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.

A quick note on names, the Tiffany link mentions Wade as a historic male name. I am sure I encountered this in Westerns. Stolid reliable characters I think.

They didn't - he had sex with the actress Anna I think, who was already grown up and had various lovers when they met the first time.
The little girl, who was the daughter of someone high up in provincial government, came back as a young student with her boyfriend, he was delighted to see her but I think he felt old/nostalgic for his student days.
Then they were exiled and she left her daughter with him, who he called "his daughter" just to make life easier I think.

was she claiming to be paralysed or an ambient wheel chair user? Pretty shitty if she was pretending to be paralysed.

Was she an ambulatory wheel chair user or claiming to be completely paralysed?

@butimamonstersaidthemonsterin fairness she didn’t pretend to be paralysed.

it was horrendous though and she went to great extremes to maintain the rouse.

I couldn’t get past chapter 1 in book one, the writing was up its own arse.

Oh god it changes massively also first chapter is about how awful the ‘perfect’ family are so you dont know, sorry 🤣

Honestly, I can live without it. Not a huge fan of her in any way.

The female DCI in police procedurals.

Regulation 271 (a) .2 states the fictional female DCI must at all times tick no fewer than half of the following boxes:

• In her late 30s/early 40s but still attractive
• Single mum to troubled child
• Frustrating co-parenting with difficult ex
• Ex has new younger wife who is pregnant
• DCI has on/off relationship with fellow, male, detective
• DCI is recovering from recent major cock up in her career
• DCI has ageing parent with serious illness
• DCI has extremely sexist, misogynistic Superintendent who is in the Masons
• DCI is extremely tired all the time
• DCI drinks a swimming pool full of coffee every day
• DCI has permanently empty fridge and lives off half-eaten petrol station sandwiches
• DCI is a borderline alcoholic

Note - failure to comply will result in prosecution of author. Anything you say may be written down in evidence.

Did anyone mention the world's greatest assassin / general / poisoner / hacker / etc at 17?

• DCI has extremely sexist, misogynistic Superintendent who is in the Masons

It's the rule in police dramas, on tv as well as in books, that the main character's boss is always an idiot, regardless of sex of main character.

Lack of punctuation which means it’s impossible to know if someone is talking or not, and which person is talking so you end up having to trace your way back up the text to figure out who said what! when one character talks all IN CAPS WHICH MAKES IT IMPOSSIBLE TO READ without getting incensed. Prayer for Owen meany, Im looking at you!

It often seems weird to me that a Superintendent will be out actively investigating a case, possibly with a Chief Inspector as sidekick.

I’d have thought superintendents would be more at management level.

The ones in The Bill rarely left their offices other than to go to senior level meetings and PR things - and that was regarded in its time as a highly realistic police drama. I have no experience of the reality of being a police officer though!

Lack of punctuation which means it’s impossible to know if someone is talking or not, and which person is talking so you end up having to trace your way back up the text to figure out who said what!

I strongly believe that if the characters are well enough drawn you should be able to tell from their dialogue who is speaking, without needing more than an occasional 'said Joe' 'said Jane' to keep track.

In P&P for example, you'd know whether it was Jane or Elizabeth or Lydia speaking, or Darcy or Bingley, without needing Jane Austen to tell you.

I had to teach that book. Halfway through I wanted to kill him myself.

And they are never ever pleased with the dci for single-handedly solving a case. Oh no, there’s at best a grudging hrrrrmph.

That is realistic. DCI’s and above rarely leave their offices particularly uniform ones other than to go to meetings, Detective DCIs and Supt will go to major crime scenes. They certainly don’t go round questioning witnesses, suspects or arresting people. That is something that annoy’s every Police officer relating to Police dramas. It’s the sergeants and constables who do all the hands on work. DCI Grace I’m looking at you.

"She rolled out of bed and put on a shirt, her nipples prominently showing through the thin fabric. She breasted boobily to the stairs, and titted downwards."

The entire paragraph is seared into my brain. I have zero tolerance for this type of writing now.

Yes, a character called Cashel would destroy all credibility for me, as I'm too fond of the cheese.

Dead women.

Just occasionally a publisher will do the right thing. Jan Mark's Handles is set in Norfolk and much of the dialogue is in Norfolk dialect. I was pleased, coming across an American edition some years ago, to find that all this had been preserved - they just put a glossary of the dialect words at the back.

I love that!

Female leads. I read books as an escapism from normal life - my normal life is female, so I want to read male characters. And it seems like nigh on every book right now when you're perusing the new releases is full of female main characters. Fantasy feels particularly bad for that just now. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't such a 'thing'. I love some Terry Pratchett and his female leads, but now it's all about ticking boxes and it's cringy.

Because the overwhelming majority of fiction writers are women. Because the overwhelming majority of readers of fiction are women.