Things in books that instantly made you put it down

[IronTeeth]

I was reading a book, and it was OK (not brilliant, but had some interesting maybe potential.... and then this (image)

Ooh, you smell fresh, innocent like a good egg... not like a nasty spoiled one...

(The first in the Half-Moon Hollow series is “wry, delicious fun” (Susan Andersen, New York Times bestselling author) as it follows a librarian...)

I opened a book, and on page one the protagonist was fretting that she couldn't possibly attend her best friend's wedding because she weighed about 8st, and simply had to lose five pounds before anyone would agree to be her date.

Fuck off. Women need to stop doing that shit to each other.

WTF is that egg stuff about? How weird!

Second part of the prologue, first sentence.
"So setting the scene it was Halloween, and as usual the teenagers of the village were having their annual Halloween party in, surprise! Yes the village hall.“

and not much later:

"I'm a good aim, what can I say? But if I can't kill you! You you disgusting, condescending, vile, patronising, what? What are you, by the way? Ew!" She then freaks out even more, by spluttering "Oh no, we didn't I mean, did we?... And the goat thing, and the horns...ew ew ew ew ew!"

I wanted it to be good, a self-publish of a local woman who happened to be a friend of a friend. But I don’t think I made it a quarter of the way through.

I did finish it, but Ruth Jones Us Three, one of the characters is 18, her mum died when she was 4, it was just her and her dad for 3 years, till he met his new wife and they had a baby soon after, now she shares a room with her 15 year old sister! How! 4+3+15 = 22 not 18!

I had to put it down snd rant about how both Ruth and her editors missed such a glaring mistake!

I'm fed up with characters "padding" everywhere.

They aren't fucking cats and are perfectly capable of just walking.

When the protagonist is involved in an incident in prologue, usually traumatic, then it cuts to a year or so later and they keep mentioning doing stuff with other person involved in incident (usually spouse or child) while everyone else tiptoes around the fact the spouse/child died in the incident. Then they realise and turn vigilante etc.

I once intentionally bought a random romance novel from the supermarket, just because I wanted to distract myself from some life stresses. It was one of those multiple POV novels. OMG. One of the female characters was too irritating. After some very bad flirting with a guy from Marketing, I could not insult myself by continuing.

That’s some of the worst writing I’ve ever seen - how did you get past the first page?!

I loved The Bridges of Madison County, so thought Slow Waltz in Cedar Bend would be for me. I’m sure it would have been if the author hadn’t named his main character Jellie. Jellie?? What kind of name is that? Fine as a nickname for a child (though I’ve never heard it) but a grown woman? No no no! I persevered till the end but the name grated every time I read it.

I couldn't continue with a Kate Atkinson novel because it starts with the murder of a family. The baby boy was the same age as my baby boy at the time.

I love Kate Atkinson, the books are very well written, but I couldn't read that one after that scene.

The line 'What were you doing at Shenanigans?' would have cracked me up anyway. (May I ask whether Shenanigans is a nightclub, a swingers' motel, a bijou boutique of niche homewares...?)

A book called Sealskin which used the selkies myth (seals who can turn into women). The male character hides one selkie's skin so she stays human, then promptly rapes her and takes her home to his mother. It's written as if we should feel sorry for him - I stopped reading immediately.

There's a great thread in Classics if anyone fancies wasting an hour

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/4134816-Absolutely-Ridiculous-Things-in-Books

Anyone tried reading List of the Lost by Morrissey?

I love the guy (and I know I am in a minority) but it's unreadable.

"A certain sexlessness kept the grown child tied to the family, even if the impossibly constricted demands could very easily lead to a form of sexual cremation for the young child. The parental mind would allow the child time to develop political views, but there would certainly be no question of allowing the child time to choose its preferred religion, and even more importantly, the grand assumption that all children are extensively heterosexually resolved at birth whipped a demented torment across the many who were not."

And it's ALL like that.

A shame, as his Autobiography is beautifully written.

I'm reading a book at the moment that's about a break up and reconnecting with old friends. But suddenly the main character started baking cupcakes and her friend says she ought to take it up professionally.... oh just urgh. I'm persevering but reading it with a raised eyebrow and a 'oh FFS' face on.

Oh god I just hate when the author shoots for strong, smart, independent female lead but overdoes it and the character ends up being completely annoying. I bought the book Feed off a recommendation and couldn't read beyond the first ten pages. The one dimensional lead character had a sarcastic remark or one liner comeback for everything that was said by someone else. And none of what she said was even entertaining, it just kind of reminded me of the way 13 year olds try so desperately hard to be 'cool' and 'edgy'. Waste of time and money.

