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.

This thread has expressed so many of the thoughts I have about chick lit! I read everything from chick lit to Proper Literature, but have found some of my favourite authors have gone off the boil.

I was a colleague of the Mills & Boon author Paula Marshall, (a pseudonym). I lost touch many years ago and if she is still alive she would be very old. I have never read any of her books but would be interested to hear opinions about them.

I have really enjoyed this thread because I have found that my tolerance for certain types of books has also lessened with time. With regards to what I found annoying in books: two come to mind:
I recently read the first few books of the Sussex series by William Nicholson. Some of the characters seem overly sex-obsessed and I think they use the word "fuck" more than is necessary. I actually think this is a real shame because other than this, I loved reading the books and thought the writing was very good.
In Cathy Glass books, I never understood how her biological children were always so easy, compliant and well-behaved. I completely understand that they would have had to learn to be adaptable from an early age, but I would have thought there would at least some moments where they disagreed or didn't want to do something.

Oh and also, books that take place in 2020 yet completely ignore COVID-19. Inviting your daughter's ex and his OW to a party is bound to cause trouble in normal times, let alone in the summer of 2020. I appreciate that not everyone wants to read about COVID, but better to set the plots in, say, 2019 or 2023.

@ComeDoonTheStairs I have been wondering how fiction authors will, or have been, dealing with Covid. I’ve not yet read anything set in 2020 but I did wonder if most people would choose to just ignore it or whether there’d be a whole sub-genre of pandemic fiction 🤔

I was reading a series of chick lit books that are set out like a diary and one of them starts at beginning of 2020 and they have written in the pandemic but in a factual way. Like the characters gran was on a cruise ship and they weren't allowed off etc. Mentions having to close pubs.

I gave up on A Discovery of Witches when the main character (despite being the most powerful witch in the world) met some ancient vampire and immediately commenced fainting, being weak, being incapable of making any decision without consulting him first, etc. Baffling.

@MaelyssQ

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.

You must not have read Dance While You Can by Susan Lewis because it is (and I cannot stress this enough) mental. It starts off with a classic story of lovers doomed to be apart (a posh boy who shags the school matron) and there are many chapters of angst regarding this before randomly everyone ends up in Egypt chasing after a cartoon style baddie in some sort of overblown action farce storyline.

Recently read some utter shite that was basically a poundland Jack Reacher novel, I've wiped most of it from my memory but, piss poor plot linking fight scenes and sex scenes (with a much younger sexy woman obvs) I wish I could remember the author so I could advise you steer clear! I do recall that said sexy young woman "filled the dress" bleurgh!

I recently read The Hunting Party, and as someone mentioned earlier, it was utter tosh, about horrible people stranded in a snow bound Scottish lodge, and with the fashionable trope of the unreliable narrator.
No wonder I felt a touch of death vu.
A few months ago I read One by One by Ruth Ware, again mentioned on here.
About a group of unpleasant types stranded in a snow bound Swiss chalet, and with an unreliable narrator.
Is there a factory somewhere churning out these things? The Lidl of literature.

Most of the chick lit ones where you know damn well the female is going to end up with the hunk who has moved in next door or into the village yawn !!!

About 20 years ago I read a book called The Temp by Serena McKesey (or something like that). It started off as funny lightweight nonsense but then took a very dark turn. Our heroine took revenge on the office bully by downloading child porn onto his computer - I think she then tipped off the police. Regardless of the fact he was completely innocent no-one seemed concerned about the child victims of the pornographers. And this was still presented as humour!

I enjoyed The Temp as my friends and I were all doing those types of jobs at the time and a lot of it rang true. IIRC he wasn’t the office bully, he was a date-rapist who picked up her housemate and attacked her after inviting her back to his place, but wasn’t prosecuted due to lack of evidence, hence the revenge. The Temp does acknowledge the victims and her own guilt and participation in the abuse by downloading the pictures, but I agree it’s dealt with very briefly. They also transfer money from client accounts into his personal account, but it turns out he was already doing that anyway!

@BurtonHouse

I recently read The Hunting Party, and as someone mentioned earlier, it was utter tosh, about horrible people stranded in a snow bound Scottish lodge, and with the fashionable trope of the unreliable narrator. No wonder I felt a touch of death vu. A few months ago I read One by One by Ruth Ware, again mentioned on here. About a group of unpleasant types stranded in a snow bound Swiss chalet, and with an unreliable narrator. Is there a factory somewhere churning out these things? The Lidl of literature.

I read the Swiss chalet murder one. It sounded quite enjoyable from the blurb but it was dire and a painful real because it was so dull. I couldn’t work out how it had got published.

@grumpymacgrumpface

About 20 years ago I read a book called The Temp by Serena McKesey (or something like that). It started off as funny lightweight nonsense but then took a very dark turn. Our heroine took revenge on the office bully by downloading child porn onto his computer - I think she then tipped off the police. Regardless of the fact he was completely innocent no-one seemed concerned about the child victims of the pornographers. And this was still presented as humour!

I remember this book! I borrowed it from the library when I was in my early 20s and a temp. It started off promisingly and I identified with it and found it quite funny, but then it descended into quite a dark, nasty plot that was dealt with in a very wtf way. It wasn’t the book that it was marketed as.

@MusicalTrifleMonkey

Read Sophie Kinsella’s latest one. It’s basically exactly the same as all the others; idiots ditzy girl, closed of gorgeous man, cold mother in law. Except the protagonist is awful. I hated her the entire way through, she was a total arsehole.

I realise this is an old post but I totally agree!

I've just finished this one. I hated the main character, she was a total dick and annoyed me all the way through.

