Fiction cliches you hate

Women murderers who got that way because they did incest with their brothers when they were 12. And they can't get over the fact that their brothers have either fled from them in horror or died hideous deaths so they go round doing lots of murders.

Blackberry, LRD - I'd hazard a guess that you mean either Cathy Kelly or Sheila O'Flanagan - both wrote OK books at first but descended into cliche-ridden nonsense after a few.

'Adorably short upper lip' is a Jilly Cooper one I think, specifically Taggie CB.

50 Sheds is a work of genius!

bertrude - have you tried: www.amazon.com/Crossing-Places-Ruth-Galloway/dp/0547386060/ref=sr_1_6?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1356887992&sr=1-6&keywords=ruth+galloway

The heroine fits your description apart from, IIRC, the bad skin, and the spreadsheet (but she's fairly geeky).

I would love someone to write a book with the heroine being a short arse, size 16 geek with bad skin and drinks too much, solving crimes by way of spreadsheet.

Doubt it'd sell well though.

Seriously though, all the reasons you've all stated above are the reason I will not read chick lit. I end up shouting at the books. There again, the glamorous blond multimillionaire detectives and the sickeningly sweet family set ups with the single dad raising the kids with the old grandmother also get on my wick. Yes, I'm looking at you Patricia Cornwall and James Patterson.

I think I'll stick to my 50 Sheds of Grey

Sorry Ephiny

YY Epiphany

I mean I understand that the author wants us to have an image of the character but all this "She studied her pale complexion, her bee stung lips and hair that had always been complimented on. Lowering her gaze she caught sight of her full breasts and glanced down to her long legs......"

Give it a rest! I'd rather I knew none of these things and had nothing to go on.

AlexReid You're describing pretty much every Katie Fforde book. Still read them though!

I hate when the main character looks in the mirror and muses at length about their own appearance. Especially when this involves them detailing their dreadful flaws (freckles! eyes too big, lips too full ) while making clear to the reader that they're actually supposed to be gorgeous. Extra points if the main character is a clumsy self-insert of the author themselves.

I hate so many things in fiction. Just for starters:

• Bits written in italics from the POV of a serial killer.
• Where the secret turns out to be child sexual abuse.
• Anything where the heroine goes to a cottage to think over her life.
• Daffy heroines whose kooky charms appeal to the rich hero;

The phrase "He said thickly". How do you say anything thickly? Unless you are stupid of course.

DeWe - I might be misremembering, but I think that the Box of Delights is a magical 'resetting' of time, rather than a dream as such, and it all really happened. Don't you think?

I agree on the body parts coming into contact with scalding liquids. In real life, the detective would be leaping around screeching and their partner would be making vague noises of concern.

Where heroines are inexplicably irresistible to all the male characters - yes Sookie Stackhouse I'm looking at you..

It's definitely someone Irish with dark hair who looks like colleen Nolan a bit.

I have made up my mind not to read chick lit ever again. I just don't care enough whether they should get pregnant or fly to dohar to meet the bastard who only wants them for sex.

It's bring up the bodies or bust for me from now on.

I read shit chick lit a lot too. Especially when I pick it up in the train station.

I just don't think it's a Marian Keyes plot and it's going to bug me now while I work out which book it is (very trivial!).

With 'Sophie Kinsella as Madeleine Wickham' books, what bugs me is the totally implausible poshness of random people. I'm not sure if that's a cliche.

Perhaps I mean someone else. All I know is there is some shit Irish chick lit out there. And I seem to read it a lot!

Oh. You must be describing about the only one I haven't read, then.

alexreid and inItToWinIt sounds like all of Sophie Kinsellas books. I love her and have them all but they also really piss me off.

And yes the girl who thinks she is ugly but really is gorgeous. See all Katie Price books which I also love it.

Yes.

You've not actually read any Marian Keyes, have you?

I DETEST bookes featuring former ladette Irish journalists/tv newsreaders/fashion editors come over all motherly after being dumped by their caddish bedfellows and embark toute suite to a remote cottage where the nearest neighbours are bog dwellers - her parents are frantic rosary twitchers. Her friends are kerrrrazy and swear and smoke a lot.

She mopes about in arran knits swearing and her car inevitably dies. It's called Martha or Bertha or some such kooky funny name.

She eventually hooks up with really fit kind Irish hunk who lives with the bog dwellers in yonder village. They have tame but over breathy sex and she does indeed fall preggers. Kerrrrrazy mates turn up for a wedding in the bog.

So,,,,,, all of Marian Keyes books then.

Lisabeth Salander's whole face has darkened now.

YY AlexReid on the beautiful-but-doesn't-know-it heroine. See One Day, 50 Shades etc.