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’m sure her writing is going to be totally off the wall!

Hopefully it might have any potential rough edges polished by the fact that:

She wrote the book with the author Marguerite Kaye, who is described as her “collaborator and mentor

I'm perfectly willing to believe she wrote the "Budgie the Little Helicopter" books by herself in crayon but producing something of novel length obviously needs mentoring.

Didn’t the Duchess work in publishing before she got married so hopefully the book will be ok, with her collaborator an all, after all didn’t Katie Price’s collaborator do ok for her, until she sadly died.

I can’t face looking on youtube to see her read!

Susan Lewis is a good author.
I haven't read a bad novel written by her.
I'm not Susan Lewis btw.

Also belated thanks to every single poster who pointed out that the lovely Maeve Binchy has been dead a long time and therefore not guilty of churning out chicklit crap. I got her mixed up with Cecilia Aherne, who, thanks to this thread, I now know, is married to someone out of Westlife. Or Boyzone.

I have noticed in the past that real people mentioned in novels often have their names mis-spelled. It used to really aggravate me but after a while I realised it must be to avoid being sued.
I don't think so.
If authors want to write about real individuals and have to avoid identifying them, they'll just make up a name, which may be similar to the real one or may not.
But in the case of stuff like misspelling Barack Obama, that's obviously a (shocking) mistake.
I am fairly often briefed for a proofread to double-check spellings of real-world names/shops/brands etc. As a rule, the more confidently the in-house editor says 'the copy-editor has been very thorough, but do just check', actually the LESS thorough they've been

Fergie won’t write a word of the book with her name on it. She might, like, suggest some character names or something.

@biddybird

The most ridiculous thing I have ever read in a novel was in Robertson Davies' "The Lyre of Orpheus". This is a very highly-respected author of Canadian literature. The events ensued as follows:

1. Man is staying overnight at the home of a couple/friends of his.

Being rich they all have separate bedrooms.

1. After all the lights are out, man (somehow finds and) puts on the husband's dressing gown and goes into wife's room.
2. Wife (on account of the dressing gown) assumes man is her husband. Mind-blowing sex ensues! Like she's never had it before! But she thinks she's shagging her husband.
3. WIfe gets pregnant and tells husband the good news as they are TTC.
4. But—husband has had mumps and hasn't told her yet he's infertile!

It carries on from there. But (3) is particularly unbelievable, isn't it?

I think this is why I stopped ready Davies... and a lot of other Canadian literature. Some of it is very good of course but being Canadian and the fact that there is so much tied up in being "not American" people can get garbage published. I remember there was even a scheme where you could use losing lottery tickets instead of cash to buy CanLit. What a way to support the arts!!!

@SmudgeButt Personally I don't think the best Canadian writers do get caught up in the not-being-American thing. (I would put Davies, Atwood, Laurence, Mowatt in that category of "best…".)

Argh, I read How Hard Can It Be by Allison Pearson for my book club recently and it was just dreadful... so cliched and formulaic about a woman approaching 50.

Poor Kate (and yes, not a play on the earlier, excellent post!)

• so 'old' at 47 she has to lie about her age to get a job (even in the city, this is utter shite!)
• has lipo in her lunch hour despite the point made early on that she still has a flat stomach, but of course, shes a woman approaching 50 so her self esteem is on the floor!
• out of control teenage daughter, check!
• two dimensional teenage son, check!
• affair-having husband who ticks every mid-life crisis box ever made, check!
• despite said husband not working (as he's finding himself) and neither was she - until the Big Lie - they have a 24 hour builder working on their enormous, doer-upper of a faaaaaabulous house. From her first paycheck, they throw a massive party (where all the teens get twatted but, you know, that's fine), she gets the afore mentioned lipo, buys ridiculously expensive presents and concert tickets, designer clothes... bullshit!
• affair-having husband found out (as affair partner falls pregnant, with twins of course!) but Kate just shrugs it off, kids don't seem to give a shiny shit and they all just become bezzie buddies
• oh, and throughout it all, there is this incredibly handsome, funny, kind, sexy, perfect man who just cannot forget her but doesnt pressure her, just wants to wait until shes ready and ends up buying her a fucking house in France because, of course, he is minted...

