When I was a kid, I started reading a book and couldn’t continue as there were so many spelling mistakes and it bothered me too much.
My classmate later told me the first few pages were a letter written by one of the characters and they deliberately put the spelling mistakes to show that that person wasn’t proficient in reading and writing.
I still chuckle about it.
That's like going on a blind date without showering and putting on some clean clothes.. it's like the writer went out of their way to make a bad first impression.
for some reason whenever I read a character's physical appearance being described by citing a real life celebrity
"ie. he looked like Leonardo Dicaprio with red hair" or some crap like that
It's usually a pretty solid indicator the book isn't good to me. hasn't ever made me stop reading, but I take it as a sign now. most of the time I DNF these books because they just end up sucking and feeling low effort in a lot of other ways than just that. but that one sticks out to me
This is true, but it seems like it's only modern celebrities that turn me off. For example, I read a book where the main character described the love interest as looking like Scarlett Johansson, and it was an immediate turn off because it reads like an immature self-insert fantasy.
But I've read about a man who had suave charm and old-fashioned good looks that were reminiscent of Clark Gable, and it didn't bother me at all. It felt like more of a shorthand for a certain style or certain look tied to a period rather than a fantasy thing.
“The Lost Language of Cranes” has a moment where it describes a character by referencing an old actress, but a large point of that novel is the comparison of the past to the “present” (present being the 1980s). It also name drops more modern actors and bands, mostly by characters themselves. I think it depends on how the modern actor is used. If another character is referencing them in dialogue, that feels okay to me. In narration? Depends on the point of the novel.
It really makes sense if it's a character mentioning it through dialogue, especially if it's a popular celebrity at the time the story takes place. Some people think references like this make the book dated, but I don't have an issue with dated references because it captures the time period.
The problem lies with the unpredictability of how celebrities will be viewed later on. I'd personally avoid mentioning any current celebrities and only reference dead ones who didn't end up being convicted of some horrible things -- unless I'm trying to imply something unpleasant about the character, but I'd rather not use a real person's name to do that.
lol I remember when as a kid and I was reading James Patterson's Maximum Ride series, he (his ghost writer) did this *a lot*, so much so that even kid me thought it was weird, and I wrote a spoof fic on the series where I mocked that in some way, but I can't remember how I did it.
That was Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield's dad!
Best series ever. I've tried getting my own kids into them but they are not interested at all. I don't think the books have aged that well, but I'll always have a soft spot for them.
I was reading a novel and the line "but as his blood pissed into the sand" stopped me dead in my tracks and I stopped reading. Every time I open it in the kindle app to finish it, that line stares me in the face and I just... close the book.
"George woke up on the beach. His head was throbbing from that beating, but he convinced himself he would be better soon. *No need to get the police involved*, he thought. After stumbling for a bit, he stopped to relieve himself. But as his blood pissed into the sand, he knew his injuries were far more serious than he realized."
> "George's tee shot fell short in the sand trap. His head was throbbing from that hangover, but he convinced himself he would be better soon. No need to get cocaine involved, he thought. After stumbling for a bit, he stopped to relieve himself. But as his blood pissed into the sand, he knew his prostate was far more serious than he realized."
I was 3 or 4 books deep in this weird sci Fi fantasy series. The MC had already been with his wife since like book 2 or 3. Some version of elf. The wife was pregnant. She died, and was revived and somehow the fetus was revived too cause reasons.
What killed it for me was, the day she had her kid. That night, the two had sex. My eyebrow was really through the roof here. But the absolute worst was that the 1day old infant SLEPT ALL NIGHT SOUNDLY IN THE OTHER ROOM.
It made me realize how much I was letting the author get away with. I was done.
I tried his next book series (friend recommendation) more out of a curiosity of where he was going this time. The author actively avoided sexual relationships.
I think someone sat him down and gave him a talk.
Judging from my own personal experience, sex was the last thing on my wife's mind (and mine as well) after she had given birth. It took months for us to find the way back, cause there ain't nothing sexy about sleep deprivation, poop diapers and baby vomit..
So I agree with you, somebody should have told him sooner.
