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...)

When an old man is lusting after a young woman or when a young woman is captivated by an old lech.

Pure male fantasy
(not envy)

I threw one book across the room for this reason

I was reading a Patricia Scanlan book - I can't remember which one now - but I had to stop when I became irritated over how many times someone was "dropped like a hot potato"! I just googled her and everything that came up - about books that I haven't even read - had that phrase 😂

My pet peeve is where the writer of a series becomes too fond of their protagonist, who starts out quite normal but gradually becomes irresistibly attractive, unexpectedly wealthy (maybe an inheritance from an unknown relative), acquires conveniently aged, charming and unresentful surprise children from brief relationships in the past, and in some cases appears to age backwards.

It is annoying and boring.

Re 'padded', I noticed it in American novels about 20 years ago, and now it seems to be used over here as well.

My FIL's memoirs. 7 volumes and counting. DH received the latest two for his birthday. Strictly speaking it wasn't anything in the book(s) that put me off - his name on the front was enough. He knows none of us will listen to his racist, sexist, narcissistic bullshit in person, so this is how he tries to make himself heard

I don't continue with books that I perceive to be badly written. My friend gave me Fifty Shades, as she thought it was great. I read about 10 pages before concluding that it was terribly badly written - it read as if written by 2 sniggering 12 year old boys, writing it in their school lunch breaks behind the proverbial bike shed!

Other things I can't abide are inaccuracies. I hated the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society for that reason. It was ludicrously inaccurate in its portrayal of post war Britain and had characters hopping on a flight from London to Australia, for example, in 1946!! Utter rubbish!

@Anycrispsleft

My FIL's memoirs. 7 volumes and counting. DH received the latest two for his birthday. Strictly speaking it wasn't anything in the book(s) that put me off - his name on the front was enough. He knows none of us will listen to his racist, sexist, narcissistic bullshit in person, so this is how he tries to make himself heard

God Almighty. What year has he got up to? Has he led such an astonishingly rich and interesting life that he feels it merits being documented at such Proustian length???

I ranted about it on another thread but Kristin Hannah's The Nightingale is incredibly badly written and the characters are always saying "Merde" because otherwise we might forget a book about the French resistance is set in France.

Any book that has young adults having incredibly deep and intelligent conversations in which they quote, I don't know, Dostoevsky. That awful book by John Greene was like that. It was basically Gilmore Girls with a Terminal Illness in book form.

Books in which the British character was born in 1982 and is called Courtney or Madison.

Every single domestic noir where there's a whole mystery around a historic incident and the reveal is that the husband did it, and the last chapter is always the wife returning to the house full of knowledge, finding husband in the house with a gun, a tussle over the gun, and the husband getting shot by wife's love interest or child. Seriously - it happens in every single bloody one.

I just read My Lovely Wife, which had "you may think you've read this story before - you'd be wrong" on the blurb, and it was EXACTLY as the above. I was fuming.

Other things:

1. In one book I read, a barrister turned up at court having not slept all night due to an all-nighter with a new man, totally unprepared (read the case file on the tube, apparently...) and because of the power of the sex, did better at her job than she'd ever done before. NO.

2. Women describing their features and referring to their breasts. Happening with female writers now too. Hate it. (Also hate the shift away from writing female characters as being shamelessly beautiful, to some kind of "not classically beautiful but still striking" or "she wouldn't be considered attractive but she was handsome" or whatever. Might as well say "she's not ugly ok, I'd never write about an ugly woman". Ditto size. It's no longer ok to say they're thin but authors go to pains to indicate they're not fat.)

3. Quoting Hamilton. Can't remember which domestic noir it was, but in the middle of the scene where the husband was pointing the gun at his wife in the house (told ya...), he said, "Who lives, who dies, who tells YOUR story, [wife's name]?" and I genuinely nearly threw the book out the window.

I'm sure I have more of these.

Ooh I know. Why are all the crime detectives raging alcoholics with domestic issues? If I'm reading crime, I do not care about the investigator's torrid divorce and/or separation and/or trauma over something that happened in a case 26 years ago. I just want to read crime!

I just can't stand David Waliiams kids books. Just the same old tosh about spoilt undeserving children. Very dated and derivative.

