What are your book pet peeves?

[AlpacaTheBags]

What tropes or clichés annoy you in books?

I have so many but one is when the main character is at risk so they move far away to make a new life where no one will be able to connect them to their past. Good plan but they always go to some tiny coastal or rural village(Population 150) and buy or rent the most well known and distinctive building in the place(Usually a potter's or lobster fisherman's cottage.)

And then when the villain inevitably catches up with them, they always run towards the cliffs to have their final encounter. I don't know why because you can guarantee that at least one of them is going over the cliff.

Just trawled through my kindle history looking for the title of this book but failed. The protagonist is a female diver who does under water exploration and has to solve a family mystery involving her dead parents. At one point I'm sure someone takes a break from the UK after splitting with her bf, only to bump into him by accident at in a cafe in Goa! Think maybe two characters end up in a quirky seaside caravan running a cafe...might have mixed up two books. Please someone tell me they've read this awfulness too!

It's not the one where she gets a job on a cruise ship, is it? I read something like that early this year, but I don't think I kept it afterwards. The Goa bit rings a bell.

I blame 90s/00s chick lit for making me think a Ghost cardi and bias cut dress with Jimmy Choi kitten heels is the ultimate sexy outfit!

Oh, yes, and clothes from 'Joseph'!

Or, heading back into Bridget Jones territory, Nicole Farhi... I never managed to find out what Nicole Farhi did before she seemed to stop being a thing!

God no I love Julia Quinn

@StolenWillowTree , no the very lovely 72 year old British author who wrote over 100 children’s books. Kendall Roy is not involved.

@Sheepreallylikerichteabiscuits , @darisdet @Finallybreathingout , I’m also a massive Heyer fan. Obviously the moneylender scene in The Grand Sophy is as antisemitic as all hell, but she’s a funny and entertaining writer.

I read three Bridgerton novels. First one had a rather rapey scene, the second one was ok and the third was literally Cinderella for the first few chapters. Heyer stands up SO beautifully in the face of this crap.

Tongue in cheek! Although she’s not for me I’m afraid.

I must admit I read a lot of YA books during lockdown, they're sort of addictive. Considering they're mainly written by women (or seem to be) I was surprised how explicit some were. (OH says some would have been on the top shelf if they were for men)
What happened to the old time Mills&Boone romance, even M&B is a bit racey.

Barbara Cartland would be spinning in her grave

It was "My Sister's Secret" by Tracy Buchanan. Absolute drivel.

I just don't like so-called novels that are actually just a short story collection. The author makes some tenuous connection between them which does nothing to enhance character or plot. But they and the publishers are happy as novels = higher sales and the Booker prize.

Yes, I'm looking at you Bernardine Everisto.

Most books are just too twee for me (keeper of lost things) so I just dont know what to try. (Shop in charity shops so it's a cheap hobby but I don't have unlimited choice)

I just don't like so-called novels that are actually just a short story collection.
I'm with you there. Girl, Woman, Other was not prize-winning material. It had no depth and poor grammar. It was merely twelve potted biographies, not a story.

Shop in charity shops so it's a cheap hobby
The library is even cheaper.
I don't have unlimited choice
Again: the library. They need your support!

I like donating to charity!

And as I'm autistic I find it hard to remember when library books are due back. I had fines before so can't go back :-(

I find it hard to remember when library books are due back.
Our Library sends an automated e-mail reminder and you can renew online. Very handy.

Victor Hugo is unreadable for this. Les Miserables is about 1500 pages long in English (more in French). He needed a good editor!

I hate the totally implausible plot whereby someone inherits/inhabits a massive, crumbling pile of a house while having no discernible source of income to heat or light the place, let alone pay any kind of rent or inheritance tax. They're also invariably somewhere eye-wateringly upmarket like Hampstead or Chelsea. The characters are also normally boho types who, if they have any kind of employment whatsoever, apparently dedicate about 5 hours a week to it without getting fired.

I hate when timelines make no sense.

