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 used to love Martina Cole books her first few were brilliant ,but after a while she just started writing the same book over and over again even using the same phrases,
Belly full of arms and legs,split arse etc🙄

This is the same reason I gave up on Martina Cole. It’s a shame as I used to really enjoy them, even in one book she repeated herself over and over.

There was a book I read by an American author who based her stories in England and seemed really knowledgeable about the country until in one book a character went to Greenwich and mentioned to her companion that this used to be the home of GMT until they moved it to Croydon as it was cheaper.

I did a bit of investigating and found that apparently someone had told her this fact as a joke and she hadn’t checked. God knows how it got published in the UK though.

@tableknockers

In Pride and Prejudice she only changes her mind about him when she sees his massive house. Shallow.

No, she doesn’t. Why do people on Mumsnet keep saying this? Have none of you read the book?

Another stupid story of a women who found her husband was cheating and apparently the OW was a total doppelganger. So the wife lost 20lbs, the mistress gained 20lbs and they swapped places. To see if the grass really was greener on the other side

The wife made a disparaging comment on the OW's name, along the lines of 'as mature as one can sound when their name ends with an 'a'.' First of all, wtf?? Also, an awful lot of women's names do end with an 'a', it's not obscure or unusual. And finally, the author's name was Olivia!

I love Val Mcdermid books, but really struggle with the sub-plot that runs through a few of them describing Carol Jordan, a fit but not massively muscled police detective, taking on the house in which her brother and his partner were murdered (odd enough, some might think) and then completely renovating it.
Alone. With now previous experience.
Bashing down walls and plumbing stuff in.

But still has to be stopped from knocking down a supporting beam by her neighbour.

It makes all the Joanna Trollope-esque books - in which the heroine wafts into some absent-minded, untidy chap's life and transforms his home (hugely for the better) by slinging a few throws around, repainting all the walls, lighting some scented candles and sliding a casserole in the aga, all in a couple of days - believeable.

She was ONLY FIFTEEN YEARS OLD (in the voice of Micheal Caine)
Brilliant observation OP

"no previous experience" and "seem believeable"

A novel where post sex, a woman is looking at her husband's buttocks and is described as being mesmerised by his "two floury baps"

I remember this line because the novelist was new and someone a top literary agent was waxing lyrical about.

I’m currently reading Erica James’ Gardens of Delight and she’s another author who doesn’t seem to know the difference between a half sibling and a step sibling.
Agree about Cecelia Ahern being a dreadful. PS I Love You had a good plot but was poorly written. I haven’t bothered with any of hers since.

@PickleC that made be laugh out loud I can’t get the image of the person swinging down out of my head!

My DH loves watching Catherine Cookson, he sometimes binge watches them and I can walk in 4 hours later and think it’s the same film.

I read one last week where a character spotted a man walking a spaniel 'dripping with sweat'! Dogs don't sweat through their skin, only the pads of their feet so a wet dog is wet from water, not sweat. It's not a horse ffs!

Yes it always annoyed me that orphan Jane Eyre, who was alone and friendless in the world, stumbled upon her cousins in the middle of nowhere. (Well they stumbled upon her). And then was left a fortune by her uncle i think. In Oliver Twist tbf the man who took him in was not related to him iirc, not in the book anyway, he had known the mother though, and had been in love with her, he was drawn to Oliver because he reminded him of her. I think for tv they made the old man Oliver's grandfather though, for simplicity i guess?

God I just remembered the awfulness of The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver.

The male protagonist is Ronnie OSullivan a Northern snooker player but he speaks like the worst walking cliche ever. It's all 'get thee to a bed wimmin and I'll shag yer then ye can get my tea on'

It's so stereotypically unrealistic. She's quite a disappointment given how solid We Have to Talk About Kevin was.

I've just read a book where the woman sees her best friend with two children who haven't aged in 12 years, and it turned out that the ex husband forbade her to see the DC again when they split up, so she had two more, gave them the same names and dressed them in the older DC's old clothes. What a pile of wank!

