Book icks

[butimamonstersaidthemonster]

I love hearing peoples biggest book icks.

I hate when plot holes are explained by characters being so rich that they have access to technology that doesn’t exist.
I hate when a character is paralysed and then it turns out that they were faking it - you can’t fake it for months or in some books years!
I hate when books are described as ‘the next gone girl’ like it isn’t a major spoiler.

I'm sure I have loads more I can’t think of right now.

Similar names - if you are writing a fantasy book with fantasy style names, don’t pick two three syllable names that both begin with A. I will not be able to distinguish between those characters.

When normal but not particular common words are used multiple times, but not for effect. I read a page yesterday that said the word latter twice. It just jarred, it was the right word, but use a synonym. There was another one, I can’t remember the exact word, but it was something like “pontificated” was used 3 or 4 times across the book. The first time, fine - but every time afterwards it jarred with me and took me out of the reading experience because it’s just not natural to use the word so often when there are so many synonyms. I don’t know how editors don’t pick up on it.

Also for TV, but explicitly saying something by that was obviously inferred. One character frowns and huffs in response to another, then the other has to say “oh they seem annoyed”. I KNOW WE CAN ALL TELL.

And “let out a breath they didn’t know they were holding”. Since I noticed it as a trope it seems like lazy writing every time I read it, it doesn’t mean anything or add anything to the scene. Just don’t write it.

Someone I know claims to have read the entire Lord of the Rings without realising Sauron and Saruman were different people.

Oh oh another one! - 'I wondered idly where the ragged, hoarse screaming sound was coming from. It was several moments before I realised it was my own screams'

How the fuck would that work?

That is interesting, thanks. Heyer has a Theophania shortened to Tiffany in The Nonesuch, which I always find a bit jarring, and one of her other books has Gareth shortened to Gary as the hero. I don't know why I find Gary so off-putting! She's very sure-footed usually, but couldn't have predicted changes in fashion when she was writing.

Ellis Peters has a Theodosia shortened to Tossa, which is worse

A really, really scared ventriloquist?

They're not actually mine - I can take or leave biscuits - but my husband chows down at least half a dozen at a time so we always have plenty in the cupboard. He somehow manages to stay rake thin no matter how many he eats 😡

And then there’s Sir Waldo in The Nonesuch, although one of the other characters comments on what a funny name he’s got.

Edited to add, thinking about it, that Heyer also seems to have a thing about the name Albinia. Lots of her books have a minor character called that and several of them are unsympathetic.

This happened to me giving birth - I could hear a noise like a cow in distress and my husband told me it was me!

Apparently Tiffany is a very old name - mediaeval in origin, but sounds very modern.

In my head you have to be wearing thick fluffy socks to be capable of any sort of padding.

Oh yes, or slippers.

Or be a cat. Mine is very good at padding, unless she’s got the zoomies or is pointedly
walking over me to tell me she wants her breakfast.

@Greenandyellowday
Do you think part of your ick is the use of the American term ‘panties’ which, in the UK is a total cringe word for most of us? If it said ‘she pulled on a clean pair of knickers’ or ‘she threw her underwear in the dirty laundry’ ,
the reference to her under garments would be a lot less noticeable.

Another ick is the overuse of adjectives, so they don’t just have a meal at the pub, but it was a perfectly cooked, juicy tender steak, followed by a sumptuous, mouthwatering lemon posset, parred with crisp, English white wine.

Ah, yes. The Marks & Spencer school of fiction.

I've thought of a few more this afternoon.

Almost any modern novel, regardless of when it's set, written in the first person. I think it comes across as pretentious and requires a skill few contemporary authors have. I make an exception for a book that grabs me within a few pages despite the FP narrator but it's rare.

A special place in Hell is reserved for authors who write from the posthumous POV of the narrator. I downloaded a book this afternoon that began "I was 29 years old when I died" then went on to describe past events in the present tense eg. "I am watching my child being born". I managed about 3 pages. If it had been a paperback instead of Kindle, I'd have chucked it across the room.

Any book with the tagline The Untold Story of ..... insert relatively well-known historical figure but it's usually Anne Boleyn. Deduct points if told from the POV of Bessie The Chambermaid or similar.

I can't be arsed with time-slip / flashback / possessed by the soul of long-dead ancestor novels. They're tedious.

Likewise Jacintha, who owns a tiny art gallery in trendy London borough, finds herself, for some reason, in the wilds of Cornwall/Wales/The Highlands. She visits a local museum/ stately home and becomes intrigued by a painting/ ring/ stash of letters connected to an ancient mystery that she then solves with the help of the local vet, who's also skipper of the lifeboat and helps out at the local pub in his spare time. Last line "I see Bessie the Chambermaid smiling at me, she is finally at peace".

And yes, panties. Especially if prefaced with "tight, white". of "lacey" There are not enough boak emojis in the world.

I read a lot of M&B/ Silhouette/ Harlequin romances in my teens and early twenties and the tight white panties were guaranteed to make an appearance.

And Jacintha’s first meeting with the vet is when she nearly runs him over / spills a drink on him / bumps into him at speed & he ungraciously refuses to accept her apology, leaving her thinking what a rude & unpleasant man he is. Meaning that she is going to be engaged to him by the end of the book.

And double ick if the vet/gardener/woodworker/warden of nature reserve has a Tragic Past which means he has cut himself off from society, especially women, and only Our Heroine can melt his icy heart.

And the Ice Bitch who broke his heart will make a reappearance half-way through and threaten the burgeoning romance with her immaculate hair and designer clothes (which she slips into, unlike Jacintha who just "throws on" a pair of jeans and a jumper).

@EmpressaurusKitty , @HelenaWilson and I have obviously read more of these things than we care to admit.

A Gentleman in Moscow. The fall of the Tzars, the protagonist is under house arrest in a fancy hotel in Moscow and forms a charming friendship with a little girl who is staying there. He is already quite old. A decade or two later, she comes back all sexy and grown up and they have sex.
Ruined it for me and I stopped reading. It was a pity it fell to this gross trope as the history and sense of the time was brilliantly portrayed in the book.

And the sundered couple will get together again in the last or the penultimate chapter.

Just in time to solve Bessie's mystery (she died in the place of Anne Boleyn, being her identical twin but separated at birth, who Henry could actually not bring himself to have executed so accepted Bessie's noble sacrifice and allowed Anne to live out her days in exile in France).

This stuff writes itself, doesn't it?

@EmpressaurusKitty , @HelenaWilson and I have obviously read more of these things than we care to admit.

I suppose everyone went through a M&B phase in their teens and early twenties. At least in a romance you know what to expect. It's even more annoying when you think you're reading a mystery and the Tragic Past makes an appearance. No I don't care that your wife cheated on you or died in a car crash. I want to get on with the search for the lost Shakespeare manuscript/Holbein painting/jewel of the Romanovs.