I hate it when books do this

[petronella23]

• start by flinging you into the middle of a conversation or action scene where you don't know who anyone is

• keep swapping between past and present

What are your pet hates?

I can't stand
pages and pages of italics
letters
dream sequences
quirky heroines who everyone is instantly best friends with and falls in love with and leaves them a house in their will after knowing them 2 weeks

Authors who promise a book then never bloody write it like Gillian Flynns Hamlet re-working that I waited literally years for and is now not happening!

I will not read present tense books. It grates.

I dislike and usually will not read books that switch between character's perspectives.

I prefer first person books, but will read third person.

I don't like books that are too formulaic when it comes to setting up relationships between characters.

I hate this modern thing of not using punctuation, especially speech marks.

Also, I skip dream sequences (hate it IRL too, if someone tries to tell me about theirs)

And I often skim read long descriptions of nature, wildlife scenery etc. Yes, yes, it’s green woodland, deserted and very pretty - I get it. But it’s rarely relevant to the plot.

One pet niggle is finding authors repeating negative views about trivial things they presumably dislike themselves, in entirely discrete, unrelated novels. So Jules in Book A hates Snow Patrol, and the poor buggers get a slagging from Johnny in Book B as well. Give it a rest.

I've thought of another one!

When the author has "discovered" a new word/phrase which they obviously love and keep repeating it. Can't remember which book it was but the constant "post-prandial" really got in my nerves!

Books with a heavy handed political message. The Other Hand I'm looking at you.

Books with child characters where the child speaks in a way that no child of that age would speak The Other Hand I'm looking at you again. I read a Spanish book recently when the main character, a 9yo girl who has grown up in a loving home with her mother and grandmother, is obsessed with sex and having sex. It just didn't make sense, she was far too young for that. She behaved like a randy teenager rather than a prepubescent child. And since she was the narrator I found it a disturbing read.

Any book that uses 'and I hid behind a curtain/column/in cupboard and overheard his evil plan', especially where the heroe/s are just some normal people who have somehow snuck into a villian's lair.

Books that introduce a character who seems like they'll be important, but drops them either with no explanation or a clumsy one that suggested the author wanted him/her for just one thing and then wrote them out to make things easier: 'And it turned out Sarah had a broken leg, so we had to leave her behind'.

Both of these indicate lazy writing and I'm suprised they get published.

@Chocolateydrink I agree about that heavy handed political messages can be so irritating and patronising. Especially when the author seems to think it is their role to educate their reader on some fairly mainstream ideology.

Females “padding” into the kitchen/bathroom/down the stairs.

Mind you, I do tend to read some shite! 😂😂

When characters vanish from a series without explanation (Miss Simms in the ‘Agatha Raisin’ series springs to mind). Even a brief two lines along “She was offered a job in Glasgow and moved up there”.

When something that would obviously never happen as there would be paperwork, legal stuff, a doctor to issue a death certificate….but no, a dodgy Vicar can bury you alive in a church you never went to, in a place you never lived with none of your friends (including a copper) being the least bit suspicious. All of your friends will attend the burial and you will only be saved by lighting a cigarette that you had in your pocket - also Agatha Raisin.

Characters that are so perfect, but this perfection leads to a severe lack of personality. Looking at you Cleo from the ‘Roy Grace’ series by Peter James. Stopped reading them as every sodding book had sentences of her total perfection. Yawn.

When they keep flipping POV without a break. I don't mind if it's clear but it can get so confusing.

There's a whole series of crime novels by JD Robb where the investigation is punctuated by the police heroine having absolutely mind blowing orgasmic sex with her husband - who is also usually involved in the investigation. It's formulaic, boring and I'm now wishing impotence (please, just ONCE) on the man.

When characters vanish from a series without explanation (Miss Simms in the ‘Agatha Raisin’ series springs to mind). Even a brief two lines along “She was offered a job in Glasgow and moved up there”.

I enjoyed the Agatha Raisins for a while but they just got increasingly stupid and formulaic.

American authors who write historical novels set in the UK and don’t get basic names / conventions right (I’m sure it can be equally annoying the other way round). For example, referring to “Sir John Smith” as Sir Smith rather than Sir John, or having a Victorian aristocrat called Brittany.

Also, whodunnits where the perpetrator is either a minor character only referred to fleetingly in chapter 7 or where the solution rests on something the reader was never told and couldn’t have known. Give us a fighting chance to work it out, please.

When something relatively minor is thrown into the story for absolutely no reason at all, you think to yourself "Aha!! I bet this is a clue for a significant plot twist later on, otherwise why would the writer include it?" ...and then there is no mention of it again whatsoever. It isn't even a red herring to lead you up the garden path, it is just tiresome and unnecessary window dressing.

Completely agree about the nauseating Cleo, had to stop reading Perer James due to her and he is clearly writing for tv.

Where from the very start there's an event referred to repeatedly (usually as something like "the accident" or "that day") and what it is, is kept vague till you no longer care near the end.

When you can see the massive plot twist coming a mile off.

"There was a beat of silence" - I keep seeing this stupid phrase.

E-books with spelling mistakes. I read about 2-3 books a week and I can't get over how many of them still have spelling mistakes.

Uneven pacing. I've just read a book set during the California gold rush. The female lead takes hours to walk into town from her claim, encountering bears, brigands and varying scenery as the goes. Her feet are shredded due to owning no suitable footwear.

Then she decides to hop it to San Francisco and travels by foot, train and boat, arriving for a chicken dinner.

Long chapters, I like short ones so I can think "just one more before I go to sleep".

Agree with inappropriate sex in crime novels where it adds nothing to the plot.

I hate that women detectives or police officers can work 20 hour days, pop home, have half a bottle of whisky, get up, shower (no shaving legs or pits, or drying hair, or applying make up) then drive straight back to work. After another 20 hour shift she's still confident enough in her freshness to shag someone bent over the crime desk. Then have a five mile run to clear their head. Who are these hairless, non-sweating freaks who never need to change a tampon or have a dump? When do they buy food, or hoover, or pop in to see their mum? What about renewing their home insurance? I'm massively over thinking this!

When they drop hints about something that happened all the way through the book but don’t tell you about it until the end.

We Need To Talk About Kevin is an example of this.

Books written in an accent. Just write it English and I'll read it in the accent as half the time I can't work out the words meant to be used.

”Two people having an important conversation.”
”But the author decides to stop say who is speaking.”
”Carlotta said, Dave said etc.”....

”And you have to go right back to the beginning of the conversation…”
”… to find out who the very important thing happened to.”

Also a sign of poor characterisation. If Carlotta and Dave are well drawn characters, their speech patterns should be distinctive enough that the reader should be able to tell who is speaking.

Also on dialogue, I hate it when authors try to indicate a regional accent by writing it phonetically, full of apostrophes to represent dropped aitches and gs, and so on. Just say 'He had a strong Glaswegian accent' or whatever and drop in a few - and only a few - regional words and turns of phrase.