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'?

Erm... free-maker is dress maker

I was pleasantly surprise the other day to read a book in which the male detective had anxiety problems and repelled the cliche of which we usually read about, the 'work all night, sleep never until they crack the case' bollocks.

Martina Cole books give me the rage. In every one she manages to get in "belly full of arms and legs" when someone is pregnant. Vomit inducing. Hate it!

I think a lot of chicklit novels that actually get published are written by upper-middle class girls who work in PR or publishing and can't envisage any characters who are not basically Mary Sues. THat's why they all have doting eccentric parents with country houses, and if any working-class girls appear they are always the second-best friend and either get abused by men or are really tough and scare men away.

When the author uses "said" too much.

Eyes that 'change colour' depending on the character's mood

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

No, not really. The "z" spelling is actually known as Oxford spelling, and we're not talking Oxford, Mississippi.

Sorry, meant to say I agree on the z thing.

Oh, whoever mentioned Les Mis, I have read it all the way through, but now I've done it once I just skip the lengthy descriptions of Waterloo and the Parisian sewage system and just read the actual story! I'm tempted to buy an abridged version actually.

Maggie O'Farrell, I just don't get the fuss.

The only one of hers I've managed for full of cliches about fab and groovy swinging 60s lifestyles, characters not taking properly to each other and YY to no one getting on with their mother. The maternal relationship was central to the plot but I couldn't see the big deal given that every single character in current contact with their mother seemed to be disappointed in them or feel it was vice verse.

I came away from it thinking I'd far rather be a father and it was always the bloody woman's fault.

I can't remember what the book was called, it might have been one of the William Monk books by Anne Perry. The author used the terms "vulnerable" or "his vulnerability" with regard to the main character about twice on each page, it drove me mad.

One that I've become a bit more sensitive to in recent years is how fond authors are of having a female character do awful, unbelievable things and then blame it all on her losing a baby or having had a termination.

I won't spoil the books by naming them but far too many of them use this as a kind of lazy motive.

Banjaxed used once or twice would be okay Thumb but I'm talking about her using these words a lot more than that. There's almost certainly a line in that book that reads "She'd banjaxed her fissog with that maraschino hair dye" and I just can't bring myself to read it.

All chick lit .. all of it. drives me mental. all the womens problems are only solved by eventually falling in love with some bloke who they have misunderstood somewhere early in the book. the bloke invariably turns out to have wealth/property/family business, so they can all dance off into the sunset with no financial worries.

It's the damage done to our psyche by Mr Rochester and Mr Darcy

Austen and Bronte have a lot to answer for

Three women whose life stories inevitably converge:

1. The smart but emotionally closed one. Can be brunette or redhead but always tall, is too intelligent to notice her stunning looks until 2/3 of the way in. Comes from crushing poverty, raised by a resentful single mother. Determined to escape her past.

1. The beautiful one. Blonde mainly but can be dark if sufficiently feline of feature, large of nork and slim of hip - has been irresistible to men from a young age. Background of sexual abuse, often incest. Determined to escape her past.

1. The mousey one. Average looking but a makeover of miraculous proportions 1/2 way in keeps her in the game. Trapped in a loveless marriage, controlled by an arsehole husband, needs to find the confidence to begin again. Determined to escape her past.

I was nodding my head all the way through post msbojangles

MsBojangles are you sure number three wasn't a post from Mumsnet.

Emily was feeling exhausted and run down after a long drawn out day with her darling family. Ok, she was knackered and knew that only a glass of perfectly chilled white wine would do to relax with her subtlety scented Jo Malone candles. However, Emily lived in the real world. She found a dubious looking bottle of wine that had been on offer in lidl earlier and threw it in the freezer. Then held her ikea candles over the hob to light them, sighing as she dripped wax onto the only exposed inch of kitchen side...

Very good Mulled - except it should have been perfectly chilled Chablis, or other named wine.

The hilarious subterfuges indulged in by working mothers to make their shop-bought offerings for the school bake sale/costumes for the school play look homemade. Yes, Allison Pearson, I am looking at you - supermarket mince pies that have been hit with a rolling pin will look like squashed supermarket mince pies, not like homemade ones.

Bluestocking - I never got that. Are there really women that vacuous that they think anyone cares whether or not they baked the pies themselves?

Crappy nonsensical ageism... Last book I read had a 20 something girl bemoaning her father's in ability to text or email. He was 60.

Dido we should start forwarding on this interview to any author trying that one.

Harry Leslie Smith We Invented Radar

In Harry Potter (fantastic in many ways), sometimes individual things are mentioned slightly too many times, for no discernible reason:

• Trainers.
• Snogging (in half-blood prince).
• Harry's glasses (all the time!)
• "as a gold prospector sifts for gold": exactly that wording, several times, in Pensieve scenes.

And it really annoys me that in half-blood prince, Harry doesn't have one single ally who believes his suspicions about Malfoy.

I also agree that the Epilogue is a weakness.

I used to enjoy Martina Cole, but abandoned the last one in disgust because she just continually described what a hard man one of the characters was. ON. EVERY. PAGE. We get it, we dont need it continuously over explained.

I also read a Maeve Binchy book where she described birds either tweeting or singing "their heads off". A bit of a lazy description.

Oh, and I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, but there were a couple of things in there that I felt were just too subtle and under explained. Just skipped by something really important.

I hate it when there's some terrible misunderstanding which would be so easily solved by someone just saying "btw, did you mean me when you said this?" or sonething. No-one ever tries to clarify, they just run off heartbroken. It happens in TV and films too and really bugs me - just talk!

I see this a lot on MN too and have often resisted typing 'Just ask them, not us!'