What are your pet hates in books?

Queen-Mise

This thought has been on my mind for the past number of weeks. I just finished reading a series (Riley Jenson Guardian Series by Keri Arthur) and some of my pet hates were in the books. In my opinion, some of these faults resulted in the series being average rather than very good.

One of my pet hates is unrealistic character reactions - in the early books Riley Jenson is raped a number of times but has no adverse reaction to it. She continues once recovered physically to have normal emotional & sexual relationships Unless your are a crack addicted prostitute, no-one recovers that quickly. It is awful storytelling on the author's behalf and very insulting to the audience.

One of my other pet hates came up in the Keri Arthur books and also in Cormac McCarthy's The Road. If you are presenting us with a world, make it somewhat believable, don't leave gaping holes in the reality. I could not come up with an apocalypse for The Road that would explain the world McCarthy was writing in - this may be pedantic on my side as I have read a lot of science fiction. It wasn't vague enough nor exact enough - for me it was a serious criticism of the book. How could I find any of the characters or their actions believable when the world itself wasn't?

Keri Arthur does something similar in the Riley Jenson books - they are set in the future, which is fine, but there is practically nothing futuristic in the books. So basically she ends up writing about contemporary Melbourne but with lasers guns & on-board computer navigators (literally that is all).
[One of the funniest apocalyptic causes I read about in a series was caused by tomatoes being GM'ed. Through the series - periodically one-liners were made, or little side plots of tomato ketchup being illegal imported. This was the only humour in otherwise serious books.]

My last pet hate is when an author forces a character/situation/plot to suit their story line - so you get a ridiculous link, reaction or something out of the ordinary to explain/account for something. TV & film are just as guilty of this as are authors and it really annoys me. Re-write it if it doesn't work - don't force it.

Other things I don't care about - I will go from reading 'high' literature to reading tripe the next day and vice versa. I enjoy good storytelling as well as reading beautiful language.
At the moment I am reading a book (third of a series), I suppose what would be classed as Erotica. It really showed up some of my prejudices against the genre. I presumed all erotica would be of a standard of 50 Shades - but these ones aren't. I speed read the 15 pages of a sex scene (it really does get boring) - but generally the books are nearly excellent. At the moment - the part of the book I am on, would stand up to a lot horror books with its nastiness & evilness (not sex related - as that would probably be snuff & that is plain EVIL, even in fiction).



What are your pet hates when reading?

Aenaes

Hyped up recurring characters just itching to get on the big screen.

Okay, you created a police detective and they're solving crimes, fine. You have created a coroner/morgue janitor, assistant DA who repeatedly solves crimes? Riiight.

Dan Brown is typical of this. I read The Da Vinci Code, it was actually an enjoyable read if you didn't look too much into it. It was only after did I realise that Langdon is in at least 2 other books. He's a Harvard University professor of religious iconology who gets embroiled in James Bond/Indiana Jones situations and gets the beautiful woman at the end.

old gregg

Fantasy novels where there are loads of characters who have long 'magical' make-ee-up-ee names that have to be remembered in order for you to follow the story.

Nody

Whiney characters who go on whining about everything through out the book. You know the type, spending ages complaining before the fight, run and hide during the fight, complain after the fight. There was a fantasy series which was classical for this a decade ago but I can't recall the name. The type of character you want to just slap to shut them up... This should not be confused with the grumpy character type who thinks all was better before etc. which are perfectly fine in my book

I'd also second the rape comment above; saw the same in a new author's book were the main female character was gang raped by bandits and then made love a day later with her rescuer...

I'll also admitt having problems with the "I'm always right and see how the world confirms around me to prove it being so" authors who use the book to drive a highly political agenda (see T. Goodkind esp. after Sep. 9th). I don't mind political agenda but mixing it in to much makes a book unreadable as you're now reading fantasy/sci fi AND political fiction in one go and they rarely combine well and properly.

Necronomicon

I hate when an author skimps on the description of a character when they're introduced, but later makes reference to physical features which conflict with the image you've since built up yourself.

IvyTheTerrible

Errors that should have easily been picked up by a half-way decent editor, but weren't. It just ruins the believability of a novel for me. If I spotted one thing, how many other things are wrong?

Malari

Necronomicon wrote: »

I hate when an author skimps on the description of a character when they're introduced, but later makes reference to physical features which conflict with the image you've since built up yourself.

Yes, that is really irritating! Same goes for a house or building that doesn't get a description at first, then when layouts or decor are mentioned later they are at odds with what I've imagined.