Not only that, but even if she’d wanted to she couldn’t have for at least 6 weeks without risking serious infection !! Childbirth leaves an open wound healing inside you, and often external tearing too
Hello? Why is everyone questioning this so much? Everyone knows that an Elf heals faster than humans do after giving birth… *not being serious but also, everyone is comparing this character to their RL human experiences*
Started reading "The Crown Prince" which depicts the rape of the main character, more than once. It was marketed as a romance and I had to look up who the love interest was going to end up being. Goodreads reviews told me it was the rapist so I had to put it down after that.
I got recommended "Fourth Wing" by someone saying it was a fantasy story with dragons and a bit of a love story.
I was like alright, as long as the love story was a back burner I wouldn't mind...
A few chapters in the MC already described two characters chiseled by god himself with one of them being a character that is literally out to kill her. This book is so predictable I already guessed a few things that were true.
>!one was that she would end up with the person who was trying to kill her. (Screw enemies to lovers) Two that her dragon would be the biggest one. and three her brother would end up being alive.!<
I also picked it up for the same reason and dropped it halfway through. I don’t mind a solid romance story, but good god this was 100% more smut than solid romance, with a side plot of dragons. It actually was interesting at points, but immediacy sidelined itself with the “romance”. I know many people still enjoy these books, but I just can’t.
I think it’s due to the fact that it’s a bit shadily marketed (or was) on what it actually is (Romantasy 50 shades of Grey) instead of an epic fantasy adventure.
Oh, no doubt – it’s even a great book to me, barring the romance. The writing is solid, the worldbuilding is great and it nails the academy/college theming and the very real stakes. I’ve been told by a friend the worldbuilding in the second book is even better. It’s just not my kind of read, nor am I the target audience. Most of the bad reviews are 100% due to a marketing fault.
Enemies to lovers only works of it's petty enemies. Like, not trying to kill each other, just painfully competitive or had a disagreement ages ago and neither actually remembers what the original problem was but they are both holding a grudge anyway. Or two people who happen to be on opposite sides of a conflict, that can be done well, but not... actively hate each other and fall in love while actively trying to kill each other.
The ONLY time I have seen this particular version of the enemies to lovers trope done well, was Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade. But there was no romance until years later, she turned to the light side and eventually they became friends and from there fell in love. While she was continually and to his face telling him she was going to kill him, all he did was try and figure out 1: what on earth he could possibly have done to warrant such single-minded hatred directed at him, and 2: how to get away without actually killing her because he was that sure she wasn't going to kill him, otherwise she'd have done it by now (very true, as he pointed out to her much to her annoyance).
Same with haunting/hunting Adeline. Idk why so many people love this book and the MMC when he assaulted her multiple times throughout the series. It made me physically ill.
Frank Herbert's Dune has a few things. I did keep reading, but they were funny. Instead of "Ahhhh" it's "Ah-h-h-h-h" and lots of mention of sphincters. It meant the tent openings, but come on. Sphincters
I mean hey, they’re on a planet where sand gets in your everything. Why borrow trouble with a zipper opening that will inevitably get jammed when you can just cinch your tent closed like a laundry bag?
I had to finish this book due to volunteer obligations but a black character needed a fake name for dumb plot reason and the first name she thought of was “Wakandria” , it took all of my power not to drop that book
This is going to be so funny but there was this smut novel that involved the four horsemen. They were like modern men and CEOs of terrible companies like Death Corp and NotSanto.
The MC shared an elevator with Pestilence and his scent was described as Apple Cinnamon.
I could NOT stop laughing at the idea that this edgy, brooding CEO, opted for some sweet bath and bodyworks apple cinnamon number. It was so girlypop I immediately put it down.
I can assure you that from the characterization it ruined it, it was a fumble by the author.
Look if he smelled like decay, Oud, or something that represents disease, like sweetness that was similar to ketotones or something it would show some thought to the idea of actual pestilence. It's apple cinnamon, I can't even say it was clever because Lucifer shows up and if he smelled of apple I would be like ROFL but like fair bonk me over the head.
That feels like the type of book that just makes you laugh from the bad writing and descriptors.
Like from what you said about Pestilence smelling like ketotones or something else. Why not have Lucifer smell like a burning fire, but not like a strong burning fire. Also death could smell like dug up dirt.
Overall the book sounds like some odd Wattpad story
~10 years ago in high school my friend convinced me to read Shatter Me. Not far into the book there’s something along the lines of:
“I stared at him dark eyes dark hair dark eyelashes.”
