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.

Stephen King is awful for this. Constant use of brand names, and because I'm not American I have to look up what he's talking about almost every time. You can just say ibuprofen, you don't need to say Advil, FFS.

I skip any dream sequence. It’s always pointless and boring.

Descriptions of character’s clothing. It’s often completely irrelevant (or there’s a subtext that I’m missing). It’s really common in US books. For example, ‘she was wearing a blue shirtwaister and Mary Janes’. I saw this sort of thing so often I had to google what both were.

While I like detail and rich language in a book, I don't need irrelevant minutiae. Back when Kate Mosse's Labyrinth came out I remember struggling through a scene where someone makes breakfast, including bread into toaster, butter on to toast, choosing the jam, spreading the jam... That sort of thing is so tedious.

Oh god I hate this, they are so far off the mark. I remember reading a Stephen King book where he'd tried to write about the sensation a woman felt when having her period.
Another male author wrote a shit book from the point of view of a woman main character. Mentioned her going to 'pee' at least twenty times.

Why didn’t Voldemort just Avada Kedavra Harry as soon as he laid eyes on him? He prattled and ponced around too much and made it far harder than it needed to be.

The phrase "I couldn't help but notice how..." or "She couldn't help noticing that..."

Don't know why it bothers me but once I see it in a book then I see it every damn time.

The other thing that annoys me is when the main "character trait" of a woman's love interest is just that he turns out to be incredibly wealthy.

This is mine too! Ridiculous.

I mean why didnt he just throw him out the window in the first place... babies don't bounce

I hate books with too many characters and also when characters names are very similar like, Kate, katherine, kelly, kim etc.

I also dislike overly described food and flowers.

I hate it when a first person narrator describes themself with something visual. Like “the colour drained from my face”. How do you know?? You can’t see your own face??

When a character suddenly launches into a tirade of the author's personal political views. The worst example i have come across is Sandwich by Catherine Newman, which was basically a pro abortion essay. The point where I almost threw the book was where she discusses abortion with her husband, who is in total agreement with her - up til then he has been portrayed as a physiotherapist. But then she tells us that this was a career change and before that he had been a professor of philosophy. Really?! All to bolster up her case because of course this elevates his opinions in a way that being a physio wouldn't. I was so infuriated, like I can't draw my own conclusions, it has to be caked on. Up til then I thought she had something interesting to say.

See also Val McDermid.

And I too ignore poetry, songs and recipes really annoy me.

Also agree with a pp..I never read poetry, lyrics in the middle of a novel, and I never ever look at the map at the beginning.

That happened to Neville and thats how they knew he wasnt a squib (his uncle? Did it as a test...)

Was just coming to say - 'this will make me sound thick, but when all the character names start with the same letter - like Hannah, Haley and Hamble'. But my excuse is I read a lot, and I speed read... 😄

Authors who spell out regional accents phonetically. Apart from it being incredibly irritating to read, they only ever do it for working class or ‘foreign’ characters and it’s SO patronising and snobbish. It also patronises the reader by assuming we can’t imagine for ourselves what, eg, a Mancunian or a Cockney sounds like.

I also hate clunky exposition through contrived dialogue. I once gave up on a crime novel within about 30 pages because the detective was introduced to someone who said “I’m Fred Bloggs” and the detective said something like “Ah yes, I know who you are. You’re a member of parliament, elected in 1997. You went to grammar school and then read history at Cambridge. You’ve been married to your wife since 1989 and you have three daughters, one of whom is…” and that went on like that for about four paragraphs.

On a more practical note, you’d have to pay me to read a novel printed in a san serif font.

Another one - when there isn't a list of characters at the beginning of a historical novel. Am currently reading the Robert Harris Cicero trio and I am constantly trying to remember who is who.

And another one (on a roll here) when the final 15 pages or so are of the author's next book. I never read those pages.

When they shoehorn something in that they don't have a clue about it

The very last sweet valley book was a classic example

It was obvious the author had never used either Facebook or Instagram and didn't have a clue on how they worked,but Jessica used them as part of her job

The others didn't seem to have heard of it

Another bugbear is when the story doesn't move along

I was taught a good book has a start,middle and end

Some don't have a start,sag in the middle and have an open ended finish

This isn’t plot thing, but when an author does something “unique” (by which I mean pretentious). For example, Sally Rooney not using speech marks because she doesn’t “understand their function”. Give me a break.

I really dislike when a book ends on a sudden cliffhanger. In my opinion a book should be able to stand alone, even if the author intends for it to be part of series. I can appreciate leaving some mystery or unfinished business, and many authors do this well. But there are some who seem to delight in leaving readers in the lurch, choosing to end the book just when things are finally starting to happen.

Loads of writers do this, though?

Oh god yes, I don't want extra pages from a different book at the end, I want the book to be the whole book!

On a related note: spoilers in forewords and introductions. If you're ever reading the Hornblower series by CS Forester, I strongly recommend that you DO NOT read the forewords by Bernard Cornwell. He includes major character death spoilers, because he's writing the forewords for each book in order of publication. A great many people (myself included) read the series in chronological order from Hornblower's point of view, so the forewords have spoilers for books much further on in the series. I'm so angry that Cornwell wrote them, and that the editors included them.

When halfway through a book they describe the character's physical appearance for the first time. So then I've got to completely reimagine this character as black, white, red haired, short haired, whatever. It takes me away from the story I've pictured in my head and I lose interest.

‘Crooked smile’ FFS not all men have this and those that do look weird, not cute!

An American author writing about the UK and using ‘soda’, ‘sidewalk’ and ‘purse’ for handbag. Where the fuck was their editor?

Really interesting though is Lee Child Reacher books. All set in the US. Lee Child is British, and he always spells it kerb, not the American curb. Which also seems wrong!!