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.

darisdet
Clan of the Cave Bear

How could I have forgotten that. This thread is reminding me of how many bad books I've read over the years. Not all bad by any means, but still

We were all obsessed with The Valley of Horses in secondary school because it was the first book any of us had encountered with proper sex scenes

😅

There was a lot of that!

I thought the half Neanderthal son would have some significance and pop up in one of the later books but nothing as far as I remember.

I first read Helen Forrester's autobiographical books when I was about 12 and was very affected by them. Reading them again when I was older I did wonder how much was an exaggeration.

Sometimes it's better not to revisit! There's a few I've read when younger and been touched/shocked/horrified, but as a more cynical adult, clearly less able to suspend disbelief, I more often think, as they say on Mumsnet, "Did ye aye"

This thread sums up the reasons why I rarely read fiction anymore, it's so hard to find a genuinely good book!

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the policeman trope (and its always a male police officer) whereby he's single, attractive to women but rubbish with relationships and has a teenage daughter that invariably gets kidnapped or held hostage.

The Receptionist of Chipping Sodbury
Is clearly a murder/crime mystery and one I'm keen to read!

A note about school timetables: from age of 11 I had double lessons at least twice a week. I always enjoyed double French, which is just as well because one year Mondays started and finished with double French. have never heard of lessons being less than hour, what madness was that?! And yes, 6th form was all double lessons...This is from just before to well after the millennium!

What on Earth have you been reading? 😆

Again what book does this? I have read thousands of books in my life and never, ever read anything like this.

So many great posts here!
I hate reading ‘the new moon was bright in the night sky’ I have come across similar phrases so often. AAARRGGGHHHHH!
I remember reading Helen Forrester’s autobiographical novels in my teens and being so upset by them and hatingbthe mother. My lovely Nan read them and said they were too far fetched and no mother would be that stupid.
No twee bakery, cup cake, knitting shop, seaside cafe book especially involving an inheritance from a long lost aunt in a Cornish village with over 10000 5* reviews on Amazon will ever find its way to my shelves.

I read one recently set in the 90s and it felt like the author had flicked through some old copies of Just 17 or More to shoehorn in as many 90s product references as possible. It annoyed me more than it probably should as it just sounded really contrived. She treated her hair with the Salon Selectives conditioner etc.

My biggest pet peeve though is when a book is set in, say 1984, but the character will be listening to a song that didn’t come out until a year or so later. It’s basic research if you’re writing about an era you haven’t lived through. Ditto the 80s fashion - we stopped wearing leg warmers and rara skirts well before 1987 believe it or not.

In middlebrow literary fiction it's very common to get a lot of unnecessary background material woven nailed onto the story ... just to show off What A Lot of Research I've Done
Oh, yes. I hate it when they have spent months researching and are damn well going to include every last detail in the book. It's like being at a party where you are trapped in a corner by a bore.
Of course people have also mentioned the opposite - where the writer doesn't research enough!

I have read books where the author Clearly Knows Their Subject and the book is a delight. There's a big difference between "I know my stuff" and "I'm going to show off my research". It's the over-explaining, isn't it?

Yes. Sorry to be picky, but I had doubles lessons at school in the 80s/90s, and there are double lessons on the timetable in the school I currently work at.

Agree about the other stUff, though. Teachers having time to do anything other than work while at school. Or having evenings free to solve mysteries or engage in torrid live affairs.

Pull the other one, mate.

Teachers having time to do anything other than work while at school. Or having evenings free to solve mysteries or engage in torrid love affairs.

In fairness I have friends who are teachers (in one case now a deputy head). They work hard during the school day but they absolutely have their evenings free. One runs a party catering business and one is a moderately successful artist but if they directed their energy at solving mysteries or having affairs, they could probably manage it.

Or even worse, a tired plot is lent gravitas by tragic historic events.

Yes! In the Grantchester series the author makes his protagonist (a vicar based in Cambridgeshire) randomly be in Berlin the day the wall went up, so he could heroically escape. Then later sent him on a holiday to Florence in 1966 just so he could be heroic in a historic flood in which more than a hundred people really perished. Poor taste.

When the author is clearly basing the main character on themself. Usually new or bad authors (i.e. the ones who got the book deal through fame in another category- youtubers for example.).

I hate when there are loads of characters introduced all at once and then no reference to anything other than their name further in. Have to go back to reread and that's not easy on a kindle

I now think that most contemporary novels are too long and don't justify the length. Most could profitably be pared down to 250 pages, as opposed to 400. We need some more effective editors. Unless you're going to include some meditations worthy of George Eliot or Hugo, then move it along please.

I’m very jealous their energy, then! I’m SLT and if I’m not working I’m trying desperately to be a present parent…or sleeping .

I’m trying desperately to be a present parent…or sleeping

Oh they don't have kids (I possibly should have mentioned that )

Basically any book which has been plotted by the author coming up with a sensational and incredibly puzzling opening scenario/ question - someone has moved back into the area but their children haven't aged a day! someone seems to know everything the main character does and sneaks little tiny things relevant to their lives into their house! - but didn't at the same time come up with the solution. So the solution is either the incredibly obvious and boring one, or it is not resolved at all, or (as with PP) the initial scenario was actually the narrator's fever dream. Sophie Hannah is appalling for the first one, and I say that sadly, because I love hearing her speak.

I have a very specific one: in the Strike series (Rowling/Galbraith), every single person has a different and unique nickname for Strike!

It's too contrived and really annoying.

Chick lit where the woman falls in love with a man she meets on day one and then next 200 pages are her just not doing anything about it except reminding the reader repeatedly how much she likes him and how obvious it is he likes her, and thats the entirety of the plot.

Also sometimes combined with a knitting cupcake cafe in cornwall, or completely unrealistic career (ice sculpting, making dogs bow ties) which basically means they spend 2 hours a week working and the rest drifting round some small village where no one else ever seems to be working either

I beg your pardon?

Just thought of another

I also did a lot of kindle unlimited reading over lockdown and beyond, and found some excellent books (One for the blackbird one for the crow being a particular favourite as are the British library women writers)

But I did stumble upon a very very specific sub genre of romance - Christian billionaire cowboys

Not just millionaire cowboys, oh no these were all billionaire cowboys. I think one author had about 9 billionaires in one small town at least 2-3 of which were also working as ranch hands because they didn't want anyone to know about their money.

One billionaire is maybe believable, but 9 in one small town, and apparently no one knows they are super wealthy, that stretched the imagination a tiny bit too far 😂

TurquoisePterodactyl · Yesterday 14:25
I am reading these a bit perplexed! It sounds as if many of these issues stem from reading very poor quality literature?

Well yes, people are complaining about things in books that turn out to be poor quality literature. But that's not the readers fault.

I read a range of female authors, that spans things like Jane Austen, Georgette Heyer, Barbara Pym, E M Delafield etc through to Trisha Ashley, Rebecca Pert, Joanna Cannon, Clara Benson.

But whilst I have enjoyed the books by the above authors I have also read some authors in the same genres who have been truly dire. But that's not my fault as a reader. And I'm certainly not going to not pick up new authors to try in case I get accused of reading very poor quality literature.

Well yes, people are complaining about things in books that turn out to be poor quality literature. But that's not the readers fault.
It was BookGroup made me do it.

I've read some bad books through reading clubs, too @senua

I've got an English degree from Cambridge but fully enjoy a well written story-driven comedy/thriller/romance book. Well written is the key and it's pretty hard to know whether you're getting a good or bad example of the genre in advance.