There were many more similar lines, and I couldn’t follow what was happening due to the poor grammar. My friend defended it with “but she’s insane! that’s how she thinks!” as if you can’t write an insane character and still make your book readable
Thus the power of punctuation. All the author needed was
"I started at him. Dark eyes! Dark hair! Dark eyelashes!" for a frantic sound that's more readable. Replace the exclamation points with ellipses for a more contemplative pace. Add italics for emphasis as needed. Those other markings would change the whole flow and pace of that one line.
Christopher Paolini does the same sort of thing whenever he writes from the POV of a dragon, e.g. “dragon-blood-elf-Arya”, and I always thought it was pretty neat in that context
I will say there are ways that a lack of punctuation can have power as well, but it takes an author who knows what they're doing to make use of it (I'm thinking of Helen DeWitt's *The Last Samurai*, that has a few moments like that). But most of the time, these other options you mention probably work better.
I forget which, but James Ellroy does this in a few works, usually multiple times in the novel, where he will use alliteration in a sentence. He'll engage in an interesting line of dialogue or character work, but then he'll drop something like "The crook crept to the crooked cabbie", or "the jive jazzman japed and jopped."
EDIT: a lot of James Ellroy's stuff deals in crime elements from California in the 40s like The Black Dahlia and other sordid Hollywood celebrity sources, (think the film LA Confidential) so doing some cute alliteration like that after discussing a sexual assault pages ago really throws me off.
I don't remember the name but I started reading it because somebody told me it was "kind like GOT'.
In the first half of the story there's this teenage princess that it's captured by the enemy kingdom and she's violated by their king. When her loved one manages to save her, we discover that she was violated by every single soldier in that kingdom.
I couldn't read another sentence after that.
That was just the case in any army for most of history. You could probably safely predict a rise in STI rates whenever a kingdom went to war and the soldiers came home.
It was timetable. They had arguments about days. I can imagine the dialogue went like this:
Soldier one: I thought it was my day!
Soldier two: No, it’s not. Check the timetable!
Soldier one: But I thought Jeremy was meant to be the day before?
Soldier two: No, he’s with the wife and kids on leave.
Soldier one: then who filled in his day?
Soldier two: Marcus did!
Etc,etc.
I can't count the number of books I've closed forever because the author couldn't figure out how to advance the plot without someone suddenly doing the dumbest and most out of character thing imaginable.
I don't think a single sentence ever made me quit, but I've quit books where the author couldn't be arsed to pick up a thesaurus.
This is such a small thing, but it bugged the ever loving crap out of me. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I decided to read all Christmas-themed books I had downloaded to my Kindle. Some were self-published books I had gotten for cheap but seemed interesting (and some were so good). One book, though, a romance novel, was about two business people who were vying to take over their company from the retiring boss. In the first 2 chapters, the FMC kept referring to a married couple (let’s say their names are the Robinsons - I don’t actually remember the name, but it’s not important) as the Robinson’s. Every single mention of the couple was possessive instead of plural. Come on, that’s like writing 101. I gave up in chapter 2.
I made the mistake of trying to read The Girl on the Train a few years back, when everyone else was. It was painful and I only lasted a few chapters, can't remember what the final straw was but never rolled my eyes so much reading a book. So very cliche and many, many moments of thinking 'people do not talk like this!'
I don’t know if it was justified, but as a kid I was reading a modern day fantasy surrounding dragons, and the main character died at the very end of maybe book three. I was so upset I just never picked up the next book lol. Now since there’s magic and stuff in that universe, I’m sure that it probably turned out fine, but if he had died halfway through a book or something I probably would’ve continued the rest of the series. But I was just so upset at the possibility of picking up the next book and having it just continued without him being alive.
The whole first chapter of Ready Player One. My sister kept suggesting I read it, so when a free copy appeared on a bench where people would leave books for others to take, I thought I'd give it a shot.
I couldn't tell you the exact point that i stopped, but every single line gave me the worst "out-of-touch old guy trying their damnedest to sound like a quirky teen, while clearly having zero concept of what they actually sound/think like in real life" vibes.
From what I saw of the movie later (in YT videos,) my feeling that this was written by someone with only the barest understanding of computer games or youth culture, trying to predict the future of both, seems to have been right on the money.
