Things that really wind you up in novels

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I just finished reading a 'chick-lit' book (not how it was marketed but it most definitely was, IMO) where the heroine starts out as an ambitious, independent professional who seems like she might be an interesting character for once, then as soon as A Man appears she turns to mush and reveals that all this strong exterior is just a facade she's putting up to stop her heart being broken again. Sigh. To make things worse you could tell she was going to fall for him from about page 20 because a) they hated each other and b) his wife was conveniently dead, AND it had one of those 'quirky' The Quaintly-Named Suburban Avenue Ladies' Flower Arranging Society type titles. It was a shame because otherwise it wasn't a badly written book, it was just ruined for me by too many cliches... What things in a novel make you sigh and think 'Oh God, it's one of those books'?

When an American has written a book while pretend to be British.
All the characters have names nobody has used here for years ( usually Nigel) and they use very odd phrases that are meant to sound English but just sound weird - annoyingly can't think of an example right now

Continuity - for example in one of the Scotland Street novels Bertie described flying to Portugal on a plane, but then in another novel he said he had never been on a plane before when he flew from Edinburgh to Paris.
However, at the rate that AMcS churns his books out, it must be hard to keep track of things!
Excessive description of women's appearance and never of men's.

Layter, they did it to Enid Blyton too - the Naughtiest Girl in the School and the Malory Towers books, for certain - refusal to wear stockings turned into refusal to wear white socks instead of coloured, gym slips changed to school skirts, and the money changed yes. It was to make it relevant to the children reading, I suppose.

Yes I remember about Enid Blyton now. There is a scene in Mallory Towers where a girl steals five pounds. It is a strongly written scene that stood out for me as a child: she thinks to herself "FIVE POUNDS, FIVE POUNDS" and the crime looms larger in her head. You could feel her horror growing as she realises what she has done. When I came across it again recently it had morphed into fifty pounds. It just didn't sound right, it didn't have the same feel.

I expect originally it was 5 shillings, theDudes - depending on when you first read it!

www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/bookreviews/8006340/Enid-Blytons-Famous-Five.html Interesting discussion on the updating of the Famous Five books :)

I suppose it might have been! I would have read it in the mid1970s, and I definitely remember it being pounds!

Almost certainly 5 shillings originally then; the books started being published in 1946!

Polkadotsandmoonbeams - The Belgariad starting with Pawn of Prophecy. Enjoy!

Regarding Stephen King: I generally love his stuff but Joyland seemed a bit sloppy in places. Most of it is set in 1973 but he mentions someone microwaving soup and I am pretty sure that microwave ovens weren't around until about 1979. Another general observation, with authors who have been writing for a long time, is that some of their later books can get a bit patchy around details WRT how younger people think, speak and behave, simply because the authors are older and getting out of touch.
Mind you, one of the reasons I love Stephen King's Christine is because it feels like such a brilliant portrayal of Smalltown US teenage life in the late 70s (though I am not a Yank and therefore don't know how accurate it might be - any US MNers in their 50s got any idea?)

Countertop microwave ovens were around in the late 60's, but in 1971 roughly only 1% of US people had them. (quick google). FAIL STEPHEN KING.. FAIL.

I love Stephen King too but occasionally he commits acts of Creepy Objectification In Description Of Female Characters, when you would think he would know better.

It's a shame because I really enjoy his stories I just don't enjoy his writing as a whole.

In Harry Potter, the American versions say "Sorcerer's Stone" rather than "Philosopher's stone".

Other things I remember being changed in modern versions of the Famous Five, having seen a few original copies:

"Put iodine on that wound" becomes "put stuff on that wound";

"I bet I'll get an awful spanking" becomes "I bet I'll get an awful telling off";

"Julian's stentorian voice" becomes "Julian's voice";

"kit bag" becomes "rucksack";

and the children wearing "jeans" instead of "skirt" or "shorts".

On another note to Mr King SPOILERS AND RANTING

Reading Mr Mercedes and oh I've cringed all the way through. I just can't cope.

There's a young black lad who apparently doesn't want to be black and to take the piss he talks in this old time stereotypical black slave language 'yassuh mistah!' and the amount of times the baddie calls him the N word is OTT. I mean i know he's portraying him as a racist but really? It's gotten uncomfortable to read now. The dialogue between the lad and the protagonist is cringe inducing - 'only you is sherlock, I is Doctah Watson!'

Cliche things

• like this retired policeman takes a notebook out that he once used and puts it in his pocket. The chapter ends with 'It fits just right'.How twee
• they do a profile on the killer and its the same old 'abused, impotent, higher than average intelligence'
• aging, overweight retired policeman gets the younger, rich beautiful woman who has hired him. She hasn't had sex in such a very long time after her abusive husband
• " go get em cowboy" "be careful cowgirl" BAWKKKK.
• 'He grins. There's a wavelength, and they're on it.'

The themes are repeated again and again it seems so clumsy. Older people not being able to use technology apparently, victim blaming to the highest degree, the way the lad who's black is portrayed.

I've not even bloody finished it.

Mind you, I do love a male writer who can create plausible women characters. My two favourites, Phil Rickman and Christopher Brookmyre, are both brilliant at characters. (One of the reasons I was so furious with the TV adaptation of Quite Ugly ONe Morning was that they altered the book to make the two main female characters 'female characters' who only existed in relation to the protagonist. In the book, Sarah is the murder victim's ex-wife and Jenny the detective is a lesbian; in the TV version Sarah is the hero's ex-wife and Jenny ends up falling for the hero.

.

I've read two books in the past month (I shall not name them as don't want to spoil it) when I have found out at the end that some of the characters have been dead all along. Ga! I am totally over that particular plot twist. It's so 1999.

Messing with Christopher Brookmyre like that also means they couldn't carry on and do the sequels.

Have you read The Sacred Art of Stealing? (a non-Parlabane one)

I love Christopher Brookmyre.

Trills: Yes. Actually I have read all his books. If you liked 'Stealing' you will love Snowball In Hell.
I like Attack Of The Unsinkable Rubber Ducks as well, but it is his rantiest and suffers a bit from too much of it being written as 'extracts' from a book one of the characters is writing (the character in question is a silly Daily Mail type columnist so these bits are written in bad Daily-Mail-ish style which makes them a pain to read.)

Another thing about that ITV version was (and I may be wrong as it was about 11 years ago) didn't they make Parlabane Irish because they cast an Irish actor who couldn't do a Scots accent - presumably they thought the English wouldn't notice...

It was whatshisname from Cold Feet wasn't it? I don't remember where they actually set it.

Any recommendations for similar authors?
(totally highjacking thread...)

I'd be interested in recommendations like Brookmyre too actually (continuing the highjack). I started reading him a few years ago after you recommended him on a thread SGB and have read them all now. Love him! DH does too.

Ooh, recommendations. Erm... I think one of the reasons Brookmyre is so fab is that he is a real one-off. I can't think of anyone who is much like him.
I do like Phil Rickman (who is less funny but equally good at female characters).

And Lauren Henderson's crime novels are pretty good (the Sam Jones books) - though they have dated, obviously, as they were hugely 'hip and contemporary' when they were written so it's impossible to read them in quite the same way as I did in the 90s. You get all these little jolts, all the time - people smoking indoors, not checking their emails, listening to 'edgy' music that is now cosy easy listening for old farts. Etc.

Which book would you recommend starting with for each?

The Lauren Henderson ones sound like they've done this