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?

Definitely agree with everyone about Misery Memoirs. And I really can't bear lazy proof-reading or bad grammar/punctuation - I'm an English teacher and I know a book is bad if, instead of losing myself in it, I'm itching to get a pen and correct it, give it a mark out of 20 and write some constructive criticism at the end!

Hate the books where the heroine begins fat and frumpy (and I identify with her ) but magically loses several stone and has a wondrous makeover before getting her man/ideal job/pay rise. Can she not do that and remain stout? And why have I never just 'forgotten' to eat like these women do for weeks on end??

Message withdrawn

anything that has 'suggested discussion points for bookgroups' at the end - disappointing in the same way as the first chapter of the next book.
and bad research - eg loads of annoying things about the school in Notes on a Scandal that just wouldn't be true.

Too much research = showing off!
Chick lit
Da Vinci Code and any derivative thereof
Soppiness / blatant tear-jerking / heart string pulling
Anything related to TV series
Almost anything that is endorsed by anyone on TV
Pages where the footnotes outnumber the amount of text
Wanky artworld pseuds' corner stuff

ummmm I'm sure there are more

I read half a Tami Hoag book thinking it would be a thriller - turned out to be a terrible storyline squeezed in amongst lots of sex. There are plenty of books I can't get into, but not many I abandon half way through! I don't have anything against sex in novels, but this was just dull sex in a dull book.

I always fall for the 'most gripping novel you'll every read' and 'twists and double twists all the way' blurb on the front.
It is seriously rubbish but at the back of your mind you think that there is going to be a fab twisty-turny ending but there never is.

Also agree about Patricia Cornwell's annoying present tense Scarpetta novels.

Ohh UD - love (most) Iain M stuff......The Player of Games etc.....
Writers who just churn out the same story under a slightly different gise.....You get to the point that you can't remember which one was which (as if it really matters.....)
Da Vinci Code - complete twaddle, if you want to read the kind of stuff try Umberto Eco.....

Fantasy - interesting, hate it if it includes elves/dwarves et al, more keen when it moves towards ScFi. HATE bad ScFi (generally written in the late 1960/70s....)
Gratutious sex is usually a turn off too...

I stopped reading key scarpetta when she gave up smoking. I don't know, she really became annoying.

Oh Ell,yes!
Fantasy!
What the hell is that all about?
I want to scream 'Grow up!!!!! it's just pretend!'
Ditto science fiction.Used to have staggeringly clever bf who was always trying to get me to read Ursula K Le Guin and shit like that.

Saw him the other day (20 years on,now Someone Important In The City) and he tells me his idea of heaven is still spending an entire day in a sci-fi bookshop.

Wishy washy females - that's most of chick lit.

Someone put it perfectly in a review describing Drew Barrymore's character in 'Music and Lyrics' by writing that she was a sort of dozy neurotic men only find adorable in films.

All those trainwreck 'My Childhood from Hell' books.

I find gratuitous talent in anyone I knew - however vaguely - at university is an instant off-putter for me.

Which makes visiting any bookshop rather difficult.

The thing I cant STAND the most happens with some childrens books. The ones written in the present tense are barmy.

A fairy story in the present tense is bizarre and I always convert it as I read or 'lose' them.

Nepotism books. In other words, books whose authors only got published because they are the Prime Ministers daughter, an actor or model or spouse of one, etc.

'Auto' biographies - almost always written by a ghost writer - about people who don't have anything to write about: Jordan, Jade, etc.

WHO reads these?!

Have weakness for pulp crime non fiction about girls being chained under beds in trailer parks in Idaho for decades and the like.....

Fabulous airplane reading.

Can I just confess to fantasies of torturing Daisy bloody Meadows by making her spend all eternity reading her own sodding books (preferably chained under a trailer in Idaho).

(Neverending stream of hogwash about fairies - about 9 gazillion books, all with the same plot - for those of you not blessed with a dd between the ages of 4 and 8).

Christ on a bike, moony! You won't read chick-lit, but you'll feast on that rotten carp!

Wot are you like?

I also have a thing about Auto biographies by people who are to young to have a life worth writing a book about and who are to thick to write in the first place.

books written by the same author where the first one was good but every other book is exactly the same, Joanne Harris step forward and be very very ashamed of yourself

poor or no punctuation, this is unacceptable unless you are gabriel garcia marquez

I cannot stand the books about terrible childhoods - it seemed that when David Pelzer had his success there was suddenly a slew of traumatised adults who wished to recount their childhoods - I don't doubt it is cathartic to share their experiences but for money?

Anything with a cowering child and an emotive title really puts me off.

Incidentally, just read a fab book called 'wasting police time' by a policemen (I forget his name). Quite worrying but also pretty funny, would recommend for a bit of light dip-into reading.

Incidentally, just read a fab book called 'wasting police time' by a policemen (I forget his name). Quite worrying but also pretty funny, would recommend for a bit of light dip-into reading.

Soz for double post