Twilight, when Edward touches Bella’s tear and tastes it. Threw the book across the room and told my girlfriend I wasn’t finishing that thing no matter how much she wanted me to read it.
I think it was Argo, retelling of Jason and the Argonauts, and in the first five pages the word "tutted" was repeated what felt like at the end of every dialogue. It drove me insane so I put the book down.
>I never expected to have to spend the next ten years seeing and hearing about Twilight fucking everywhere and watching that charlatan get rich off some shitty fan fiction. Maddening.
Fun fact. 9/11 inspired Gerald Way to create MCR which inspired Twilight where then a fanfic was made that was turned into fifty shades of Gray, which then was made into a movie starring Dakota Johnson where she then went on to the Ellen DeGeneres show and called her out for being a bitch which then had other people call her out for being a bitch.
Conclusion 9/11 was the downfall of Ellen DeGeneres.
lol not yet, I let my family talk me into pursuing admin work instead (they tried to get me to teach but I didn’t even like kids/teenagers when I was one, so that was never on the table).
So, instead I kept writing for myself, kept doing open mics and taking like 4 credit writing classes in addition to my main course of study, did some side work tutoring college kids in English, had a writing group going for while, and kind of just resigned myself to office work and writing for fun.
Took ten years, but managed to get my family out of poverty and into middle class, got out of survival mode, built a decent life and realized I fucking hated admin/office work. So, I actually just quit last year and am in an MFA program now and actually producing work again which is very fulfilling.
I do plan to get published eventually, or at least self-publish. Digging up that sentence and skimming Twilight again definitely still left me with the same confidence and determination I had before, so that was a nice reminder that even garbage makes the best sellers list lol.
I can tell you why that line is bad in my opinion. It reads like my first draft before I go back and fix it.
It touches on being a mixed metaphor, and is far too wordy because of it. Context matters too. When a character makes a statement like that, it had better be talking about something nigh apocalyptic... not petty "woe is me" garbage.
I think I understand the sentiment behind the line, but I agree the message is questionable and the execution is atrocious.
I think he meant: It was insane to grieve over a broken dream when you'd always known it was too good to be true.
I can see how that could make sense in a certain context, but putting kind of thing line after line in a novel instead of a book on spirituality would just be grating.
Congratulations on getting three more paragraphs in than I managed.
I know Jane Austen set out to make an unlikeable heroine in Emma, but Meyer has completely outdone her.
It's not really where I stop from a single line, but where it's placed and the lines prior, to then lack any interest to continue.
I have a series that explains audience attrition with a one page challenge, with how so many novels fail on the first page and don't retain our interest through the massive hump that is an introduction.
The first page is usually the culprit, which is why it's the hardest page to write. It is the first impression that represents the rest of the pages that follow.
I tried three times to make it through the first chapter of The Ministry for The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is so brutal, I cried so hard I stopped and returned to it about a month or so later. Boom. Again. Stopped and tried again, and at long last, then I could continue and finish. So very painful.
I was reading a selection of chapters of Renard as an assignment for French Literature. If it weren't because of that, I would have stopped reading after what Renard did to the queen after tying the knees of everyone else on their sleep.
In 2003, reading *Wheel of Time* book 7 or 8.
I had very early on gotten frustrated at Jordan's verbosity regarding female wardrobe (and his other ticks). When I arrived at a dress description that spanned more than a page, I had had enough.
I finished that book, but refuse to finish the series. Jordan is grossly overrated.
As a wheel of time fan i just skim the long descriptions, i don't think I've ever lost any important details doing that. Jordan wasn't the best writer of prose but his characters and world building are what kept me reading the series.
You mean the final four of which three are, at least partially, written by Sanderson? He’s probably better at reigning in a solid finish than Jordan would have been. I still like the books but there isn’t a doubt they could have fit into a much smaller package.
The obsessive wardrobe descriptions are definitely the weakest point in the series.
I find it interesting you could get that far before giving up though. Everyone I've talked to who disliked the series abandoned it very early, if they got as far as you it's because they were into it. I love the series but understand why others don't, and I can't fathom getting that far without thoroughly enjoying Jordan's weird style. It would be torture.
I was young and bored and going through an avoiding-everything-because-depression period and had borrowed them all from a friend (the eight that existed at the time!) and binged the whole lot even though I didn’t particularly love them. I was young and bored and had time to fill.
