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've been doing a bit of quick research on "shenanigan." It appears to be American in origin, from either a Spanish or Native American word or both. But it might also possibly be related to the Irish word for fox. One writer says it has acquired a "Hibernian tinge". Interesting.

I like a good closed-cast murder mystery; and I don't necessarily mind if I work out who did it early on if the characters are great and the plot cunning. But I cannot bear it when it is really really obvious who did it, and why, from the first appearance of the murderer, long before the murder has happened AND yet the author is clearly utterly convinced that her readers are completely in her power and couldn't possibly see through all her oh so clever red herrings and blind alleys. I'm looking at you, Lucy Foley.

My granny (from Roscommon) said it was the old Irish word for a cunning fox. She used it a lot to us grandkids! My Irish surname is similar sounding with the "igan" suffix.
Interesting, @SenecaFallsRedux that it may come from Native American?! Fascinating. I love language.

@Maireas I love language, too. There seems to be agreement that the word "shenanigan" was first used in the San Francisco area. Considering that San Francisco was and is a cultural melting pot, it's possible that several languages and cultures are responsible.

Yes, that could be it. I have Scots Irish parents and grandparents and both from remote rural areas of both places, but there are surprising similarities in their use of language.
Anyway, temporary thread derailment - sorry OP!

I usually do a good bit of research before reading a book... And when I've started in inclined to push on and try finish ... Not always a good choice I know

Haven't RTFT, but in Growing Up for Beginners by Claire Calman, there was something I just couldn't relate to. One of the main characters would enjoy reading the last page of a book before starting to read the entire book, so on their honeymoon her husband decided it would be fun to rip the last pages of her books out. And she still stayed with him, and was with him 18 or so years later.
I understand that in abusive relationships, they ebb away at your confidence: I have been in one. But I love to read and use it as an outlet, and there is absolutely no way in hell I'd tolerate an abuser doing that, even then.

Not really an answer to your post but I saw a very funny video earlier about how commonly used phrases actually translate into real life. E.g 'his lip curled in anger,' who exactly does this when angry? Or 'her eyes darkened,' also something that does not happen in real life. Can't remember the others but now will be overthinking a lot of these haha

A couple I've read recently. One was The Guest List by Lucy Foley, I like a daft escapist book as much as the next person but everything about that book including the ending was just ridiculous. Then Sins of the Father by Lawrence Block, its from the seventies and set in the seventies so I tried to forgive some of the misogyny and homophobia but the ending was just so disgusting, its part of a series, a bit like Jack Reacher before Jack Reacher but based on that I won't be reading another one.

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.

There’s a reason why books are self-published.

@Fleetw00d

Not really an answer to your post but I saw a very funny video earlier about how commonly used phrases actually translate into real life. E.g 'his lip curled in anger,' who exactly does this when angry? Or 'her eyes darkened,' also something that does not happen in real life. Can't remember the others but now will be overthinking a lot of these haha

Philip K Dick did a fantastic parody of this kind of language, called “The Eyes Have It”. I’ve copy pasted a chunk as it’s too good not to

“The reference was clearly to a nonhuman species of incredible properties, not indigenous to Earth. A species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything—and was taking it in his stride. The line (and I tremble remembering it even now) read:

… his eyes slowly roved about the room.

Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not; they seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That’s what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified.

… his eyes moved from person to person.

There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race.”

Here’s the link to the full, glorious story.
www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/12/16/the-eyes-have-it/

Couldn’t get past first chapter of 50 shades, it was pure abuse. Stephen kings under the dome, I just didn’t get it, was it aliens or scientists that were doing it? Really wanted to like it.

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

If you think that's bad, @ThatLibraryMiss, there's a tv series based on the same book where Joely Richardson has to say it in that ridiculous way! I watched an episode and then promptly posted on here - apparently the author is Australian and it's pronounced like that there, and in later books she realises that it's fucking ridiculous not quite right.

I couldn't continue with the series though so I don't blame you!

@ShonkyCat re Kristin Hannah - the first book of hers I read was The Great Alone, and I really liked it. Every single other book I've read by her, including Nightingale AND a not-yet-published arc from Netgalley, has been utter utter shit.

Present tense, can't read it, I feel like the narrator of a particularly bad play.
Fifty Shades of Grey, couldn't get past the clunky prose.
The Horse Whisperer by Nicholas Evans, great book but a really hard read. The initial "incident" (no spoilers) upset me so much I put it down for about six months.

Padding in bare feet

Mismatched furniture or crockery in a kitchen with a scuffed wooden table

Any book called something like ‘summer at the cupcake café’

I started an audiobook written by a surgeon about his career and experiences. He was the most vile misogynist I can imagine. On and on about the nurses as literally sex objects and conquests. Yuck. I lasted about 5 minutes.

Sophie Kinsella’s Love your Life.

Stereotypical story and an unpleasant female protagonist. Couldn’t get through half of it.

Present tense can sound a bit like early readers phonic books.

I actually really liked Love your Life, at least in the beginning. I enjoyed reading about the writers' retreat, and the plot was something "different." But as soon as the retreat was over, I lost interest, because it felt like there wasn't any more uniqueness to the plot.
I did really enjoy Kinsella's YA novel, Finding Audrey, a few years ago though.

@Myfanwyprice

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!

That would really annoy me too. I read a book once where the main character must have been at least 27/28 if you added up all the things you were told that he had done. (Uni, stayed in first job a few years, got promoted to new job etc. ) Then his mother tragically died and much was made of how sad and unexpected this was, and how devastated he was, because she was only 42. Obviously 14 year old girls can have babies, but there was nothing in the story to indicate that she had been a teenage Mum, or that she was his stepmum and for the rest of the book I kept waiting for the backstory, which never came. Like you, I felt the editors just hadn't done their sums!

I didn't put the book down because I'm a sucker for a trashy novel.
My Mom of all people recommended the After series, one of the main characters is English. But the author clearly doesn't know enough about English people or England in general.
From little things like he says trunk instead of boot, pants instead of trousers, and drugstore instead of pharmacy. He has moved to America but only around a year or 2 ago and i just don't think you'd change how you talked that quickly.
But part of the story he talks about a poor kid he went to school with, the main character bullies the poor kid and punches his nose, and then he goes on and on about how the victim couldn't afford to go to the doctors to get his injuries looked at. It's England in 2010, we have the NHS.
They visit England and he describes the screen door on the front of the house, but I have genuinely never known any one on England have a screen door, it might be just a small thing and if you didn't live in England you might not notice it, but every single reference is just annoying because it's not right.

Zadie Smith - I really enjoyed White Teeth, and I think it was her second novel, Autograph Man - I think it was something about cruelty to a dog - it was 20 years ago now, but not able to finish it.

A book that described a woman just being ready for sex, you know meets man for the first time in a business meeting, 2 seconds into that meeting he hoicks up her skirt, she is instantly ready for sex (no foreplay) no one is concerned that this is in a office where anyone could walk in because they are both gagging for it. And then the thing that made me put the book down where she is 2 seconds post-sex with her legs still spread wide she said something like all I could think about was his "baby batter" inside me. Had me retching.

A relationship that’s sold as being so romantic with all these comments saying it was just so romantic in good reads but it’s an abusive relationship with a very tissue thin veneer of romance.
The guy is normally a stalking, controlling abusive arsehole.

It’s a whole fucking genre.