The Mock Turtle

I hate science stuff in fiction, I just skip it all.

Also "quirky" women in chick lit, it's such a cliché.

And it's very specific but I hate when a writer is describing a character walking but uses "padded"

"Jenny padded across the room to look out the window" Nobody EVER says that in real life.

I have never noticed that before Sal, but you’re right it is annoying!

Pippedydeadeye wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:42 pm

Roma wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:12 pm Open endings. It always feels like a cop- out to me and it’s so frustrating coming to the end of a book and not having a proper ending.

I love an open ending!!i just decide what should happen, or accept that there aren’t many definitive endings in real life.

Me too Pip - for example, the ending of the Shawshank Redemption novella vs the film. The book was perfect, no neat ending just a message that it's best to live in hope. Which is kind of the whole point.

I hate “padded” too

I hate it when animals get killed in books & there is usually no reason for it whatsoever. It makes me wonder about what kind of person the author is to think of stuff like that.

Similar to padded - I hate "their eyes narrowed". Usually when the author uses it they keep on using it until I imagine the character has no eyes left.

Yes to padded!

Lola wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 12:20 am
I hate it when animals get killed in books & there is usually no reason for it whatsoever. It makes me wonder about what kind of person the author is to think of stuff like that.

Same.

Chicky wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:33 pm I hate dialect/slang (in normal books). The woman in Elizabeth George’s books always says “c’n” instead of “can” and I hate it.

Urgh. I hate it when people write in what they imagine the accent to be. Particularly any fake northern that has 'oop' instead of 'up' etc.

Ruby wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:38 am

Chicky wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:33 pm I hate dialect/slang (in normal books). The woman in Elizabeth George’s books always says “c’n” instead of “can” and I hate it.

Urgh. I hate it when people write in what they imagine the accent to be. Particularly any fake northern that has 'oop' instead of 'up' etc.

Owen Meany was the absolute worst for that. I hated it so much.

I hate books (and films) with a writer as the protagonist - it just seems so lazy and unoriginal.

I too hate "padded". Normally used to describe some willowy beauty heading to the shower or to make coffee after a right good shagging in some loft style apartment.

I also don't like long sections of poetry, or pondering interjections that don't seem to have anything to do with the story (don't read). I actually say "blah blah blah" in my head as I skip big sections.

All those hours authors properly thinking about words, and readers just blahhhhhhhhhhhhhing through their most tenderest writing. (Not all authors and readers)

I just hated Owen Meany.

I also do not read poetry/verse/song lyrics. Stephen King and fantasy novelists are the worst offenders for this. Related, I cannot abide male (they're always male) crime writers who badly shoe-horn song lyrics into their writing then think they're being clever.

Absolutely cannot bear some male writers writing women and getting it so horribly wrong that it makes you wonder if they’ve ever actually met one.

Marth, that’s so spot on.

I also skip song lyrics and poetry.

olive wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:42 pm

Roma wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 10:12 pm Open endings. It always feels like a cop- out to me and it’s so frustrating coming to the end of a book and not having a proper ending.

Oh my God this! I read a book a couple of years ago that had two female names in the title - a mother and daughter I think and it ended so abruptly. I was left wondering if the last chapter had fallen out or something.

Amy and Isabelle?

Marth wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 7:17 am I too hate "padded". Normally used to describe some willowy beauty heading to the shower or to make coffee after a right good shagging in some loft style apartment.

This is exactly right. It's used to connote wealth and beauty.

Ruby wrote: ↑Wed Sep 16, 2020 6:38 am

Chicky wrote: ↑Tue Sep 15, 2020 9:33 pm I hate dialect/slang (in normal books). The woman in Elizabeth George’s books always says “c’n” instead of “can” and I hate it.

Urgh. I hate it when people write in what they imagine the accent to be. Particularly any fake northern that has 'oop' instead of 'up' etc.

I have read some awful versions of Glaswegian accents, the last Strike book (not the one that's just come out) had a character who was apparently from Glasgow and it was absolutely terrible.

I always take "padded" to mean barefoot.

Accents always seem cringey and condescending to me, like Enid Blyton writing about gypsies or something

Padded is a bit like penned, which seems only to be used in tabloid journalism.

I like a well written Scots dialect to read, but all other accents can do one. This is because Tartan Noir is one of my favourite genres.

I can't be doing with phonetics for accents because I sight read and I have to interrupt my flow to say things out loud in my head. I had A LOT of issues with Wuthering Heights but the bloody accent is right up there at the top of that list.

I really hate books that flip between characters' viewpoints in really short chapters, so the reader is constantly chopping and changing. They generally write in really short sentences as well.

I also dislike lengthy poetry or song in books - especially anything a bit folk-y. I'm coming across a fair bit of this reading to the mini-postes and I feel such a prat saying things like "fol-di-ol a rol diddle diddle' that I just skip those bits now.

I also really dislike lengthy discourses on the history or philosophy of something in the middle of an otherwise decent story - see Moby Dick (fucking whales), Daniel Deronda and Tolstoy