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'?

I also hate when the title of the book is a description of the main character, but in relation to a man: 'the time traveller's wife' 'the taxidermist's daughter' 'the air traffic controller's niece' etc etc etc.

When author has done loads of research and the plot is woven around them showing off the facts they know. Yes We Are All completely beside Ourselves I am talking about you.

Ah yes I agree. Or when they've evidently spent some time in a country and keep slipping in the lingo, italicised. Just fucking give it to me in english PLEASE.

I get FURIOUS with novels that get their facts wrong (I get even more furious with factual books that do the same). Madeline Miller in Song of Achilles, with her bloody ships drawn up onto the beaches at night to dry out. Nonononono, wooden ships NEED to be wet so the planks swell which stops them leaking.

There was another book I read where a mother wanted a child off a pony in a hurry and unbuckled the stirrups. I just sat there opening and closing my mouth at such abject ignorance.

Once I stumble over something like that, a book loses all credibility. I usually finish it, but proceed to pan it in an Amazon review.

BTW, Gretna:
It's never fixing classic cars.
I did once write an unpublishable novel where the hero made his living fixing classic cars...

MissHJ JK Rowling is in pretty good company. When I was about 18 and had time for such stuff I got through War and Peace (skipping the boring prosy bits where Tolstoy takes a break from the story to read the newspapers) and came to an epilogue that turned the lively Natasha into a fat boring bovine baby-producer (her destiny as Woman, evidently ) and Pierre into a tedious drone pontificating to his mate over the newspapers. I nearly made a large hole in the wall of the holiday villa with that brick novel. Epilogues should be banned.

Jilly Cooper always had her heroines wearing a dress that 'swooped to positive indecency at the back'. I have never seen such a dress, although I imagine it would require something other than M & S high leg knickers underneath.

I also just finished a book where I was told at least twenty times that the heroine's coat was a gold parka. It was as if the author was unable to just type 'coat'.

And, unfortunately, I have come across 'free reign' several times, in different books. That is enough to make me stop reading.

Heaving breasts and 'he touched my mound of pleasure'

I remember reading that 50 shades of shit

'he touched me... there'

There? wheres there? I can imagine the breathy voice saying it and it killed me inside.

and don't get me started about 'he touched my sex'

'he fingered her thatch'

usually an american book in which fingered isn't a sexual term

Totally with you Greys "there" wtf? "Sex"

Total shite.

Marion Keyes has a tendency to overuse annoying words.

For example, Fizzog, which was practically every other word in one of her books (This Charming Man I think). She also went on and on about some maraschino hair colour that I think was meant to be a running joke but just turned into a running annoyance for me.

I read the description of her new book and it had the word banjaxed in it, so I'm not going to read it now. Every other word will be banjaxed if it's made it to the description.

I've just remembered Lady of Hay, which really annoyed me that the modern day woman was raped and beaten by her on-off boyfriend and still went on to marry him as it 'wasn't his fault' and shed enjoyed it really and it was alright because she loved him and he only did it because he really loved her but she made him so angry. I hate books that do that with the plot line, trying to make rape or abuse sexy and excuse it because of 'love'.

50 Shades is wannabe BDSM for thickos.

Misunderstandings, as has been mentioned above, that could have easily been prevented.

Oh but I love the word banjaxed - it's one of my favourite words! So I don't mind MK using it in every book.

I remember reading a Lesley Pearse book where a bloke felt his girlfriend up and it was described as "he caressed the two bulbous vulval humps that lay beneath her jeans". I remember laughing hysterically on a packed train. Cheers Les!

Bulbous vulval humps

WTF?????

Did she have some kind of medical condition?

Jill Mansell's male characters can't go a page without their eyes twinkling, sparkling or gleaming mischievously.

Also, for two thirds of a book a heroine will be ostensibly irritated by the bloke she's clearly going to end up with, but this only becomes apparent when she gets 'a strange feeling in her stomach' when she sees the bloke, which is as near as girlies are allowed to get to feeling horny.

And when a character is quite obviously meant to be black, but we just hear about their corkscrew curls and their laugh that sounds as though it's full of caramel as it makes it ways past their gleaming white teeth.

Oh and yeah: realize etc with a z is English, not American!

Walking about indoors without your shoes on is described as "padding" in virtually every book I read. I have never heard anyone in RL use that word in that way.

When EVERY flipping chapter is in a different place.

YES GAME OF THRONES, I'M TALKING TO YOU!!!

It's ok if you can read the whole novel from cover to cover but that's impossible for me.

I put down the book, pick up and I'm at some other godforsaken corner of the map with a character I haven't seen for 30 odd chapters. WHO ARE YOU?!!!

I should probably be ashamed to admit this, but I did enjoy the da Vinci code, in a 'kept the mind ticking over' kind of way. Then I read angels and demons. Oh. My. God.

Written by an American. Featuring British characters. One called Gunther Glick. I've never met a Brit with such a name.

Not have I ever met one who, when asked 'do you remember Woodrow Wilson?' replied 'of course', but when asked 'have you heard of Winston Churchill?' replied 'his name rings a bell'.

I've had this rant many times. The lines are ingrained on my memory, so irate do they make me!!!

By the way - I did not sense any irony in any of these lines.

YES tigerdriverll!! Had to come out of lurker-ville to back you up on this. They're always 'padding' in and out of the kitchen, bedroom, living room etc. While 'fixing' eggs for breakfast or pouring themselves a glass of chilled white wine.

In the American detective stories the guys always have on light coloured slacks or chinos. The female detective has always to prove that she is tougher, harder, better then the male detective she is working alongside. That is after she has been moved to an other state to solve the case.

Convenient deaths often do in in the 'northern' novels, where some girls wants to Bette herself, so somehow gets a job at a free-maker. Some kind of disgrace or family situation will push he into a well to dos family, normally as some sort of maid. There will be a handsome son, who will naturally fall in love with the heroine. There will be one person, normally a lady who won't approve or give bloody good reasons why they shouldn't marry.

THIS PERSON WILL DIE.