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'?

On the flip side ive found people purposely splitting stories up into 3 books when they could easily be 3. Which is extremely annoying!

And do not speak to me about LJ smith. Ive been waiting for the final night world book since I was about 7.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith..much lauded at the time it came out but I think its a pile of crap.

Not least for the sloppiness and lack of attention to detail. In opening sequence she talks about Brazil and "the Spanish wafting in the breeze". Brazilians speak Portuguese, not Spanish! & she also mentions Kwiksave..the book is set early or mid-70s I think? However whatever the period - Kwiksave wasn't in existence yet. Im sure she got an award for that book, too...I can't understand why, she clearly couldn't even be bothered to do the appropriate research

I don't know if it has been mentioned, but I found it stretched the bounds of credulity that every woman Jack Reacher met would fall into bed with him despite the man owning ONE set of clothes including underpants. Surely rinsing them in the shower and drying them on the radiator can only work for so long?

flibbertygibbert I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN. I have also been haunted for 20 years by her pushing her clitoris into his urethra.

You are right Eddie it is never explicitly said were Hogwarts is. I can't imagine it anywhere else anymore than in the Glencoe setting from the movies.
I think it's in One Day, there is a mention of a German girl, it's a very minor character, mentioned once in passing but her name is Helga or Gerda or one of those names that Germans are usually called in British comedies and it's just wrong. A girl of that generation would not be called Helga, it feels all wrong. I know this is a very minor gripe but it really jarred when I read it.

Novelists who write ALL their sentences in the passive voice: 'it was a sad day in january when she finally posted on MN'; 'having already given up all hope of an early night, she decided to stay up and watch the dawn'

Uh, neither of those examples is passive.

Love this thread. I have read a few books recently and everyone is beautiful but they don't know it. They never have anyone who is just average looking. How many people in our lives do we have who is breathtakingly beautiful?

I stopped reading shopaholic as it was the same story over and over. I see there is a new one out now but I'm guessing she spends loads of money, gets in to debt and hides it from her husband, it all then comes out and they live happily ever after or until Sophie Kinsella churns another one out.

Intrinsic: "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (which I quite like) or does it go further back than that?"

Good question. I think that certainly exacerbated the trend, even if it didn't start it, and there seem to have been hundreds since then with similarly whimsical titles, involving lemon cake, potato peel pie and the like.

There was, however, a book in the 1980s by Carol Clewlow called "A Woman's Guide to Adultery" and that seemed to start a trend for books with the words "guide" or "manual" in the title.

I'm not sure which was the first book to use "club" or "society" in the title but they do seem to have bred like rabbits. I suppose if you can get the words "club" AND "guide" into the title, preferably paired with some other piece of whimsy involving food, God or another well-known writer or fictional character (e.g. Jane Austen, Lolita), you've hit the jackpot.

MistressDeeCee: Actually, that's just reminded me that there's a scene in White Teeth where one of the characters, who's pregnant, has an ultrasound and discovers she's expecting twins. Except back in the 1970s, they didn't have ultrasound (or at least it wasn't used as part of pregnancy).

Mind you, she was only 24 when it was published so I think you can forgive a lot.

This is true Hack but the internet existed then so looking it up, or even asking her mum wouldn't have been too hard.

I like the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - I like the book and I like the stupidity of the society's name, made up on the spur of the moment to explain curfew breakage.
But I agree, it got a bit out of hand with other titles.
I DON'T like the Ukrainian tractor thing. Bloody boring and stupid, especially the excerpts of the supposed Ukrainian tractor history "book".

Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood came out in '96. Did that start the trend for strange long titles?

I can't bear that all the parents in chick lit books are very middle class with a doddering father figure (discounting Mr Walsh from Marian Keyes as she writes so hilariously). They are all nosy neighbours and technologically illiterate. The heroine always returns home to them for a period of time after a heartbreak/job loss... and is stuck in her old bedroom which is always exactly as it was from childood. And she has to smoke out of the window. And her old nerdy boyfriend/nemesis/best friend's little brother is also back at his parent's house next door AT THE SAME TIME so they can be forced together.

I hate books where the story is set in the cotswolds/English countryside yet the author spells colour, grey, tyre etc. incorrectly.

I also hate how when mentioning Pagans they're always hippy type characters who smoke 'funny cigarettes' and take drugs/live in a weird house full of weird stuff.

I also hate how dogs are almost always well behaved cute and cuddly when my looney psycho dog is actually practically uncontrollable when off the lead who won't do as he is told and frequently rolls in stinking fox pooh before rolling all over my bed/carpet

I'm basically after an English story with correct spelling and accurate portrayal of characters and their pets who live in a normal house in a normal town not in some detached rural sweet thatched/historical grade 2 property or in some up and coming area of London

I read a book a while ago set in Victorian London. In one scene a character was describes as 'sitting on her stoop'.

People in Victorian London may have sat on their front step but they certainly never sat on a stoop. So jarring.

I've just finished a Regency romance in which one of the characters used the phrase 'mad at' to mean 'angry with'.

Oh dear...

One of the things I particularly like about Georgette Heyer's books is that they're not all set in the Regency, although many are - but her language usage changes according to period. Her research was supposed to be excellent - I've been told by someone who went to Sandhurst that they actually use her book, An Infamous Army, as one of the best descriptions of the Battle of Waterloo - and it certainly shows in the way the characters come across. IMO, anyway. She also changes pace in her murder mystery books, mostly set in the 1920s/30s - again the language is of the time (although she actually lived through that, so not so hard for her, I would think!)

Always loved Georgette Heyer , but you always know who is going to end up the hero :)
What I don't like which happens more and more to me is picking a book up, in almost any genre and thinking - I've read this before, . Maybe I have been reading too long ?
Thumbnuts the Guernsey Literary book to me was too like 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff , which I loved.
Guess there are only so many stories :)

A otherwise excellent book: The Poisonwood Bible, annoyed me so much in one detail that I actually wrote to complain. It has a character living in Johannesburg taking a train for a day out the beach with her "girlfriends". First, it would take over fifteen hours for a train to get to the nearest beach. A very long day out then. Second, the character is a rich white woman in the South Africa of the 1950s or 60s. There is no way on earth they would have been on a train. Rather spoilt an otherwise wonderful book for me.

I'm reading one at the moment, set in England, where an English character has said he spent "every cent he had" on his legal defence.

It's possible he used an Americanism but since he's portrayed as a stuffy (and possibly violent and controlling) stiff upper lip Brit, surely "every penny" would have been more realistic and less jarring?

How do editors not pick up on these things? Another one I've noticed a couple of times is the ground floor being referred to as the first floor as it would be in America.

I usually harumph a bit and then take myself off to google to confirm that the author is American.

What I don't understand is why these authors don't get an English person (or American - 50 Shades) to read through and pick these things up. I bet they could even get friends to do that for free.

Whatever the job it seems they all have a nice cosy flat in London

Writing an entire novel in chapters of no more than three pages long. Too short, no development, too many cliffhangers.

James Patterson, just stop for the love of all that is holy.

Flaws only a protagonist would have

She wasn’t perfect. She had two different colored eyes, which is definitely a flaw and not a magnetic, compelling, unusual form of beauty.