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.

BonnesVacances, I read that stupid book about the non-aging kids. It might have been one of the free ones you get every month with Prime reading or the Unlimited deal.
You get to choose one, or sometimes two, out of a list of about nine.
They are all crap, I really don't know why Amazon bother, except to be able to claim these books are very popular.
They are never by anyone who has previously written anything worthwhile, and a high proportion are American cop stories and there is always a particularly rubbishy piece of chick-lit.

I recently read The Closer You Get after some recommendations on here, apparently there is a moment which is 'gasp out loud' shocking - I've finished the book and still waiting to gasp out loud. In truth it read like the Relationship section on here it was full of the same tropes and sayings and it was annoying and obvious in equal measure with, yet again, the one night stand immediate pregnancy.

A poster mentioned the Catherine Cookson man with stumps swinging down and killing someone, I think I've either read that or seen it one of the many TV adaptions of her work! Her books always seemed to feature a dark, brooding hero type striding about.

@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.

Maeve Binchy died in 2012

As a 20-something I used to love Jenny Colgan's chicklit, it was really fresh and funny. Now all her novels are called things like Christmas at the Seaside Cupcake Cafe

IrenetheQuaint

But you like the Mapp and Lucia books, don't you, dear quaint one?

I just gave up on a book because the main character was 45 and spent the whole time 'feeling my age' and wondering why 'at my time of life I have to put up with this'. I'm 47 and it made me feel ancient! Also there was not only her slowly going mad mother, but a gay father, a lazy son still living at home, a single mum daughter, a lonely boss and a young girl her husband was being kind to! Any more stereotypes she could have added?

I've just started reading Shuggie Bains and early in the book the taxi driver is observing a group of nurses smoking outside the hospital and then they totter back inside, suggesting they are wearing high heels. It seems so improbable to me that nurses wouldn't be in flats! And this is the Booker prize winner.

@LaMarschallin

IrenetheQuaint

But you like the Mapp and Lucia books, don't you, dear quaint one?

Indeed I do, @LaMarschallin . They are rather more astringent than your average chicklit! Though it would be quite funny to write a chicklit version of Lucia moving to her seaside town and meeting the comic locals.

[quote SmidgenofaPigeon]@NovemberRain2 100% it was Adele Parks- it’s called Lies Lies Lies.[/quote]
You're absolutely right, just checked on my kindle and I'd read this ages ago. Completely forgot until the storyline rang a bell! Clearly forgettable drivel......

And wasn't there a rich lady who had an affair with her Polish builder or something?

@IrenetheQuaint

As a 20-something I used to love Jenny Colgan's chicklit, it was really fresh and funny. Now all her novels are called things like Christmas at the Seaside Cupcake Cafe

I remember reading one of her first ones, around the time when 'chick lit' was becoming a thing. It was terrible. About a hunky Scottish laird who was 'marrying the wrong woman' who also happened to a complete bitch, as they often are 🙄, but it had somehow managed to almost get as far the altar, without him realising his intended wife had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Luckily, he realised his error of judgement just in time and ended up with our heroine.

Utter rubbish.

Though it would be quite funny to write a chicklit version of Lucia moving to her seaside town and meeting the comic locals.

She could take over a run-down cafe and bring them all flocking when she serves Lobster á la Risholme.
With chips.

Au reservoir

Read a Dorothy Koomson in which her husband had died and she knew who the killer was but wouldn't do anything about it because her daughter had bunked off school that day and she'd get in trouble for that. Utter tosh

@sueelleker

TodgerStrunk
I'm still smarting from reading 48 Beast Quest books out loud to DS and at no point do they go to the toilet or clean their teeth. Seriously unhealthy.
They never used to in the "Swallows And Amazons" books either.

No but they did always do the washing up!

@TrickyD @BonnesVacances
I'm pretty sure that book is Haven't They Grown by Sophie Hannah. It was published in 2020 so she was an experienced author.I find it hard to believe that another author would come up with such a ludicrous plot!

I read a terrible, terrible novel by Dawn French. It was set in NYC I think. I was so surprised by how bad and how shallow it was, because I do really like Dawn French.

@tableknockers

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

Nooooooo!!!! That is SO not what happens! She changes her mind after his letter to her. Which makes her realised how prejudiced she’s been and how she misjudged him. Well before the Pemberley trip.

I love Dorothy Koomson books. My best friends girl is the best thing I’ve ever read- although the rest are amazing. You form an attachment to the characters so quickly.
I read tell me your secret recently too and found it really chilling; it was brilliant.

@BonnesVacances

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.

I tried reading that one but had to give it up as I'd sort of guessed what had happened after a few chapters. Glad I'm not the only one who thought it was want!

[quote Blackcountryexile]**@TrickyD* @BonnesVacances*
I'm pretty sure that book is Haven't They Grown by Sophie Hannah. It was published in 2020 so she was an experienced author.I find it hard to believe that another author would come up with such a ludicrous plot![/quote]
Yeah I read that. I usually quite like Sophie Hannah but this wasn't the greatest!

Not chick lit but if you're looking for a good read I can thoroughly recommend the Victoria Hislop books - The Island, The Thread, The Return. They're well written and also well researched so you'll feel like you've learned something after you've read them

The worst disappointment Jilly Cooper. Loved her earlier books but the later ones are dire.

The biggest pile of rubbish I read in recent years was The Shining Girls - a serial killer uses a house that travels through time to kill random girls that 'shine'. Utter drivel, plot made no sense, no explanation for the girls with the 'shine' or why there's a house that time travels, just a terrible book, no real characters or plausibility - just felt like a vehicle for writing scenes of girls dying.

@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

Fuck, yes. I remember the teen equivalent of chick lit the “flaw” was always being “too skinny” or having a “boyish” figure. Heroine was always wondering if mysterious new boy at the skate shop fancied her and looking in the mirror despairingly at her bony self and shaking her head sadly. This being the 90s when that was the look of every single supermodel etc. As a thightastic teen I was very pissed off.

@iklboo

I gave up reading The Dark Tower series when Stephen King wrote himself in as a huge plot device / hero of the story. That was one WTF too far.

Oh that was so bad but not really a surprise, he loves to write about writers but he’s not usually so overt. Unfortunately I did read the series to the end and that was even worse. Such a shame.

He clearly is never edited these days either. I’ve read one short story of his where the character’s hair colour changes within three pages, and there was one passage in The Outsider that was such clunky unnatural dialogue full of pure exposition it took me totally out of the story and I really struggled to get back into it.