AIBU to think a lot of books these days are really badly written?

[TheNameGames]

I'm not going to name specific authors or books but does anyone think the quality in fiction novels has really gone downhill and amateurish lately? I'm not talking '50 shades of Grey' levels where the reviews are scathing compared to the numbers sold. Someone recommended a book to me that they promised that I'd love and I couldn't get past the second chapter because the writing just came across as juvenile. This is a part from the latest recommendation:

'I love you,' he whispered.
'Love you, too.'
He pulled back.
I groaned again, but this time it was with frustration.

Not just that, but glaring grammatical errors (unless it was intentionally written this way):

'You'll love what happens after dinner.' He grinned.

'All right, bring it on.' I laughed.

I went online to see if people thought the same but this has an average rating of 4 and a half stars. I thought it was something that someone had self published but this is a best-seller, apparently. I've read far better written fanfiction. I've read far better written OPs in AIBU!

Someone recommended another book a few months ago and it was the same thing. I don't mean to be a snob and I'm certainly nowhere anywhere near the scale of clever but I just found I couldn't read them because of the way they were written, it was like reading a badly written teenage novel. They're not my normal style of books but thought I'd give some a go for some light reading. Some of these have been pushed to the forefront on the Amazon kindle main page so must be popular and given the reviews, they are.

Is it fake reviews? People accepting or being more forgiving of lower quality writing lately? I've read loads of books I thought were rubbish but only didn't finish them because I didn't like the content, not because I couldn't connect with the writing itself.

I'm prepared to be flamed but does anyone agree?

Glad I was not being unreasonable!

This is making sense now. I have a free Amazon Prime trial so decided to download my first Kindle read and up until now I thought these were just electronic versions of books that have already been published in actual book form. I knew people self published books but I thought they would be in a separate section, not advertised and given top priority on the main page. Still, it was very badly written and I would have been ashamed to put my name to it.

There seems to be a trend for rambling scene setting

I blame publishers for this. Books are much longer on average than they used to be, 400 pages plus is the expectation which is double what it used to be. Most stories of the popular fiction variety just don't need to be that long so you end up with pointless filler material such as rambling scene setting.

I have just begun sending my books out to agents and publishers. On the one hand, the piss-poor quality of some published books gives me hope, on the other hand, I find it insulting and depressing that some categorically awful books have made it to publication when so many books, mine included, don't.

Agree with a PP about editing too.

My friend has had books published by small indie e-publishers. I get that they don't have a big budget or a lot of time. But her books are literally riddled with errors of tense, spelling and basic factual inconsistencies. Even if they didn't have time to edit themselves, they should have told her to do it herself!

You get it with big authors these days to. JK Rowling's last detective novel should have been handed back to her with the instruction to cut it by a third, but it seems that no one gives a crap when you're bringing the money in.

Ahem. I write popular fiction and am with a digital-first publisher. My books go through multiple rounds of edits (two, then a copy edit, then a proofread, then a final read by me). Lots of grammatical errors are picked up during the process - everyone cares massively about quality. But at the same time, I’m often asked to tone down highbrow language because it alienates some readers.

I listened to Lies, Lies, Lies by Adele Perks. I alternate fiction and non fiction so like the fiction quite attention grabbing. This had Tons of stars, Times best seller list - reallyyy?
Everyone lies so unlikely you are going to warm to the any of the characters - a bit haunted by past events/ is everyone what they seem/ mild psychopath character/ etc . I wasn't taken by it at all but most annoying was a bubbly 'how I'd found inspiration for my wonderful novel ' speel by author at end of book! And why was it getting 5 stars. You can tell I'm still annoyed now.
I like Persephone books - republished books from the past , mostly written by women.

I agree with whoever mentioned Belinda Bauer as an example of a popular writer, with interesting plots and setting, and writing that seems natural and flows easily. I enjoy her books, and I'd love for every popular fiction book I picked up to be around that level.

