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.

I am listening to Blackout - I can cope with the occasional error from the author but the narrator - american - has taken on board that in the south we say “parse” for pass.We don’t however say parsenger or parsage ( passenger etc…)
Or the “Arp” for the ARP wardens…. And the 2060 Oxford characters all have upper class 1940s accents - even when they are home in 2060. I'm not sure how you throw an Audiobook across the room but I’m heading that way.

I had just had an enchanted holiday of my own in the same place as The Enchanted April so didn't even notice the men, I was so in thrall to the glories of the setting. But in retrospect I can see what you mean

Oh that sounds lovely - I love the idea of going away but don’t want it to end with everyone coupled up, even to horrid men, being the main prize!

maybe I’ll put an ad in the paper!!

@celandiney I had the same thing listening to an audiobook of Carola Dunn's Daisy Dalrymple mysteries! They parsed each other in the parsage I also think they may have referred to "the Mater" as "the Matter" I had to stop it after a while. The author has lived in America for years but she is actually English-born and educated so you'd think she would have flagged it, unless it's all contracted away from the original book.

Head to Rapallo in Liguria, and walk along to Santa Margherita Ligure and head up this hill and you're there

I am listening to Blackout.....

I've come to the conclusion that Americans should not attempt to write books set in the UK in the Second World War. They never get it right.

What nearly had me flinging my laptop against the wall once wasn't a published book but a website for aspiring authors where members posted chapters of their novels for critique by other members. This particular chapter was set in a pub in London some time during the war. There was an air raid and the Yank who was present started telling everyone what to do.

I didn't offer any critique - I'd probably have got myself banned from the site if I'd said what I was thinking.

@SydneyCarton I'm also having to cope with ''Dime ler'' for Daimler which is cropping up surprisingly regularly...😁
It's v annoying - and yes, I'd have thought your English-born narrator would have managed better!

Oh no, thanks for the heads up, I love those books bit that sounds awful 😩

Just to say, as an author whose books are turned into audiobooks, we are usually given input into the narrator but don't have any further contact with the production of audiobooks. Most authors never even listen to their own books (I listen to mine but that's because my narrator is brilliant and improves the books no end).

@PangolinPan @JaneyDC there was another Adele Parks one (think it was the second Connie and Luke book) where one of the other characters inseminated herself using sperm from Luke’s discarded condom, and then got pregnant and everyone was fine with it! That was several steps too far for me.

Agree with Babel, and Year of the Locust which was bizarre in the extreme.

Haven't read many of the others (thankfully) but I have just finished The Wedding People which was recommended to me several times.

Can't see what the hype was about and all the characters were just highly annoying, except for the kid. And it had the same meandering thing going that Babel has. I think I am in a minority though!

Was that one of the County Guides to Murder books? I really wanted to like those but the plots were so bad I couldn't. Although I do love the Dandy Gilver books and they also can have quite ludicrous plots but they are better written and I love the period, scenery and characters which makes up for it.

Ah, ok. I just heard her talking about it and heard podcasts but didn’t read the book. I have read that Sickert was obsessed with the murders and probably wrote fake confession letters or something. But I think I’d got so fed up with her novels that it was the final straw. I don’t mind gruesome in principle but the plots seemed to me to be away with the fairies and I’d started off by loving them

@Vroomfondleswaistcoat I suspected that she can't have heard the final version!

@HoppityBun He sounds like a very unpleasant man and may well have written some of the Ripper letters, but I think now none of them are believed to be genuine. My mum has a lot of the Scarpetta books and I enjoyed reading them, especially The Body Farm (fascinating!) but Kay just got too saintly for my liking, and I could never understand how she wasn't the size of a house with all the pasta and red wine she keeps knocking back!

I read one recently, terrific plot, thrilling developments, good characters, and you really wanted it to all come good. Got to about ten pages near the end and was reading with bated breath for the final exciting denoument, and it fizzled out into a damp squib.

It was almost as though the writer had decided they'd reached their word count and completely lost interest so finished it off unsatisfactorily without much thought at all, leaving half the plot lines dangling. Aarghhh.

Can't remember what it was now, and I was so annoyed about investing all that effort for no return. It went straight to the charity shop.

I always felt the scarf/Kominski theory was promising with Ripper theories.

The Slap was awful, The Names was amazing - stuck with it!!

This has since been massively discredited.

Yes. But only because I had heard previously about research and experiments where people raised animals alongside their own children, in order to compare development.

I love Ellie Griffith's Ruth Galloway novels but the one set during Covid times really did my head in. It was so soon after when I read it that I could remember well enough the situation we had all lived through and her 'version' of it was just wrong. I did do a complete re-read a few months ago and it didn't annoy me as much so I suppose time passing helped with that.

!!! YES! I was three-quarters through a fairly compelling 'is or isn't he a psycho' kidnap/murder book when the heroine 'suddenly' remembered that her husband used to torture animals and hurt children when he was younger ...
FFS! Terrible!

I also hate it where a writer thinks they are setting the scene just by reeling off the list of street names a character is walking along.

"He walked along Oxford Street, then turned left long Argyll Street, passing the London Palladium...". It adds nothing to the atmosphere, it just sounds like directions

A very well known author of many books, who has also written episodic works in a famous newspaper, made a huge error at the end of one of his books. It was something he really should have known because of his other profession.
I put it down to the volume of books he writes however I decided not to let it go, it was too big a mistake, so I did email to point it out and got a lovely , charming response. The error has been corrected in subsequent editions of that book.

Hasn’t put me off his books, as he is a lovely man

I'd love someone to explain why The Names has such amazing reviews. I found it utterly depressing and a bit lacking.