Absolutely Ridiculous Things in Books

[SmidgenofaPigeon]

I’m reading (it’s painful and I will use it for kindling when I’m finished) Just My Luck by Adele Parks. I actually used to enjoy her books back in the day for a bit of mindless escapism and the characters were well-written but they’ve slid into lunacy over the last few years. Think twins pretending to be the same person and getting married to one guy (or something like that) and a mum’s glamorous 45 year old mate shagging her 17 year old son and getting pregnant while they all live under the same roof.

The latest one they win the lottery and calamity ensues in the most implausible ways possible.

The daughter in this one is musing over the fact that her boyfriend has turned into a bit of cad and she’s moping about, and musing over missing ‘the musty smell of his balls’

THE MUSTY SMELL OF HIS BALLS.

The character in question is FIFTEEN. She was ONLY FIFTEEN YEARS OLD (in the voice of Micheal Caine)

Please add, there must be loads, and we can have a laugh on this horrible wet January afternoon.

I love Lisa Jewell but there's one book where the woman affords to live in a seafront house by simply buying old maps, crafting them into stuff and selling them...

*Can afford

Publishing houses do more and more stuff OUT-of-house. It's highly unlikely that in-house writers are a thing.

I'm an author and confirm these are not a thing.

Ghostwriters are a thing, but mostly used for celebrities. And they are not employed by the publishing house.

Another vote for Classics. I've just asked MNHQ.

Yes they always make shit loads of money from their cosy non jobs🤣🤣

I’ve just finished a book which to be fair, I did get as an ARC from Netgalley - but every single instance of the word ‘stationery’ was spelt incorrectly. It was even a passage about how a woman was being charged because the stationery company hadn’t proof read her order of invitations

Story was ok but having to put my notes on as ‘11 instances of wrong word used’ just felt mad.

I started Haven’t They Grown against my better judgement then read a spoiler on Goodreads and decided not to continue

The Stephen King book about JFK (it’s a date I can’t remember and can’t be bothered to look up) was brilliant, I loved it. But there’s an instance of a character in the 60s using the word ‘asshat’. It was so jarring, I looked it up to see if, as I thought, this wasn’t a 21st century piece of slang. Google agrees with me that it is, and I can’t believe that a person who would have been in his teens/early 20s would have used that word!

It was so jarring, I looked it up to see if, as I thought, this wasn’t a 21st century piece of slang

One of Phillippa Gregory's heinous War of The Roses books has one of the characters describing the Duke of Clarence as a 'numpty' (which he was), but it was so out of place and pissed me off so much I couldn't finish it. That was the least of its crimes, tbf though.

Was the books about a cat solving crime by Patricia Cornwell? There's something telling me she wrote one. I read about 2 chapters with a face like this then gave up.
Her Scarpetta stories started off excellent but they lost their way as well. Authors need to realise that their hero don't have to know every single thing about forensics/dna/computers/phases of the moon etc. Other people can help solve crimes. Looking at you too here Jack Reacher.

I started Haven’t They Grown against my better judgement then read a spoiler on Goodreads and decided not to continue

I was disappointed by that one. There's already been a spoiler on this thread, but there's no intrigue in it at all - the solution to the children 'mystery' is obvious, it just has a stupidly convoluted backstory involved the done-to-death psycho-abusive-controlling-man trope.

Also have you noticed, those women that are padding about, almost always are in stocking feet? Not socked, not even stockinged, but stocking feet?

I read a book recently where the female character padded both to and from the bathroom, but at least the author didn’t detail the ensuing sex scene!

I've not reread anything other than BotMFJ and Travelling Hornplayer in years -- I should pull out Juggling from whatever corner it's hiding in.

To the people who are complaining about shit books -- try Barbara Trapido's Brother of the More Famous Jack. It's about an suburban eighteen year old falling in love with her philosophy professor's bohemian, chaotic family, and it's clever, funny, and brilliantly-characterised.

I recently reread Sex and Stravinsky, and then Temples of Delight. I was in absolute fits of laughter over the descriptions of Caroline's hypochondriac mother and sister (in S and S) and then Alice's friend Flora's miserly parents and the foul-mouthed, drunk grandmother who wore green flares and managed to disgrace herself quite spectacularly in a fancy restaurant.