Cupcakes are always a Very Bad Sign

I started reading Gerald’s Game by Stephen King a few years ago. I went into blind, with no idea what the story was about. King went into graphic detail about his protagonist being raped repeatedly by her brother. This detail came out of nowhere. I put it down straightaway.

@SoMuchForSummerLove

Cupcakes are always a Very Bad Sign

Yes, that is an entirely true statement. They're sort of shorthand for 'Heroine is nurturing, fun, has an adorable smudge of flour in her tip-tilted nose, and is probably about to launch an unthreateningly cutesy mini-business as a 'mumpreneur', making her adorable cupcakes in her adorably klutzy kitchen, or opening an even more adorable café, where an adorably eccentric clientele will soon gather, before the glowering sexy Cordon Bleu chef who has the restaurant across the street swaggers in to complain about something.'

My own personal bugbear is the main character looking at themselves closely in a mirror in Chapter One. If you can't think of another way to incorporate a description of your character, then you shouldn't be writing novels.

It doesn't happen often for me. I even managed to somehow make it through Jasinder Wilder's Wounded which shows my dedication to reading.

There is one that springs to mind. I can't remember the title or author but it was a chick lit offering where the protagonist worked on the fish counter in the Arndale then walked to Piccadilly Station to catch the tram to Saddleworth. I've lived in Manchester for over 15 years and taken that route almost everyday on my way to work so I just couldn't get past the fact that the character had walked pretty much walked past two closer tram stops then somehow managed to get on a tram that took her to a stop that doesn't exist.

@Wrotten

I'm fed up with characters "padding" everywhere.

They aren't fucking cats and are perfectly capable of just walking.

This really winds me up!

As soon as anybody 'pads' it's game over, I don't read another word.

The Rook by Daniel O'Malley, as an audiobook. Not a minute in and I was rolling my eyes at Myfanwy, which the character concerned insists is pronounced Miffany-to-rhyme-with-Tiffany. It didn't get any better and luckily Audible has a nice returns policy.

In non-fiction, The Story of the British Isles in 100 Places by Neil Oliver. I'm used to history books being based on actual facts but Oliver takes myths and builds on them and somewhere on the way, in his mind, they become facts. So, from the myth that Pontius Pilate was born in Britain, he starts by pointing out that there was a considerable Roman presence in Britain at the time (true) and conjectures that his father was one of the officers (wait, what?) then goes on to find a British chieftan who at that time might have wanted to build bridges by marrying off his daughter. Presto! We have not only the assumption that Pontius Pilate was a Brit but also his parents’ identities, presented as fact. All from a 2000 year old myth. Once again, I was grateful to Audible for allowing me to return it.

DP lent me a book which he had regarded as a triumph over adversity type tale of a young woman's life, can't remember the author.

Within a few pages it detailed inappropriate behaviour by a stepfather and went into detail that I found massively triggering.
I hadn't encountered anything like it before and was an emotional wreck for a couple of days. DP was mortified.

Started listening to an audio book from the library. For some reason the person reading it chose to use a Sarf London accent for the main protagonist which meant that she never pronounced the letter T in the middle or end of a word. After 10 minutes I decided that I wasn't going to be able to cope with several hours of it and returned the book.

The need to describe every female character’s breasts. Why?

I get sometimes it might be relevant if it’s about high school and there’s some bullying or something like that and they’re picking on a character for being small or big chested. But I read a Stephen King book recently where he did it with a few female characters and I just didn’t see the need. Always male authors funnily enough.

Also in that book there were teenagers who were supposed to be from the present day and they talked like they were from the era when the author was a kid and also gave references to things that were dated even for me (I’m in my 30s). I think some authors get so famous that their editors don’t have much power and their work suffers.

I recently panned a Robert Goddard book (Past Caring, and trust me, it was a well chosen title) for the most appalling sex scene in literature. And the bar, as we know, is set very low. It was sooooo bad. I'd already struggled through hundreds of pages of utter boredom tbf, but I just returned it to Kindle after the bad sex.

There's a pretty decent psycho-neighbour-best friend crime writer called Lucy Clarke. She is obsessed with the word "salt". All the books are set by the sea, everyone ends up in the sea (often very dead) everyone gets covered in salt, licks salt off each other, breathes the salty air, has the salty wind whipping round them. It's like she gets a fiver for each time she shoehorns the word in.