that way?