Eg:.
"She woke to the sound of the alarm at 7am and stretched out a languid foot while admiring her light suntan. She got up and went for a 10km run on the beach in the early morning haze. She returned and had a lazy shower, conditioned her hair and finally relaxed with the morning papers, coffee and croissant. By 8am she was ready to lead her editorial meeting".

What - how did she get all that done in an hour?!!

Completely agree that editing seems to be a lost art despite the number of authors that praise their editors to the skies. As far as I can tell they've not done very much!
I get irritated with crime novels where the perpetrator gets a certain look in their eyes or their facial muscles tighten infiniteessimally and that tells the detective everything they need to know to solve the mystery.

Oh I hate this too, and I hate it when time passes more quickly for one protagonist than another - Alice leaves Bob chatting to Charlie and zips off, has multiple meetings with people in various places to further the plot, meanwhile Bob and Charlie's cup of tea lasts for six hours.

I was reading a Famous Five book to the kids, the one about the island with all the gold statues on it and it really was an evening that never ended, the sun kept setting then magically setting again, they had dinner at least twice and were able to jet back and forth between the island and the mainland without time seemingly passing at all. I mean I know Blyton isn't the world's best author but I don't think an editor has ever read that book all the way through.

Extraneous detail in one book which is then repeated in another, unrelated to the first, book by the same author. I don't care if they were ypical of the era he grew up in, I didn't need to know the brand of soap and aftershave Grandpa used in book one, let alone a repeat in book 6. It smacks of laziness.

Things that wouldn't happen. A chief inspector would not take a random civilian along to interview the chief suspect, especially when there are other police officers milling about wanting something to do.

Getting basic facts wrong. The Romans did not invade the land of the Anglo-Saxon.

Have recently been reading a series where every book has had me riled. I like the premise, and overarching story, but the individual novels themselves wind me up like no other. One friend got quite used to my weekly rant about them!

Crime and thrillers which end with a life-or-death situation for the protagonist.

And as I've just been reminded by another thread, an unresolved back story that gets dragged out and gets used to give each novel the same twist at the end. In books 1 and 2 it was clever, 3, 4 and 5 it's just tedious.

Things that wouldn't happen. A chief inspector would not take a random civilian along to interview the chief suspect, especially when there are other police officers milling about wanting something to do.

Oh this annoyed me so much with one of Elly Griffith's Brighton books - former policewoman had to quit job when married police inspector so became a private detective - in the 1950s/60s - and he is fine about taking a day off work and looking after the kids (which he does by plonking them in front of the TV because there was definitely enough children's programming to keep them occupied all day or even programming at all) while she jets off to investigate HIS CASE that she is investigating (probably on behalf of one of the suspects but I can't remember).

an unresolved back story that gets dragged out and gets used to give each novel the same twist at the end. In books 1 and 2 it was clever, 3, 4 and 5 it's just tedious.

That's not Nicci French's Frieda Klein books it it?

I still enjoyed The Midnight Hour though, AppleHa

*Things that wouldn't happen. A chief inspector would not take a random civilian along to interview the chief suspect, especially when there are other police officers milling about wanting something to do.

Oh this annoyed me so much with one of Elly Griffith's Brighton books - former policewoman had to quit job when married police inspector so became a private detective - in the 1950s/60s - and he is fine about taking a day off work and looking after the kids (which he does by plonking them in front of the TV because there was definitely enough children's programming to keep them occupied all day or even programming at all) while she jets off to investigate HIS CASE that she is investigating (probably on behalf of one of the suspects but I can't remember).*

It was one of her Ruth Galloway books I was referring to. They are the books I said wind me up the wrong way. I really want to love them and in fact the most recent one arrived today but I need a break from them. My blood pressure can't take it!

*an unresolved back story that gets dragged out and gets used to give each novel the same twist at the end. In books 1 and 2 it was clever, 3, 4 and 5 it's just tedious.

That's not Nicci French's Frieda Klein books it it?*

No, Donato Carrisi. Great books, but the endings about me (the ones I've read so far could quite happily end before the final few pages).

Will avoid Nicci French!

Is that the Jack Caffery books by Mo Hayder, has a police diver called Flea Marley, whose parents disappeared whilst on a dive?