Typos and spelling mistakes. How did nobody somewhere along the way pick this up?

IvyTheTerrible

bluewolf wrote: »

Typos and spelling mistakes. How did nobody somewhere along the way pick this up?

It's worse since things started being done on computers. Spellcheck doen't pick up errors like of/or etc.

Also, I have noticed that the quality of spellchecking and formatting on e-books is much much worse than in paper books.

IvyTheTerrible

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

It's worse since things started being done on computers. Spellcheck doen't pick up errors like of/or etc.

Also, I have noticed that the quality of spellchecking and formatting on e-books is much much worse than in paper books.

I haven't read many e-books, but I've seen then/than a couple times lately, and some missing punctuation or suchlike.

Necronomicon

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

Also, I have noticed that the quality of spellchecking and formatting on e-books is much much worse than in paper books.

Oh yes, that is a major peeve of mine. It really takes you out of the immersion of the book when you realise there's a mistake. It's not just in 'acquired' books either; I buy plenty of books on Amazon and I've come across the same thing, though thankfully not as much as in books that were given to me.

The worst case I remember was a copy of Stephen King's Misery which was probably missing around 25% of full stops throughout the book.

Giselle

old gregg wrote: »

Fantasy novels where there are loads of characters who have long 'magical' make-ee-up-ee names that have to be remembered in order for you to follow the story.

Its the main reason I don't read much fantasy. If a name is long enough or stupid enough, I just can't get past it.

Psychedelic

Bad writing is the worst. Drives me mental.

Lengthy sentences with lots of commas - see Henry James's Turn of the Screw.

Puke prose - see The Scarlet Letter - gave up reading after the first chapter it was that awful. Lengthy sentences, no paragraphs, overuse of adjectives, bloated descriptions, that type of thing.

Breaking the 'show, don't tell' rule. Worst example of this I've come across is The Shadow of the Wind - toward the end a character writes a 30-page letter to another character which is just pure exposition.

Books that presume the reader will immediately fall in love with its characters - the reader's affection for them has to be earned through proper character development.

Trying to be too cutesy or quirky - I like quirky, but when it is piled on too much it's nauseating.

Unnecessary and/or graphic sex scenes that add nothing to the story.

Nody

Psychedelic wrote: »

Unnecessary and/or graphic sex scenes that add nothing to the story.

You would not happened to be reading about a certain gay and very masculine fantasy hero?

Psychedelic

Nody wrote: »

You would not happened to be reading about a certain gay and very masculine fantasy hero?

No, not sure what you are referring to. I don't read fantasy books.

Shryke

Psychedelic wrote: »

No, not sure what you are referring to. I don't read fantasy books.

Richard Morgan I imagine. All of his sex scenes are a bit poor but the gay stuff was shoehorned in there so hilariously for the sake of itself.
Great books though. I hope the third one's out soon, not that I don't have a massive reading list already.

The Mad Hatter

Aenaes wrote: »

Dan Brown is typical of this. I read The Da Vinci Code, it was actually an enjoyable read if you didn't look too much into it. It was only after did I realise that Langdon is in at least 2 other books. He's a Harvard University professor of religious iconology who gets embroiled in James Bond/Indiana Jones situations and gets the beautiful woman at the end.

Uh, in fairness, Indiana Jones was a high school teacher.

The Mad Hatter

bluewolf wrote: »

I haven't read many e-books, but I've seen then/than a couple times lately, and some missing punctuation or suchlike.

The problem is that many of them are imperfectly scanned (as scanners can't be perfect). I'm reading Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast at the moment, and at least once, the name of the character Irma has been mistyped as "Inna".

Aenaes

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Uh, in fairness, Indiana Jones was a high school teacher.

I know but the Indiana Jones movie franchise always was a bit tongue-in-cheek. Lucas and Spielberg both agreed to make him the American James Bond.

Nody

Shryke wrote: »

Richard Morgan I imagine. All of his sex scenes are a bit poor but the gay stuff was shoehorned in there so hilariously for the sake of itself.
Great books though. I hope the third one's out soon, not that I don't have a massive reading list already.

I was indeed and I'm always waiting for his next book

Harry Angstrom

Overly descriptive writers who feel the need to spoonfeed the reader, often at the expense of advancing the plot. Joseph Conrad is a particular offender.

The over-reliance of coincidence. Dickens does this a lot, often to a laughable degree. He was obviously a great writer but I wish he hadn't overdone the element of coincidence in his novels.

