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.

My FAVOURITE EVER fact is that Barbara Taylor Bradford was in the same nursery class as Alan Bennett in the back streets of Leeds in the 1930s. Isn't that great?

@towers14

One of Dan Brown's, could be Deception Point. They were stranded on top of an iceberg so banged on it in morse code and a passing submarine heard it and rescued them.....yeah right🤣

So much of that book was farcical. You can't read a Dan Brown without many crazy things. But I do agree, that was especially mad!!

I love the idea of BTB trying to get Alan Bennett to play mums and dads...😂

I think it's Angels and Demons by Dan Brown where he's at CERN and they have to get somewhere without two hours. Impossible! But, no! There is a Mach 5 plan they'll let him use. DP actually worked at CERN and he told me off for asking if it was real

Another gem from Dan Brown is when thon bloke jumps out of a helicopter, mid air, holding onto some piece of material (a cloak?), and he parachutes to safety.

Oh so glad Celeia Ahern has been mentioned hated PS I love you, I really thought she kept forgetting her husband had just died, it was the most strange grieving process and utter drivel.

Im hoping the sequel to Rachel's Holiday isnt going to be too awful. I used love Marian Keyes. The last book of hers I read was Grown Ups, and that was just disappointing formulaic chicklit.

I used love Marian Keyes. The last book of hers I read was Grown Ups, and that was just disappointing formulaic chicklit.

Me too. Except I didn't love "Watermelon" as much as the ones that followed, but obviously liked it enough to buy "Rachel's Holiday" (which I thought was a really good example of the unreliable-narrator style of books).
"Grown Ups" is the only one of MK's that I haven't read more than once.

When I was about 16 I read a book I got free with my copy of Cosmopolitan (so sophisticated!), which was called Waiting for Addison, I think.

I’ve just googled it and it doesn't seem to exist, so maybe I'm wrong about the title. Anyway, it was utter drivel but the heroine ended up with a guy (possibly American) called Addison.

It might have been a You've Got Mail type premise where Addison was simultaneously the creepy nerd in the basement flat and her online penpal /lover. Those sorts of plots were rife in the early noughties when the Internet was still a bit mysterious and glamorous.

I was so appalled by it that I’ve never forgotten the experience of reading it, even though the details are murky now.

At a similar time I did quite enjoy a book called Immaculate Conceit, in which our twenty something girl about town heroine shags the Angel Gabriel, gets knocked up and gives birth to the new Messiah.

Oh my god I think it's this!

@itssquidstella

When I was about 16 I read a book I got free with my copy of Cosmopolitan (so sophisticated!), which was called Waiting for Addison, I think.

I’ve just googled it and it doesn't seem to exist, so maybe I'm wrong about the title. Anyway, it was utter drivel but the heroine ended up with a guy (possibly American) called Addison.

It might have been a You've Got Mail type premise where Addison was simultaneously the creepy nerd in the basement flat and her online penpal /lover. Those sorts of plots were rife in the early noughties when the Internet was still a bit mysterious and glamorous.

I was so appalled by it that I’ve never forgotten the experience of reading it, even though the details are murky now.

I remember this book too!!! I must have read it circa 1998. I dont recall the events but that synopsis is familiar. Its so bad now its quite funny

Book I'm currently reading has a really ridiculous, unnecessary (as far as I can tell) description of a character's self-harm. It's very flippant and innacurate and was obviously meant to show how 'damaged' the character is but it's just awful, never rolled my eyes so hard.

I remember that line from the book and thought it was weird too! I think Adele Parks is a terrible cringe-inducing writer though. First and last book of hers I will ever read.

@MaelyssQ

All the female writers I used to enjoy seem to have gone off piste lately. Sheila O'Flanaghan, Maeve Binchy, Marian Keyes, Theresa Driscoll have all stopped writing gripping readable books and started writing utter twaddle.

The only Marian Keyes books I was able to get into were the ones about the Walsh sisters

I agree with the OP, these books are terrible. They have become so formulaic with utterly ridiculous things happening in them, so risible that I usually can't even be bothered to go on reading.

I remember reading novels by Molly Parkin or Jilly Cooper many years ago which had unbelievable plots but at least they were funny and entertaining - these books are not, the plots are so implausible that your brain is telling you it could not happen. You certainly couldn't lose yourself in the story!

I do wonder who buys them, they surely don't appeal to adults with an IQ in three figures, and the underage and indiscriminate sex means that they are really not suitable reading for children or young adults.

@CherryValanc

The sperm stealing has reminded me of Sunset Beach and the turkey baster. I can't recall where she was stealing it from.

It wasn't a book, but that was so ridiculous it was amazing.

I remember that! Sunset Beach was hilarious! I was gutted when it ended

I feel like that about Sophie Kinsella (Shopaholic books). Can't believe she's still flogging that horse.

@Margerine78

I remember that line from the book and thought it was weird too! I think Adele Parks is a terrible cringe-inducing writer though. First and last book of hers I will ever read.

I went off Adele Parks after reading Playing Away, which was about a woman who cheats on her lovely husband and when it all goes pear shaped the story paints her as the victim

It's inevitable that with a series of many books about the same person doing similar things (eg Lee Child/Jack Reacher) that eventually, because there is an infinite number of plausible scenarios to place the character, the story lines will become repetitive and a more than a little 'stale'! This must surely be a worry for the writer who wants to keep fulfilling the reader's desire for more, more, more but at the same time they don't want to destroy the integrity and appeal of the 'goose that laid the golden egg' in the first place?! It's at this point that it always becomes obvious which writers are more proficient and talented than others and if they turned out mindless illogical and implausible crap to start with this will NOT change over time!!

Kind of along the same lines but not really. Anybody else just find a tonne of spelling mistakes in books these days!!! That really annoys me when I'm reading.

When I was 16 (57 now) me and my friend used to read Harold Robbins books, with a dictionary next to us, then discuss when we met up. We were very naive and 16 year olds weren't like knowledgeable 16 year olds now. But tbh reading snippets now, his books were actually near on hardcore porn, men with willy's that split women in 2, rape stuff, no wonder we needed dictionaries. Filth.
Another friend got suspended from her convent boarding school for reading out loud from 'lady chatterlies lover'

Oh I love the idea of whacking out Morse code and being heard by a submarine! I'll definitely be using that one next time I'm stranded on an iceberg.

@CherryValanc and @abigailthespiderinthehat Sunset Beach was the best. Wasn't there an escape from a sunk ship like a much cheaper knock off Poseiden Adventure? And they also all got trapped on an island in the fog with a killer later revealed to be the evil twin of the British character - but then they gave him the less than evil name Derek. Oh god the jewel thief Cole Deschanel, priest in a hot tub all the time...

Sunset Beach was the best. I remember the bit where the bitter ex wife broke into the hospital lab to swap skin samples to make the new girlfriend think she had a terrible skin disease when she hadn't. And the evil twin who had his brother bound and gagged behind a two way mirror so he could take over his life while he watched. There were others. I loved Sunset Beach. I went on holiday for two weeks while it was running and when I got back, the plot had advanced by about 12 hours.