My go-to easy chick lit is Lucy Dillon. Predictable plots but she creates a nice picture of the town and I like the characters who pop up in all the books.

@Wearethetwirl

A novel where post sex, a woman is looking at her husband's buttocks and is described as being mesmerised by his "two floury baps"

I remember this line because the novelist was new and someone a top literary agent was waxing lyrical about.

I read the floury baps book recently! It was quite good until about two thirds of the way through. Very weak plotline. I am guilty of encouraging the print of many of these latest chick thrillers. I read them all. I do like Linwood Barclay (although Elevator Pitch wasn't as good as his usual stuff) and Harlan Coben. The rest of the stuff out there is quite mediocre. Not that I could do any better of course.

Oh and what's with 'tendrils of hair' does anyone in real life refer to bits of their hair as tendrils?

Women usually have a ‘flaw’ to their otherwise perfect looks such as their eyes being large or their lips overly plump... yes, sounds REALLY unattractive

@tableknockers

In Pride and Prejudice she only changes her mind about him when she sees his massive house. Shallow.

Not sure if you are joking but i have seen people write similar before, so here's my 2 cents as a big fan of P&P. Elizabeth was impressed by Pemberley because it was tasteful and not 'uselessly fine' as she had expected after visiting his Aunt deBourgh's estate, which was very 'showy' and more about style than substance. Even after being shown around the house she didn't change her mind about Darcy until she saw how loved and respected he was by people who knew him well/worked for him, how kind he was to his sister, and how friendly and welcoming he was to her relatives who she had fully expected him to look down on. He was much easier company in his own house, and she could see that he was eager to please her and win her approval, despite the fact that she had wronged and misjudged him. In short she grew to like him very much.

The author of Outlander apparently refused to be edited.

@SmidgenofaPigeon

Women usually have a ‘flaw’ to their otherwise perfect looks such as their eyes being large or their lips overly plump... yes, sounds REALLY unattractive

Yes its never a big hook nose or a lantern jaw.

I loved playing away when I read it years ago.Are Jane green's books still fairly decent?

@SmidgenofaPigeon

I remembered something wise that was ridiculous in an Adele Parks book

Firstly most of the characters in this story live in Holland Park, which is stupid because they are not millionaires and fanny about in jobs that involve taking wanky black and white photos or making cabinets.

SPOILERS

The really awful bit is a female character that has a daughter with her husband but later the husband finds out he was infertile all along and it couldn’t be his. Instead of having a chat about this revelation he just turns overnight into an alcoholic and pisses the bed and breaks an antique lamp and ends up in prison. At the end it’s revealed that the wife, desperate to get pregnant, STOLE HER BEST FRIEND’S HUSBAND’S sperm out of a condom when she heard them having sex in a bathroom at a party. She then pounced on the condone and voila, a much longed-for baby. At the end the husband gets over it and doesn’t drink anymore and they go on with their lives.

This sounds familiar to me. What was the name of the book? I have a feeling it wasn't Adele Parkes though which means two different authors used this ridiculous storyline!

@NovemberRain2 100% it was Adele Parks- it’s called Lies Lies Lies.

@Aahotep

The author of Outlander apparently refused to be edited.

I'm not disagreeing with you, in fact it's the only way I can understand why every single cough and fart that Jamie and Claire do gets published.

But I once saw Diana Gabaldon tell a reader on Twitter who was complaining they couldn't get past the first few chapters of The Fiery Cross (which is where I also gave up) to keep skipping through the pages til they found something they were interested in. So even she realises that she may be overwriting but still continues to do it.

Stealing a man's sperm from a condom is about a stupid as stealing a pregnant woman's urine to fake a positive pregnancy test, just one of the ridiculous things in Gone Girl. I think she may even have drained the toilet first to stop the urine getting diluted or flushed away? Can't remember, it was all just too stupid.