Also the characters so reminded me of Becky, Luke and Elinor from the Shopaholic seres.

I used to like Sophie Kinsella. The Undomestic Goddess and Remember Me are such enjoyable fluffy comfort reads. The more recent ones (and definitely the more recent Shopaholic ones, she should've stopped with Shopaholic and Baby if not the one before) are just annoying and i refuse to buy any more!

Hi @SyndeyCarton,
There was a very interesting thread on here awhile back which discusses the different ways COVID-19 is dealt with in fiction. Worth a read.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/what_were_reading/4169082-How-do-you-think-fiction-writers-will-deal-with-Coronavirus

@MaelyssQ
I have enjoyed most of Susan Lewis's books (though I must admit I have not read Dance While You Can). I came across her memoirs recently. She wrote them alternating between the perspectives of herself as a girl and one of her parents and what they must have been thinking at the time. Good stuff!

This thread is brilliant, I've also learned Maeve Binchy is dead and I won't bother with a Kindle Unlimited subscription.

I have just spent all evening reading this thread. It's really made me laugh and remember lots of books!

I agree with lots of posts about Marian Keyes. I loved her early work. The Other Side of the Story is not talked about often but I really enjoyed it and have reread several times. Rachel's Holiday too, I loved it. I hated This Charming Man, (though I think this was the one written when she was poorly) The Break and wasn't overly in love with Grown Ups. What was the ones she did about the woman who didn't speak? That was odd too.

Sophie Kinsella should have left Shopaholic alone after the first few as I said earlier and I'm not buying any more of her standalone stuff. Again the earlier ones are better.

I have a soft spot for Jenny Colgan and her Beach Street Bakery and the ones set on the island are my guilty pleasure comfort reads. I also love Lucy Diamond, a similar feel.

Alexandra Potter has written some ok books in this genre except she has the most irritating habit of making her every single main character in every single book 'muse' over things. They can't think, they muse and it's even more irritating to me than characters 'padding' about!

Katie Fforde should indeed be congratulated for writing the same 50 books. I liked Practically Perfect and Flora's Lot then got very bored of reading the same thing over and over.

My favourite chick lit type book is Erica James' The Dandelion Years. It's lovely. Mhari Macfarlane is a newer author who has written some good ones too. I also bought a couple of Sophie Ranald ones (once I got past the truly awful titles, what are the publishers thinking?) thinking I'd enjoy them from the blurbs but truly they are terrible.

This thread has reminded me of Louise Bagshawe and her sister Tilly who wrote identical books. Honestly I couldn't tell much difference even their writing styles were similar. The Louise Bagshawe one that a pp mentioned about the girl who went to work in an estate agents was called Tuesdays Child. She wasn't overweight she was a real tomboy trying to be girly and she did end up running gyms at the end.

The Cecelia Aherne book about the couple who wrote to each other over their lifetimes (which was twaddle) was called Where Rainbows End. It was rebranded when they made it into a film, and called 'Love, Rosie.'. I did like Can You See Me Now and the one about where missing things and people go. Again anything she's written recently I cannot get on with.

If you want tack try Rebecca Chance. The sex scenes in them are so graphic they made me laugh... a lot.

I read a lot of trash, can you tell? It's my switch off time!

@SydneyCarton

I enjoyed The Temp as my friends and I were all doing those types of jobs at the time and a lot of it rang true. IIRC he wasn’t the office bully, he was a date-rapist who picked up her housemate and attacked her after inviting her back to his place, but wasn’t prosecuted due to lack of evidence, hence the revenge. The Temp does acknowledge the victims and her own guilt and participation in the abuse by downloading the pictures, but I agree it’s dealt with very briefly. They also transfer money from client accounts into his personal account, but it turns out he was already doing that anyway!

Yes, I think you’re right about him being a date rapist which makes his comeuppance a bit more deserved but if there was any concern for the victims it wasn’t enough - anyone who really cared wouldn’t download that material under any circumstances. Not having a go at you SydneyCarton, just clarifying my feelings about the book.

Not sure I ‘get’ this thread…people read shite books and then realise they are shite? I mean, that just sounds like a waste of time to me.
I used to enjoy Maeve Binchy and Rosamunde Pilcher’s books…but in my teens. I literally just flicked through an RP book this morning and it’s all telling and no showing. My grans both still enjoy the books by these authors…but they left school when they were 14 and 15 years old.
I just don’t understand why the generally well-educated Mumsnet demographic would keep going back to Beth O’Leary et al/making the same mistake OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

I was a colleague of the Mills & Boon author Paula Marshall, (a pseudonym). I lost touch many years ago and if she is still alive she would be very old. I have never read any of her books but would be interested to hear opinions about them.

I used to love Paula Marshall's Harlequin books, especially those written before Mills and Boon got ludicrously smutty! Curse you, E.L. James!

I was really enjoying Jill Paton Walsh's Lord Peter Wimsey sequel "A Presumption of Death" until she had Miss Twitterton utter the expression "gets up my nose". I don't know whether it was in fact in use during WW2, but I'm positive Miss T would never have let it pass her lips, least of all in the hearing of Lady Peter.

I'm glad I found this thread! I've just read "Both of You" by Adele Parks and wondered whether anyone else had read it. Someone has been kidnapped and is chained to a wall. She has to use a bucket as a toilet and has terrible diarrhoea. Lots of descriptions of how she's covered in shit. When rescued, she gets into a car (as she is) and then has a bath. Not sure about you, but I would rather have a shower if I was covered in a week's worth of diarrhoea.

How she was kidnapped and taken to that location was never explained.