Mr.Nice Guy

I hate when books feature a screen shot of actors from a movie version of the same book right on the cover.

My problem with this is I find I can't conjure up my own vision of the characters like I normally can, because I've now got these Hollywood actors in my head.

hidinginthebush

Dream sequences. Usually largely irrelevant and sometimes used as a device to give some obscure clue to the reader, I tend to skim over them to be honest.

Manach

The author giving up.
In some books I've read, they start off with excellent characteristic, plotlines etc. Then at a certain stage, the author seems to give up and race to the end: sacrificing quality & plot just to finish off the book to hand over to the publisher. It treats the reader with a profound disrespect and on the very rare occasion I've come across I've never bothered again with the author.

MagicMarker

Constant repetition. Stephen King's antagonists are always "grinning" and when people swallow their "throat's click", the last book I read (not SK) people were always licking their lips and had dry throats, in the current book I'm reading everyone's always shrugging. I mean, I realise there's only so many things a person can do, but on every single page?!?

Oh, and sex scenes, just..... no.

Mountainsandh

Lengthy descriptions of absolutely no value to the story, as in, page fillers.
I read all sorts, go through phases. My last chick-lit and easy to read holiday novels phase ended abruptly when an author I really liked described in several pages her heroine making spaghetti bolognese. Can't even remember the name of the book.

I've gone on to factual books now, and not about food .

tiny timy

Bladdering on about crap like "his tie was red like a candy apple", just tell the story!

Necronomicon

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I hate when books feature a screen shot of actors from a movie version of the same book right on the cover.

My problem with this is I find I can't conjure up my own vision of the characters like I normally can, because I've now got these Hollywood actors in my head.

Can't believe I didn't think of this one myself, it has to be #1 for me. Especially when the film did nothing but piss all over the book. When I saw Will Smith on the cover of I Am Legend in Waterstones I think a few blood vessels were on the verge of popping.

RDM_83 again

Necronomicon wrote: »

Can't believe I didn't think of this one myself, it has to be #1 for me. Especially when the film did nothing but piss all over the book. When I saw Will Smith on the cover of I Am Legend in Waterstones I think a few blood vessels were on the verge of popping.

Watch The Omega Man its also not like the book but a better film (and it has Charlton Heston in it!)

My annoyance is with Sci-Fi books having as their main characters rebellious, assertive/strong but attractive young (often teen) female characters (probably could just refer to them as action girls), Snowcrash (a terrible book imo) is the worst example of this one of the main characters is a sexually active 13 or 14 year old skater girl!

I've no problem with books having a female character as the focus but its never a unattractive woman (I don't think I;ve ever read a SCI-FI book with an overweight female main protagonist!)
I often feel that the authors (often male) feel that by having a female protagonist their being a bit "different" or striking a blow against sexism rather than actually having a reason* in for the character to be female.

An author thats guilty of this and also my other peeve is Ian (M) Banks, with recycling basically the same character under a different name in books in the same universe.

* Not that the main character shouldn;t be a female action girl but at least make them seem like a real person not the same as character X


My cross genre pet peeve is characters that are destined to have sex e.g its guaranteed chapters before (and I also dislike sex in books in general the book of the Godfather :eek: )

edit:Remembered more thing that annoy me, writers that repeat phrases or bulk out their books and stories, this was excusable for people that published their short stories in magazine first but not any more

The Game of thrones seemed to have the phrase "grease running down his chin" about a million times

rant over sorry!

The Mad Hatter

MagicMarker wrote: »

Constant repetition. Stephen King's antagonists are always "grinning" and when people swallow their "throat's click", the last book I read (not SK) people were always licking their lips and had dry throats, in the current book I'm reading everyone's always shrugging. I mean, I realise there's only so many things a person can do, but on every single page?!?

I find a lot of writers do that unawares, and it's often something I catch on a second or third read. The last time I read the Harry Potter series, I noticed that Rowling got hung up on the voice of the character Kingsley Shacklebolt:

"'Remus says you're a good flier,' said Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep voice."

"'No one's going to die,' said Kingsley Shacklebolt in his deep, calming voice."

" and then a deep voice he recognised as Kingsley Shacklebolt's saying, 'Hestia's just relieved me, so she's got Moody's Cloak now, thought I'd leave a report for Dumbledore…'"

"Kingsley Shacklebolt's deep voice was audible even over the surrounding chatter."

"'You want to calm yourself, Madam Umbridge,' said Kingsley, in his deep, slow voice. 'You don't want to get yourself into trouble, now.'"