The only bits I thought were well done were around her menopause symptoms but by that point, I was just cross! Made my blood boil (although was a little more restrained in my book club musings!).

Have since found out Allison Pearson is a raving Covid denier and general twat, which didn't surprise me in the slightest!

Just looked at Alison’s Wikipedia page - jeez!

I think you are taking that book rather too seriously and have missed the point - it’s a comic novel not a realistic piece of fiction! Of course it doesn’t bear up to examination and isn’t realistic!

I don’t read many of the authors mentioned but really enjoyed How Hard Can It Be as a fun read. Am that age worked in the City but don’t now and have a cycling dh I laughed out loud!

Allison Pearson writes for the Daily Mail doesn't she? I'm sure she used to.

I was disappointed somewhat by How Hard can it be. I read it when it came out a few years back . I enjoyed How does she do it, which I read whenever that came out and had looked forward to reading the follow up.

Same with the Bridget Jones books, I really enjoyed the early ones but was disappointed with the later ones (one, two? Can't remember now).

Very possibly, MsSwift, but there were so many stereotypes and I personally found the main character really unlikeable... I'm the same age as Kate and I found the implication shes past it, in her late 40s, pretty offensive (I also work in the city, admittedly not in hedge funds, but it's really not just for 'know nothing 20yr olds' and those who know how to dress 'properly'.. ridiculous!)

For me, reading is escapism and I just found myself eyerolling so often, it completely took me out of the story. But then, if we all liked the same things, this would be a very boring place

I found it hilarious! Especially the description of the cycling DH ! I am 46 and used to work in City (left in 2007 so admittedly not current) and have teens so found it relatable. In law many of the older women did drop away (me included I guess and all my fellow solicitor female work friends thinking about it) so didn’t seem preposterous to me anyway.

MsTSwift

I found it hilarious!

Really?

I thought "How Does She Do It?" quite funny and it struck a few chords with me. Perhaps because I was in a similar position at the time.
But the follow up was very cliched, imo, and full of the sort of things people should say/do in those circs.

My "hilarious" bar is set differently* it seems.

*Not necessarily higher, of course.

Sorry!

Missed out the inverted commas:

"people 'should' say/do...etc"

I loved How Does She Do It? as I thought there was real insight into why Kate was an over achiever and it was very funny. I also enjoyed I Think I Love You. It was very good about mothers and daughters I thought. I agree with @SanFranBear about How Hard Could It Be? Full of cliches and stereotypes. In the light of what she has been saying and writing recently about Covid I doubt I'll read any future books.

Has anyone read any of The Snowdonia Killings series of books by Simon McCleave?

He reckons he's a North Wales resident but his geographical detail is all over the place. That being said, the books are good, police procedurals, with likeable characters. I wish DI Ruth would give up smoking though.

I might look for those on kindle @MaelyssQ . I like that kind of book and I like north Wales . I started reading the Anglesey murders series , the first one was OK but the series just got more violent , bizarre and repetitive . I think I got as a 5-book series on kindle unlimited but didn't finish .

The Bridget Jones Mad About The Boy was awful. The love interest that she ends up with at the end.... She spoke to him twice? He saw her underwear once? It just felt like the author lost contact with reality

Bridget Jones Baby I never read. After I got burned with previous one, and felt in love with movie I read preview before forking my money for new book. The premises that Bridget and Mark split because of misunderstanding was so idiotic after a really good storyline in movie that I didn't even try.

The Hating Game - read recently and had the wtf on my face. It started interesting and then it spiralled into a weird place. The main protagonist becomes so obsessed and clingy. She has no friends, even at her home town and 5 min after finding out the guy is interested in her, she just wants to spend every moment at his. The scene where she goes through all of his personal stuff at home, opening every drawer like what the actual... I was so disappointed when reading it. The guys family is so weird and the scene that it only took a stern talking to, by a woman never seen before, to make his dad realise that he acts like a wick and doesn't know his son at all....

