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...)

Oh, and small print. I'm old, my eyes can't cope with it.

I don't even know what it was called but it was fairly good... until it snuck fucking religion in once I was hooked and liked the character and then tried to ram holier than thou and VERY americanised south-west style religion at the reader on every fucking page.

Ugh. I was so incensed i wrote a review on it on my kindle using the on-screen and horrible keyboard. Thats how bad it was!

Lovely bones, put it down after the white panties, went back and enjoyed it if that's the right word. Read her second book, cant remember the name 😖it was good bad book and that psychiatrist wow what a hack.

@AtomHeartMotherOfGod yay! I shall call us Team Timeless 🙌 I just find that such references really age a book very badly. Like you, those ‘easy reads’ are really not my sort of book (as perhaps evidenced by my not understanding why people disliked Tim Win Tom’s ‘The Shepherd’s Hut’ or Jon McGregor’s ‘If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things’ on this thread). I enjoy good descriptions and don’t always require a plot to tie up super neatly. I don’t buy ‘nothing happens’ as a criticism; sometimes in life that’s how it is and some writers depict life’s lack of neatness quite well in this respect.
Saying that, I found that in whichever one of Sally Rooney’s books I gave up on, really NOTHING happened. I found myself yelling at the characters to just get on with it! But maybe that’s also because I found the characterisation in that book to be very poor. I didn’t really care about what happened to them. Ditto (whisper it!) Wolf Hall, which I bailed on after 100 pages as I just didn’t care about any of the characters. Historically accurate, I’m sure, but very dry characterisation again. Shame because I quite enjoy Hilary Mantel’s essays and short stories.

Tim WINTON, that should clearly read…!

Several of the aforementioned annoyances can be found in the Richard Jury detective series by Martha Grimes. She is an American author who apparently visits the UK to do research, although you'd never think she had been here if you read her books. They are very vague on crucial details, such as thinking that Jury works "for Scotland Yard." No, he works for the Metropolitan Police.

Teenagers had names like Ivy, in an era when no-one called Ivy was less than 80. At least two of the books had incredibly mature and competent little girls who talked like adults. Jury had an aristocratic friend named Melrose, which sounds like an unlikely name for an English aristocrat. Melrose had a bunch of friends, in his village, who were supposed to be whimsical but were really bloody irritating. Jury allowed Melrose to help with his investigations, as if the CID involve civilians in murder investigations all the time. Sometimes his annoying friends helped too.

I don't know why I read so many books in the series before abandoning it. I think it was the titles. Each one was named after an unusually named real life pub, such as The Anodyne Necklace or I Am The Only Running Footman. The titles lured me in.

I was asked by an American acquaintance, who had never visited the UK, to read her half-finished British crime novel. She had done absolutely no research. Apart from anything else, all the way through she kept referring to her detectives as Yardies, because of Scotland Yard. I had to advise her to drop the character who spoke in some sort of West Country dialect, although he lived in some vaguely northern area, and sounded mentally ill because of his bizarre speech. She referred to non-existent events, such as the terrible race riots following Mandela's visit, and all her BAME characters made me cringe. I lost touch with over the years but I bet she has self-published.

I should add that my American acquaintance wasn't Martha Grimes!

Maps or family trees - ugh!

I can’t stand the name Aubrey.
I can’t explain it.
I can’t read books with characters with that name.

Endurance by Amy Daws

I read till about 25% I kept hoping it would get better.

It didn't.

Seriously, I must have read a differently book due to all the 5 star reviews.

So I believe this author is American due to some of the words she used.

Sh*gging was very popular word back in 80's

* updated *
I am watching a TV show called Happy Valley which is set in the Calder Valley and yes people do still use the sh*gging. Although it might be due to not being able to swear on TV.

Get stuffed, lol FYI us Brits do swear.

West Yorkshire is a county.
I've never heard anyone say this

"this is worse than last week when I had to jump from a second level balcony in West Yorkshire because Spanish bird I met there didn'ttell me she was engaged."

That to me sounds like the author thinks West Yorkshire is a single place.

(West Yorkshire, metropolitan county of northern England, comprising five metropolitan boroughs: Calderdale, Kirklees, and the city of Bradford in the west and the cities of Leeds and Wakefield in the east.)

But i doubt anyone would say it like that. They'd say the place eg:- Bradford or Leeds.

On pg 43 we're told that Vi, Tanner and Camden's sister is 1 year older than them.

On pg 56 and 57 (18%)we are told that their mum died when the twins was 3 and Vi practically raised us. That Vi did everything she could to replace that loss, she was 4... 4 years old!! And she too had lost her mum.