I think that was every one of his appearances in the fifth book…

implausible

Am in the middle of Wolf Hall at the moment. I love the period and Cromwell's character, but Mantel's habit of not telling you who's speaking is really off-putting. I've been forced repeatedly to reread entire paragraphs as she usually (but not always) uses 'he' to mean the protagonist, Cromwell.

I'm not an idiot and don't need 'he said', 'she said' on every line, but dialogue should have some bit of clarity. I don't know if Mantel is affecting a style for the sake of it or being lazy or what, but it's just plain irritating.

IvyTheTerrible

implausible wrote: »

Am in the middle of Wolf Hall at the moment. I love the period and Cromwell's character, but Mantel's habit of not telling you who's speaking is really off-putting. I've been forced repeatedly to reread entire paragraphs as she usually (but not always) uses 'he' to mean the protagonist, Cromwell.

I'm not an idiot and don't need 'he said', 'she said' on every line, but dialogue should have some bit of clarity. I don't know if Mantel is affecting a style for the sake of it or being lazy or what, but it's just plain irritating.

Oh that really bugged me too.

She must have gotten lots of complaints though, because in Bring up the Bodies, anywhere where there could be confusing it's all "He, he Cromwell"!

Shryke

Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »

I hate when books feature a screen shot of actors from a movie version of the same book right on the cover.

My problem with this is I find I can't conjure up my own vision of the characters like I normally can, because I've now got these Hollywood actors in my head.

This. I hate this. I was going to pick up The Constant Gardener be Le Carre in Easons the other day but the only version they had was the film tie-in. It looked like a DVD cover. Just no.

Roisy7

Ever since the passive voice was pointed out to be a particularly zealous lecturer, I want to strike out every "was" with a red pen!

Earthhorse

old gregg wrote: »

Fantasy novels where there are loads of characters who have long 'magical' make-ee-up-ee names that have to be remembered in order for you to follow the story.

If you think that's bad, try reading Life and Fate by Vasilly Grossman. New characters are introduced every chapter for the first half of the book and variously referred to by their regular name, their rank or some familiar or petname, making it absolutely impossible to keep track of them. More generally, I hate when too many characters are introduced in quick succession without being distinct enough to really stand out in the reader's mind.

I hate when people rely on the same phrases again and again, particularly when trying to recreate or evoke a particular era. I lost count of the number of times people "broke their fast" or were asked had they "broken their fast" in Game of Thrones. Yes, we get it; it's an archaic way of saying breakfast but really, I don't care if the character's have had their Corn Flakes or not.

Another peeve is authors feeling obliged to have some "event" happen in their novel in order to make it more novelistic. It usually takes the form of an affair, a murder, a car crash, a fire or some other "big incident" that doesn't really gel with the rest of the book. I'm not saying these things should never happen in fiction, of course they should, but when you feel the hand of the author entering into his imagined universe to nudge his characters in the right direction it just feels very contrived.

[-0-]

Manach wrote: »

The author giving up.
In some books I've read, they start off with excellent characteristic, plotlines etc. Then at a certain stage, the author seems to give up and race to the end: sacrificing quality & plot just to finish off the book to hand over to the publisher. It treats the reader with a profound disrespect and on the very rare occasion I've come across I've never bothered again with the author.

This drives me mental.

CrowWoman

My absolute pet peeve is when the writer throws in some huge event as a climax without making it gel with anything else in the story.

Worst case of this I ever read was KJ Parker. The second book of her Fencer trilogy (Belly of the Bow) ends with the only moral and likeable character in a family of scumbags gutting and cutting up his four-year-old nephew to make his bones into a bow as revenge for something his brother had done years before. Third book starts with the character going on the same as before and ends with a different character being killed in a gruesome and unusual way.

I can live with gore and horror, but only if it makes sense in the story or at least alters the plot. If the character had changed, become harder or more twisted or even eaten up by grief I would have run with it. It didn't even change the family dynamics (with his brother, who had been described over about 600 pages as an excellent father, reasoning that you could make another son but not another brother).

Grrr. Apologies for ranting on but that one boils my blood just remembering it.

Im_That_Girl

****ing footnotes on every page (Sophie Kinsella), bizarre unrealistic 'la-la-land' books, mary-sue characters, bad writing especially when the author strings short sentences together like a 5 year old, sentences that don't make sense, plots that don't make sense, historical fiction novels set in the 19th Century with ultra-modern character names, bad editing, endings that leave way too many loose ends...