I am listening to
www.goodreads.com/book/show/6088374-that-affair-next-door
On audiobooks ( not audible) as it was free. The narrator sounds a bit odd but it was written in the 1890s and is possibly a very early whodunnit. The vocabulary is wonderful.

Iwouldlikesomecake now that's much more realistic.

The thing is, I enjoy a bit of escapism/suspending disbelief etc, but it has to be well written to carry me along with it. Otherwise it just irritates.

I'm reading Diary of a Provincial Lady at the moment, it's a light, comforting, kind of uneventful read, but it's really well written, with efficient, snappy prose and all the rest of it. It's old mind you - written in the 1930s. Maybe it was thought of as "chick lit" back then!

E-publishing and the rise of self publishing have been the death knell of good writing, most of the newer names in the kindle store are never seen in bookstores.

I once temped for a fool who had blagged his way into a job as a manager. Useless doesn't adequately cover his ignorance and incompetence. I, myself, had the pleasure of typing his business letters to yourselves, shudder. All paragraphs without benefit of punctuation which 'makes it look untidy'. Yup. No commas, no properly formed sentences, just an uninterrupted stream of consciousness from the James Joyce of carpet salesmen. Made my teeth ache every day.

There seems to be a trend for rambling scene setting

To be fair, some people seem to love that.

My favourite part of reading a bad book is going to Goodreads to see people agreeing with me. I read a trilogy that has fantastic reviews for the descriptive prose. Most people seem to love it, but I found it bloody endless.

(As endless as the sweeping purple moors and hauntingly barren crags that represent the protagonist's tortured whiny soul.)

As soon as I see the word 'grinned', I know the book is shite.

Yup! Also "dashed".

Quite a good yardstick though when flicking through a book to see if its worth taking home!

Completely agree. A few weeks ago I received an ARC (Advance Reading Copy) of The Animals at Lockwood Manor, by Jane Healey. This is due to be published March 2020, and seemingly ticked all the right boxes: strong historical premise, overwhelmingly positive reviews on Goodreads, comparisons to Sarah Waters, went to a seven-way auction, etc. And yet the writing is just so... clumsy. Overlong sentences where characters do far too much one fell swoop. E.g.

'I was silent. She bit her lip and shook her head. We stared at one another, and then she walked out of the room, letting out a sob that brought a lump to my throat as I turned back to the lunch I had lost all appetite for, my hands shaking as I set aside my plate and tasted the tears that caught in the corners of my mouth instead'.

And again..

'The other occupant of the room, a fellow mammal worker named John Vaughan who was the very last person I would wish as an audience for such an embarrassment because he was forever fond of making snide comments with prurient undertones about my being female, watched with a dark kind of smirk on his face.'

There's a rambling tone to it all, and a certain cliche of expression that I can't get past.

On the other hand, I started reading The Parisian recently (Isabella Hammad) and the writing is absolutely gorgeous, but the plot so dull. Argh!

For me, someone like Agatha Christie has the perfect balance between strong plot and smooth, unobtrusive writing style. I don't necessarily need highfalutin description, but I don't want to cringe at the writing either.

’The other occupant of the room, a fellow mammal worker named John Vaughan who was the very last person I would wish as an audience for such an embarrassment because he was forever fond of making snide comments with prurient undertones about my being female, watched with a dark kind of smirk on his face.'

Oh god exactly this sort of thing. I mean, just poor writing. This would once have been hammered out by editors - and there’s no shame in that. That’s what they’re there for.

I started to read the latest Tana French and couldn't get past the first chapter. It was solely dedicated to the female protagonist making breakfast for the family. In minute detail. The eggs, the juice, the coffee. Then - what to make for the children's packed lunch? Should she use cheese? Sorry Tana French fans, I can't waste my time reading that. Does anyone enjoy that?

