That moment when the book turns terrible

[TofuTuesday]

You know when you are reading something great, and then the character says or does something beyond belief, or a character appears, or the dialogue fails? I’ve just hit it with the book I’m reading. I’m now in the ok this is stupid phase, and making myself read it.

It would be outing because I've moaned about it in real life but it's a book set in England, written by an American (I think) and it gets something wrong that's dear to my heart!

Oh no! I hate that it’s like a big jump back into reality.
my pet hate is thrillers where a local shop owner or postman decides to join forces with the heroine to find the missing woman/dog/child and they start driving to abandoned places or investigating. I mean come on. As if you’d agree to help Mrs jones across the road check out an abandoned warehouse six miles away.

Same on TV dramas, you’re watching what seems like a good drama then it descends into absolute unbelievable nonsense. Sooo annoying!

I read a single (single!) line in a book which was the opposite of what I understood the character to be and it ruined the rest of the book for me. So disappointing.

Not quite the same, but my current book is driving me crazy because the author keeps having characters refer to things that happened earlier in the book as if the reader should already know about them, even though they've never mentioned it before. I keep having to go back to check I haven't accidentally missed stuff. There's a whole paragraph where I can only assume something was removed at the editing stage because otherwise it makes no sense. It's a famous book too and I'm very unimpressed.

Name

The year of the locust
Behind her eyes

Carol.
I don't like it at all.

My mother and I frequently moan about Mariella (Masquerade at the Wells). She kicks off the shackles of the expectation to dance, gets into Vet School… then giv s it up with only a year left to marry the handsome Vet (she did say she could use her training to act as a nurse). There is no way she would have given up like that. Unless she was pregnant, I suppose. But no pattern of tiny feet.

Easily done! The whole of a book was ruined for me by the epilogue and im still furious thinking about it.

At least she didn't end up with horrible Nigel!
I love that series. And the Drina books.

Yes. But I reckon she’d at least have qualified as a vet with Nigel. Not least because he’d want her to bring in the money.

Veronica was allowed to choose dance over Sebastian, even if it turned out okay for her. And at some point she acknowledges that she sacrificed her time with Vicky for dance. So why wasn’t Mariella allowed her career?

DISCLAIMER; I may be overthinking this.

I can always wind up my 25 year old DD by saying Tennis Shoes. She responds by muttering darkly about umbrellas.

There is no point in a book when I'm not willing to DNF. I've been known to give up with only a chapter to go if it annoys me.

I've watched Behind Her Eyes on TV and it did a hairpin turn into utterly batshit. I almost admire how awful it is!

I really would love to do this. I’m currently reading Liar and now I hate it.

Babel, when the thing that happened on the ship happened and they got away with it.

I enjoyed an author, so thought I'd read one of her earlier books. Big mistake. The husband wanted a baby so much that he put pin holes in the condom. The wife never wanted children, but hey ho, she forgave him cos she just loved him SO much. And yes, she kept the child she was tricked into conceiving. I was like WTF.

Babel by R. F. Kuang ?

That might have been the book I was talking about!

Ha Adele parks! I was the same with that book, I'd really liked her previous ones but haven't read another as that book was condoning sexual assault and forced pregnancy. Can't believe it got published tbh.

Don’t get me started on No Castanets at the Wells. So Caroline “learned” flamenco in one night did she? My arse she did!

@Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies Mariella was much more pragmatic, feet firmly on the ground. She probably had a very happy life. Veronica was known to be away with the fairies and single minded.

The blue hour by Paula Hawkins.

The final page. Literally what was the point of the entire book?!

It's bloody awful isn't it!?

The world building is great, but all the characters are awful and the plot is so bad I kept thinking it must be a misdireaction to a great twist.

Sadly not.

It did just get worse and worse, and squandered an great set-up.

I threw My Sisters Keeper across the bed I was so enraged with the ending and never read Jodi Picoult since. (I think the film has a different ending)