@SomewhatBored

I started Haven’t They Grown against my better judgement then read a spoiler on Goodreads and decided not to continue

I was disappointed by that one. There's already been a spoiler on this thread, but there's no intrigue in it at all - the solution to the children 'mystery' is obvious, it just has a stupidly convoluted backstory involved the done-to-death psycho-abusive-controlling-man trope.

I hadn’t read any of hers before so I wasn’t sure if it was going to be a supernatural storyline or not.

Either way the style of writing put me off almost immediately anyway.

I see it less now but it drives me mad when a character has to guess someone else's password and always manages to do so in one or 2 goes.

@ Whoateallthechocolate

Reminds me of the Friends episode where get free porn, and Joey's shocked that the sexy bank teller didn't proposition him. Sometimes real life is just plain disappointing.

@CriticalWoman

I see it less now but it drives me mad when a character has to guess someone else's password and always manages to do so in one or 2 goes.

Yes! No one ever has a string of random letters - it's always something obvious like their birthday or their daughter's name.

@Robbybobtail

But for truly awful descriptions of weight in a novel

Jenny eclair is the worst for this - every single protagonist in her books are middle aged, world weary menopausal women with a weight problem. Except she then always puts their weight as 12stone (and this is continuously mentioned throughout) considering I am 12 stone and a size 12-14 it makes me feel like some kind of elephant and I wonder if Jenny has some kind of issues with her own weight? It comes across as a bit self-loathing to have a similar main character in every single book.

I do find her books very funny though (except the latest one ‘Inheritance’ which I really didn’t enjoy and it had a rubbish ending).

I hate these books where they mention a woman’s weight.

I really like the VI Warshawski books, but she’s supposed to be 5ft 7, 120lbs or something - and that’s considered a bit bigger than average? (I can’t actually remember so I’m plucking these numbers out of the air). Luckily she doesn’t dwell on it, but it has to be mentioned at least once - that and the fact she’s in her 40s.

The one whete some bitch is tempted to eat an apple by a snake and is therefore to blame for everything winds me up!

Another thing that rankles, the Peter Robinson crime series - he uses a lot of names for people that don't match their younger age. And has employees referring to their bosses as Mr or Mrs in work situations where use of first names would be the norm.

@SmidgenofaPigeon

Did Cecilia Aherne write that one about a girl called Rosie or something that has a teen pregnancy instead of going to uni but it doesn’t matter because she manages to become amazing at working in hotels and then she gets back with her best friend when they are both 85, or something, after writing mindless drivel to each other over the intervening 58 years.

Yep, that's was awful/ pure crap

The one whete some bitch is tempted to eat an apple by a snake and is therefore to blame for everything winds me up!

- yes! That was the start of it all! Misogyny at its finest. I bet Eve would’ve boobed boobily through Eden if the language had existed then.

@SomewhatBored

I read a book years ago - either Chris Manby or Jill Mansell I think - where the heroine had a flat mate 'but this isn't going to be one of those books where the heroine gets together with her flatmate ... [three pages explaining why flatmate was totally unsuitable]. Ending - heroine got together with flatmate.

Did an India Knight book not end like that?

@CounsellorTroi

Maeve Binchy died in 2012 which might explain why her stuff is a bit off lately!

😂😂😂😂😂

[quote Littlelapwing]@ChocOrange1 yes that annoyed me SO much! I was constantly like ‘wheres the baby!? How are you all here without the baby!?’

Most unlikeable characters ever.[/quote]
The baby was at boarding school clearly!

[quote Cheeseandlobster]@JustNotFunAnymore Ooh Mango. I had totally forgotten about them. I was a member in the late nineties I think. I also loved the catalogue. But we fell out when they made it near on impossible to cancel. What happened to them?[/quote]
I don't know. I moved to the other end of the country and can't remember if I cancelled it or not 😂

I've been reading a load of free books with my kindle unlimited subscription and within 2 pages you know the new girl in town is going to get with with grumpy vet or doctor.