As people have said, you aren't looking for the right type of book. Literary fiction is mostly about a character and their journey, often internalised as they come to this awakening. They can be written in many different ways and styles. Page turners at the airport are plot driven and the action happens and drives the story forward wether the characters develop and evolve or not. Not many writers can do both well.

I sometimes like a book that can be difficult to read. I want to be challenged . Jane Rogers, The Island was great for me. Also John mcgregor Even The Dogs. Both beautifully written fiction but deal with brutal subjects in different ways. If I want a page turner then my go to are Tami Hoag ( although she rehashes parts of story lines) Stephen king ( love him) . I loved the true blood series for a quick satisfying read and can read the entire set in 2 days flat and still enjoy them.

Most stories follow just a few slightly different paths. You could say that finding memo and taken are identical in their premise but varied in the plot for different audiences. I don't mind that, I want writing that flows unless I'm after a challeNge

I agree the worst book I read recently which was really hyped was The Keeper of Lost Things- so simplistic the story skewed all over the place didn't know what genre it was aiming for, unbelievable dialogue. It was so rubbish it made me angry!
Eleanor Oliphant was ok, again a very farfetched story though who are these people who go round every man they meet fall in love with them, every female is an instant best friend, nice to a new village and they are instantly running everything!
All the Light we cannot we was brilliant though as was The Goldfinch.

move to a new village
Light we cannot see !

@TheNameGames
but glaring grammatical errors (unless it was intentionally written this way):
'You'll love what happens after dinner.' He grinned.
'All right, bring it on.' I laughed.

What grammatical errors?? There are no errors in thse two sentences. Do you mean starting a new sentence for the dialogue tags 'he grinned' and 'I laughed'? They are correct.

Everyone complaining about the lack of editing in published books, that's because fiction publishers generally pay their editorial staff very little, and they tend to be new graduates, and they pay editorial freelances evern less. The Society for Editors and Proofreaders' suggested minimum rate for proofreading is £25/hour. One major publisher offers £16 per hour.

So if an experienced proofreader has other work, tjhey will not take on badly paid work, meaning less qualified/unqualified/more desperate/new proofreaders take it on instead, and may not do as good a job.

And after a MS has been proofread, the typesetter needs to take in all the proofreader's changes correctly - some errors are typesetter errors, not proofreader errors!

One recent book I read by a bestselling author - Kindle version - had 300 errors in it, including howlers such as 'through' for 'threw', missing words, etc. I marked up all errors and contacted the publisher, I was so cross. It had apparently been proofread twice. By whom, I have no idea, but it was shocking.

PS I am an editor/proofreader.

As people have said, you aren't looking for the right type of book. Literary fiction is mostly about a character and their journey, often internalised as they come to this awakening. They can be written in many different ways and styles. Page turners at the airport are plot driven and the action happens and drives the story forward wether the characters develop and evolve or not. Not many writers can do both well.

I understand the different types of fiction very well! So how come there are many page turners from earlier decades which also manage to be competently-written? Take the Persephone books mentioned upthread - all authors regarded as lightweight, "women's fiction", throwaway writers at the time. Publishers like Virago actively scorned them when it came to rediscovering female authors. Yet I've never picked up one that I didn't find engaging and written well.

"Genre" fiction is a total no-go for me as I find the writing standard dreadful. But there should be mass-market light fiction available where the writing is of a readable standard, and so many books just aren't.

Do you mean starting a new sentence for the dialogue tags 'he grinned' and 'I laughed'? They are correct.

They are grammatically correct, but bloody annoying nonetheless.

Part of the problem is that large publishers have slashed all their costs to the bone, meaning they have fired most of their subeditors or outsourced the work to incompetent providers overseas (certainly the case for two for whom I worked).

@friedbeansandcheese
That’s why I said ‘unless it was intentionally written this way’. It may have been, but to me, it comes across as wrong and awkwardly written. To me, the first character said it in a deadpan tone and then gave a maniacal smile and the second character replied in a deadpan tone and then burst out laughing.