What are your pet hates in books?

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...