I do like a different generes of books, but ust recently grown a pair and admitted to myself that I like chit-lit. If right one found it is nice, light and funny. I love MK books, even when I do not like the ending or do not agree with all actions. The way she approaches a difficult subject is amazing (I just need breaks between her books or it becomes too much). I also love JK Rowling books as she has this unique ability of write three sentences about the character and you know exactly how they talk, walk, dress and even can see facial expresions.

Still waiting for more chacarters in books from chick-lit shelf that has a protagonist who is into stem carieer. It alwasy seems to be baker, cook, journalist, anything with books (editor etc.). I found lawyer recently (Last Tang standing, still reading but really funny) and one programmer (Why mummy drinks?)

I also like sci-fi, fantasy and loved crime for a long time,. Since having kids reading crime became more cumbersome, as I need to vet if nothing happens to kids in book (as it became my trigger).

I really love this thread. I already added some stuff to reading list :D.

The scifi and fantasty books have some awful femal characters too. I love reading the Name of the Wind saga, but the Faery scenes with the hero are a serious wtf moment for me. Not to mention that main character is a male Mary Sue and every woman wants him.

Wheel of time and the sister wifes part was another face palm moment for me.

Scifi seems more feministic, like authors decided that because it is happening in a future they can go wild and make their female characters actual humans.

And to finish this long post my guilty pleasure: The Harrison and Dragon Bound. That is such a good, easy read with few eye rolls, especially the pregnacy mechanic described in book. But recommend if somebody wants to read something entertaining and pure fun.

I hated the Mad About the Boy book!!

Also Bridget in that one is fannying around writing a play called ‘The Leaves in His Hair’. She says it’s based on a stroryline in Hedda Gabbla, by Chekhov.

Henrick Ibsen wrote Hedda Gabbla. it didn’t make her look funny, or cute, or ditzy, because we are supposed to believe she had an English Literature degree, it just makes her look monumentally stupid.

I finally gave up on Bridget Jones after Mark Darcy apparently came back to life after Bridget was widowed and had got off with some other entirely forgettable bloke. It had taken me a while to get around to buying the book where Mark was dead, so to find him alive again almost immediately was stretching my credulity a smidgeon too far. I've just tried to Google it to make some sense of the timeline before I post something that makes me look an utter twat, but I can't find anything more sensible out there.

The Bridget Jones sequels were v annoying, as she might say. The third one is the 'real' sequel and then clearly there was film potential in a baby so she created a new storyline and then a new book. There is a single attempt to retrofit the third book into the fourth at some point (trying to remember what it is) but otherwise the two books made no sense next to each other. The third one was so poor that I abandoned it halfway through and only went back to it so I could give it to the charity shop in good conscience.

There are some decent chicklit authors writing who haven't gone weird. I like Mhairi Mcfarlane, who has yet to have a character open any sort of artisan shop from memory.

For next december, if anybody is looking at fun and enjoyable christmas chick lit: The most Wonderful Time of the Year Joanna Bolouri is most recommended. Also A Cosy Christmas in Cornwall Jane Linfoot.

The greatest love story of all time Lucy Robinson. I remember it was quite fun and enjoyable too.

At the other hand I wish it could be christmas every day by Milly Johnson - that is such a badly written book. I hoped it will be just some easy fun, christmasy read, like the two on the top of the page, but nopet. It feel like somebody made a bulletpoints for action and then try to ellaborate on them. Action doesn't flow. And the situation of finding well stocked pub inside a village with nobody in houses or pub at all.... eerie not christmasy.

@MaelyssQ

Has anyone read any of The Snowdonia Killings series of books by Simon McCleave?

He reckons he's a North Wales resident but his geographical detail is all over the place. That being said, the books are good, police procedurals, with likeable characters. I wish DI Ruth would give up smoking though.

I read the first one. I quite liked it despite the geographical challenges, but what annoyed me most was the constant references to ‘ciggies’ and the way he had to mansplain things in the text (like ANPR) which most people interested in crime would know about and for those who didn’t, a footnote explanation would be better than plonking it in the text.