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.

Yes! Just what I was coming on to say. I can't be bothered with the heroine having panic attacks and we're supposed to guess what happened in her past. Like something my 13yr old would write. JUST TELL ME.

Two standout.

The recent trend for ludicrous flowery twee titles such as Starry Skies Over The Chocolate Pot Cafe and anything marketed as a "ladies book".

Relation Titles especially with women the such and suchs Wife, Daughter, etc or The Person From Location titles, all these trends need to bog off

Oh and when a book cover gets changed to reflect a film thats come out, hate that

Series that are set in the same location and all the characters are connected. I have no hope of remembering the characters past the first book. Like Rachel's holiday etc, books about each sister. Can't stand the type set in some twee village and some city girl moves in and after some embarrassing gaffes ends up with the vet.
Maeve Binchey does my head in too, always about some perfect woman moving into the community and sorting everyone's lives out.
Do love Helen Forrester, think Liverpool Daisy is my favourite. Currently re-reading them.

When there’s a series of books and the events of one book get totally forgotten e.g character wins 200 000 dollars in Las Vegas in one book but books 3 shes skint

Also a book by L J Ross i can't remember the title

I really hate the way that non-fiction nowadays has to be framed as memoir. I'm buying a book about the history of lighthouses because I'm interested in the history of lighthouses. I don't give a flying toss about how the author developed his obsession with lighthouses, or the emotion he felt when he first visited one.

@Stressybetty I remember reading Helen Forrester. Can't recall how as I certainly didn't buy them.

Autobiographical weren't they, about her upbringing and overcoming severe hardship and poverty. But I remember thinking she went into some flights of fancy at times and clearly made a lot up. But especially the first boyfriend/fiancé for instance; all secret from her and his family(for no real reason in my opinion), and none of her friends met him, then after he died in the war she said she burnt every bit of his supposed correspondence.

So I'd add autobiographical books where the author has gone too far elaborating, or isn't believable. Too many of those!

I nearly wanted to throw my phone across the room earlier as the Scientists discussed their new virus that no antibiotics could treat.

Thats because antibiotics work on bacterial infections not viral infections....

@darisdet, I remember my mum reading them as well and saying they obviously were exaggerated, there was no way her mum could have been that nasty. I do know she held off publishing them until her parents had died.
Just bought a memoir her son wrote based on papers, letters etc which I think explores more of her past but need to be in the mood to sit down and read it properly. I do prefer her fiction rather than the auto biographical stuff tbh.

Not so much the content but I really hate it when there are no chapters. Makes a book seem like an endless slog.

Really graphic sex scenes for no apparent reason and that add nothing to the plot. I read an, admittedly totally shit, kindle unlimited book the other week where the heroine's nipples hardened every time her love interest entered the room. Definitely noticed it more since 50 shades.

I like reading books that have been translated into English but find that far too many books that have been translated by Americans also translate the setting for an American readership and use American slang such as goofing off in the locker room, which grates enormously for me. I read it Swedish book which could have been set in Stockholmsville, Ohio, rather than Stockholm, Sweden. If I am reading a book from another country I am happy to read about the idiosyncrasies of the country; it is part of it and this is generally retained when the translator is from the UK. I would imagine this is so when books are translated from English into another language. This is certainly not all American translators by any means but I have seen it happen enough times for it to be noticeable.

See also - books where protagonist has a hobby-type job pressing flowers or something yet manages to live in a rambling country cottage that would cost millions to buy and maintain in real life. Sometimes a pathetic attempt is made to justify this by saying the roof leaks or something..

I remember my mum reading them as well and saying they obviously were exaggerated, there was no way her mum could have been that nasty. I do know she held off publishing them until her parents had died.

Exactly! That makes sense she didn't publish until after the parents had died, but I didn't know that.

She was inconsistent about her mum and her character. It definitely jarred. A good yarn though. I did read a few!

Just to defend maeve binchy I actually really loved that books like echoes and light a penny candle had really dark storylines and judgy mums, also Rachel fine and sister Madeleine who I think are the sort of sorting out ladies you means do come to depressing ends.

Woman who has a tossed boyfriend, breaks up with him and moves to great aunt farm with no knowledge of farming that had been life to her in a Will. She is in debt in the farm but clearly able to turn it around but the bath/house/ track / herds need money so the millionaire next door lends her some.

she then falls in love with him whilst he deals with ex wife/ girlfriend/ daughter etc and eventually he tells her he loves her too (normally they have sex in the middle of the book and he disappears on business without a word). Meanwhile she sells her homemade necklaces to a top boutique in New York and rescues a sheep and he returns and proposes telling her she is the one.

Pregnancy. I hate hate hate it in books - I will literally stop reading if it happens.

Oh dear god I have stitches in mu
fingers and can’t type for toffee.

meant tosser ex boyfriend etc
farm shop bookshop etc is left in a will

Yes, I much preferred those that were structured like a proper novel rather than the series of linked short stories format that she seemed to move to later on.

I read 'Light a Penny Candle' when I was 14 and was mesmerised by it!

And note that if a female character of childbearing age feels nauseous or throws up, She Is Pregnant. There can be no other reason. Even if the positive pregnancy test two chapters later is presented as a huge shock.

Also with Helen forester I think there was a bit of wish fulfilment in later books but having read things like Working Class Wives and Round About A Pound A Week, (plus another really dismal one about workers wives in belfast in the 30s), I actually can absolutely believe that the tuppence across the Mersey era was as she described. Her People by Kathleen Dayus is similar. Below Stairs and books like that show why people were anxious to have their twelve year old girls go to work as maids 6.5 days a week, because they were ensured food, shelter, heat and financial security!

I did like circle of friends and some of her early ones. I think evening class particularly and the short stories were irritating with the sorting out everyone's life, always quietly speaks sense women.

Oh sorry, back to the actual thread…

I HATE present tense! Hate it! But it seems to be nearly entirely the done thing!

I went to a talk by a well known Irish indie publisher a few years ago and she told the room that if a writer wasn’t writing in present tense these days they should ask themselves why and change to using it! NOOO!!!

a well known Irish indie publisher
Name and shame @sorbetseason