Then after Tanner suggests fake dating he wasn't even going to stop his whoring ways

I didn't 'put it down' as much as 'hurl it into the wall' (several times) and yet I did pick it up and continue to the finish: Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt (NHS junior doctor memoirs, if you've been living under a stone). For constant and sneering misogyny and general nastiness towards (mostly) female patients. This is something I've been unable to convince others of so maybe it's just me??

@GlomOfNit

I didn't 'put it down' as much as 'hurl it into the wall' (several times) and yet I did pick it up and continue to the finish: Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt (NHS junior doctor memoirs, if you've been living under a stone). For constant and sneering misogyny and general nastiness towards (mostly) female patients. This is something I've been unable to convince others of so maybe it's just me??

Weirdly I’m reading that at the moment! I’ve just got to the part where he makes a nasty joke about continence issues and I think I might be done...

@GlomOfNit

I didn't 'put it down' as much as 'hurl it into the wall' (several times) and yet I did pick it up and continue to the finish: Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt (NHS junior doctor memoirs, if you've been living under a stone). For constant and sneering misogyny and general nastiness towards (mostly) female patients. This is something I've been unable to convince others of so maybe it's just me??

@GlomOfNit not read it but just read this piece about the misogyny of it: www.madbitches.club/journal/this-is-going-to-hurt

I have to agree about that Kate Atkinson novel. Her short story collection was great, but the prologue of the one mentioned here was just so heavy, I couldn't continue.

I read a book that was laugh out loud funny, had characters with wonderful personalities and was written in a fantastically engaging way. The story was intentionally preposterous - which was what made it such a good read - and ended in a fitting but most unrealistic way. So I was surprised to see a sequel.

I couldn't get past the first chapter as the story was supposedly picking up where it's predecessor left off - except it was as if the author had entirely forgotten his own characters. I can't remember exactly what the issues were now but it was things along the lines of characters not being married even though they had been in the first book, people alive who had previously died, or people living in country Y when they'd ended the book happily and deliberately settled in Z. I googled to see if I should push on as it would all be explained but reviews said not to bother. I was gutted.

LadyOfLittleLeisure aha yes, that was certainly ONE of the passages that helped propel This is Going to Hurt across the room.

It's not the only episode he writes about in that way, though. I still can't understand why the hell he wanted to specialise in obs and gynae when a) he clearly doesn't really like women, b) he doesn't seem to want to learn about women, c) he seemed pretty undereducated about pelvic issues despite his specialism. SO glad he's no longer likely to appear between my legs!

Just one. I have only one word to say about it. Beastiality. I was DONE.

@BarbaraPapa

That is absolutely shocking writing. Please say you didn't pay actual money for it. It's non sequitur salad.

'Non Sequitur Salad' would be a great indie band name.🥗

Some book about UFOs by Erich von Daniken. Near to the beginning he quoted something from the bible and said that he hadn't checked it but believed that to be the case. And my immediate thought was "If you and your editors can't be bothered to fact check from something as easily obtainable as a bible, why should I waste any more time on anything else you say?" and threw the book away.

@LadyOfLittleLeisure , yes, awful book.

@Hepzibar

Won't name the book but if you read it or got as far as me you'll know. Where the 'sibling' turns out to be a bloody monkey! (About a quarter of the way through). I stopped reading in disgust.

That sounds like one of Karl Pilkington's episodes of Monkey News! 🐵

@Tibtab

When people call their sibling “Bro” or “Sis”, drives me up the wall.

I hate 'kid sister'.

@GlomOfNit and @Footle my sister keeps recommending it to me but definitely going to give it a pass now!

@GlomOfNit

I didn't 'put it down' as much as 'hurl it into the wall' (several times) and yet I did pick it up and continue to the finish: Adam Kay's This is Going to Hurt (NHS junior doctor memoirs, if you've been living under a stone). For constant and sneering misogyny and general nastiness towards (mostly) female patients. This is something I've been unable to convince others of so maybe it's just me??

It's definitely not just you. We often discuss the vile, sexist, ageist, misogynistic, obnoxious twat on the 50 book thread. And one of my proudest reviews on Goodreads was about his other book, the Nightshift Before Christmas. Disgusting, repulsive man.

I read a book once where one of the main characters changed name halfway through. Sloppy editing. In fact the editor should be seriously ashamed of that one.

I hate misery lit with titles like "No Daddy. Stop". Why would you want to read books about children being sexually abused?

Also books where the ditsy heroine breaks up with her partner and goes hurtling down to Cornwall or the Cotswolds where she ends up opening a book shop or cafe which of course is a roaring success and she ends up falling in love with the gruff but misunderstood local vet or lord. If its a lord he always drives a battered land-rover and wears old clothes so she has no idea he is minted.

Books where children have vocabulary that's either too advanced or too childish for their age. It infuriates me.