What's your pet hate in books?

[deweydell]

Mine is when the writer foreshadows the action to come like when they say 'she crossed the road carrying her little dog who will get run over by a car in two years time'.

Anyone?

Anything by Tony Parsons

Japanese sagas involving generations of women who are either geishas/concubines or slaving in paddy fields.

Anything about Jewish identity and meaning.

Anything by whinging women along the lines of I know why the caged bird sings/Why does the shackled bear roar/Who is the little white lynx.

My sister once tried to give me a book (coming of age saga natch) about a Japanese girl who wanted to be Jewish......

when the author clearly has a favourite word and it crops up again and again

Chicklit,....and...dare I say this....am aware will probably get slaughtered here, but I often find books written by male authors lacking in emotion or empathy. I find the writing style harsh. Sebastian Faulkes not included in above.

yes, agree about whinging women!
Have to say that I love jewish literature, joseph roth, elias canetti etc...

tHERE WAS ONE jEWISH ONE i DID LIKE...lINDA GRANT!
yEAH,SHE'S GREAT.

am I the only one who thinks that sebastian faulkes is overrated?

James Patterson calling his book "London Briges" because they are all called after nursery rhymes, except he's too lazy to research the nursery rhyme that is "London Bridge IS falling down" - and I watched an interview with him once and he is so far up his own a*se!

books where single women find suitable boyfriends despite living in tiny villages/working from home etc

I see, moondog. I'm instead into mitteleuropean jewish litterature, fall of the Austrain empire etc

austrian

the thing cod cites is called Mary-Sue-ing :

read all abaht it

I don't like anything set in a wilderness - Newfoundland, Australian outback etc. Also would never buy anything with raised gold lettering on the cover.

I can't stand those middle England village books where everyone lives in a tight knit community and then newcomers arrive and all jolly hell breaks loose. What's her name? You know who I mean. Judy someone? all the book covers look alike - a fancy garden, a wooden chair with a floppy hat on it.

I once knew a rich someone who was rich because his dad had invented that raised gold foily lettering stuff. I disapproved

My pet hate is voyeuristic truelife tales of degradation & misery - sadly, this blurb comes from the Book People catalogue, and really I love them, but anyway -

"But there comes a point in her preteen years - maybe it's the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once - when Cupcake's story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark, deeply disturbing journey through hell."

chick lit

anything involving the words conspiracy/holy grail/the Da Vinci Code

where the author is blatantly in love with the lead charactre(Dorothy L Sayers, Ngaio Marsh) or is Mary Sue -ing

stream of consciousness

no satistfying story or ending

Books that I read and think I could have done better but I cant get an agent!

Anything with the words Based on a true story on the front or back covers.
Bad dialogue.

lol Kbear

Surely Joanna Trollope?

Judy Astley, Kbear?

Raised gold lettering, LOL - are there that many of them now? they used to be popular in the 80s - Judith Krantz and Sidney Sheldon and all that.

Another one that bugs me is that the slightest little thing sends people off into "reveries" about their childhood. They stand in doorways and think/remember, or sit on buses and have very detailed flashbacks in chronological order.

Unquiet,yo are unsettling familiar with crap women's fiction.Sydney Sheldon has just died (no more crap from him then thank God)

I remember my friend sneering at her spouse and delivering the ultimate putdown
'Mike thinks that Sydney Sheldon is a good read!'

Oh how we sniggered.

you're both probably right, that kind of thing. They're all called Henrietta and make jam and it's always a hot summer and bleargh....

lol lol

DW has shelves full of it, that's why! I sometimes pick one out and look through it to see how long I can go before I want to kill myself. I'm glad I had no sharp objects to hand with that bloody "Shopaholic" woman. And Jenny f*cking Colgate. Blurgh.