That’s terrible writing!
I used to read horror Stephen King etc. There was one which I think was by James Herbert, that had a scene of such sickening animal cruelty I couldn’t continue. I know it’s fiction (and horror) but I didn’t need images like that in my head.

I agree @TiddleTaddleTat about David Walliams. Lots of misogynism as well.

I recently stopped reading Cathy Kelly's new book when a lesbian character described her two straight friends as cis. If the author wants to score woke points she should at least try to understand the difference between sexuality and gender identity.

Has he led such an astonishingly rich and interesting life that he feels it merits being documented at such Proustian length

In a word, no I mean maybe he has! Maybe it's all in there. I will never know...

I stop reading if any animal cruelty/abuse is mentioned. Same for films, I turn them off (although the website does the dog die means I can vet a film before I watch it)

@Missillusioned

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.

Same. I did read it eventually, but it was quite a long time after.

Properly laughing at the quoting of Hamilton lyrics

A pet hate of mine is the style where you get chapters (or parts thereof) from different people's perspectives. OK it sometimes works but one book I read had chapter 1 told by the heroine, chapter 2 was exactly the same event but told by an older close family friend (OCFF) looking on. And so it continued throughout the book. I gave up after a while and just read the chapters told by the heroine!!

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

Yes!! I have just started reading a book where exactly this happens in the first chapter!! So lazy. Debating whether to continue with it.

A couple of years ago in desperation for something to read while on holiday, I picked up Riders by Jilly Cooper.

It was all ‘so far, so ridiculous’ until I got to the bit with the foursome between Rupert and Helen and the other couple whose names I can’t remember. It’s a rape scene, basically. Dressed up as jolly good, upper-middle-class naughty fun. I couldn’t read on after that. I was so angry.

I used to feel so sad that I just can't read fiction any more. I've tried but I just can't get past the first few pages.

Recent example, I heard a book discussed on the radio and I thought it sounded promising. I downloaded a free sample (luckily) and the first page was such pretentious blarney, I just couldn't get past it.

They must have used every descriptive word possible, the protagonist had a piece of warm fruit in their pocket (yes, really) and thought:

"And he brings me oranges when most people bring nothing but chaos and dirt."

Hmmm, I think I'll leave it, thanks mate.

I've just lost patience with the overblown descriptions and same old characters and plot lines. It's not the author's fault as such, it's just that we've seen and heard everything.

BTW, I'm not saying the name of the author I quoted above as it feels mean but if you've read it you'll know.

I'm currently reading the excellent non fiction book "I'll be gone in the dark" by Michelle Macnamara and enjoying it. I think non fiction is the way to go, sadly.

@AudacityBaby

Ooh I know. Why are all the crime detectives raging alcoholics with domestic issues? If I'm reading crime, I do not care about the investigator's torrid divorce and/or separation and/or trauma over something that happened in a case 26 years ago. I just want to read crime!

Don't forget that heroes ONLY drink strong, black tea or coffee.

Milk stops you solving crimes, everyone knows that.

Any chick-lit sold at Tesco's. In fact most fiction sold in Tesco's just doesn't entice me at. Nor does chick lit. I did chuckle a little to myself on a recent trip to Waitrose, and idly picking up a couple of books there (can't remember what they were, didn't buy them). Different market?!?

I have such a limited amount of time available to read these days that I have to scrupulously research what I'm reading, I maintain a Goodreads list so if something's now out of the bestseller's list, I can still remember to go back to it. I can't bear the thought of wasting my time reading shit when there is so much amazing literature still available.

One or two page chapters. SO annoying!

When I read YA I used to get so fed up of the female protagonist meeting a boring boy and then wittering on about them for the rest of the book when there were bigger, far more interesting issues at hand.

I also hate adult books that describe children unrealistically and make them talk like adults despite only being like six years old.

I remembered this vaguely - skimming it again made me laugh.
www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2018/apr/03/male-authors-write-female-characters-twitter

The last instant turn-off I read was dialogue along these lines:
(partners on the phone, separated by the Atlantic Ocean):

• "You know Lexi Di Marco?"

-"The wild, purple-haired rocker who's never out of the gossip columns?"

Victoria Wood wrote a spoof called 'The Mall' where the faux question happened unnecessarily at least every episode, e.g. "Tea? The hot drink?"
I could hear her voice saying it!