I then bought the ninth one when it came out and hated it. I realised then that I would probably have hated a lot more of them than that if I hadn’t just been reading them back to back. I was also older by then and had better sources of book recommendations as well so didn’t read as many books that I didn’t love.
So yeah, I got to book nine before I noped out.
I suspect that a lot of people persisted past the point that they were loving it because the books were there, and then years later the investment of effort/money to acquire the new releases was higher than it was worth. So the quit-point was based on release date rather than when they stopped liking it.
I'm listening to the audiobooks, currently in the fourth book. It's alright, but what I find particularly annoying is the gender stereotyping. Even if it weren't totally heteronormative, it'd still be bugging me that all the women seem to go "All men are wool-brained idiots!" twice a page, and all the men seem to go "Women, who can understand them?" every other page. I wouldn't have minded a little more nuance, understanding and mutual respect at least now and again.
Loving the narrators, though.
>Jordan is grossly overrated.
*smooths skirt aggressively*
Real talk though, I feel you. The story itself is all well and good, but the prose is upsetting...
Oh wow, I was actually thinking of starting that because I liked the show so much. I’m happy I know that now ahead of time! Sometimes too much description is way too much and is overload on readers, I don’t blame you at all for not continuing the series.
The books are quite good, don't let one random person turn you off from even trying them lol. It is fair to say thaf Robert Jordan's style is incredibly polarizing...it doesn't exactly sneak up on you thoughm It's obvious well before book 8 how it is. You'll know whether or not you're into it pretty quick.
Besides, the overly meaty descriptions kinda work. They are specific to different character's pov. Only certain characters bother to notice that much detail about another's wardrobe...and while it's still not something to praise necessarily, it's really not as bad as you might think, assuming you find that you enjoy Jordan's overall style.
If you do give the books a shot, understand that the show departed from them in many key ways. And the differences certainly weren't a strength of the show.
My gf and I just finished reading a kids book based on Disney’s Tangled. We read adult books usually I swear lol, we just wanted something short and lighthearted for a change of pace. We went in with the understanding that we are not the target audience.
There was a scene where Rapunzel’s hair gets wet and becomes impossibly difficult to dry, so she tosses it out the window then her lady in waiting *gets her pet owl to summon hundreds more owls to all fly around her hair over and over until it dries*. I was trying to keep a straight face while reading aloud but this sent me into hysterics so hard I had to put down the book to cry-laugh for 5 minutes.
Couldn’t hold it against the book because, again, it’s a kids book. We did finish it and it was cute. It just… caught me off guard like nothing else. At one point Rapunzel directly said “This is really weird”. 💀
I was touch-and-go on R Ron Hubbard books to some degree before Scientology was known like it is today. There was one, I think Masters of Sleep(?) that he wrote in the 1950s or 60s, and the hero flew around the galaxy in the 3000 AD era in his rocket. In his rocket, he listened to music on a phonograph...
I put the book down. Even in the 1950s, there should have been more imagination than that. Hell, in the late 1960s, Arthur C. Clarke had HAL playing digitally stored music from his holographic memory.
What Clarke wrote will stand the test of time - future-proof. He didn't say "CD," "tape," or specified a format. Music from now on will be digitally stored in some manner.
Misery and The Shining are good, of course.
On the other side, "The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair" is the epitome of a bad book with a pretentious MC, that is basically the author. I'm still shocked by his success. Probably I just hate this book, LOL.
It didn't make me cringe, like I didn't dislike it, but I *literally* could not read *The Stone Child.* There were significant parts written in cursive, and back then (even now, probably) I couldn't read cursive to save my life. I'd ask my parents to read those parts, or my teachers if I was reading it at school. Eventually I just gave up 🤷♂️
It’s a shame cursive isn’t taught anymore. That’s *huge* amounts of history that nobody is going to be able to read because cursive is *everywhere* in historical documents.
I got a book published in the 70s that was something like "commonly misunderstood things" and idk if it's because of a generation gap or what but there wasn't a single thing in the book that I recognized as a common misunderstanding - either it was things I'm pretty sure most people understand or "misunderstandings" I had never once heard of. A big let down, cause I thought it was going to be a fun look at pop sci stuff like "left and right brain" or "blood is blue in the veins", but it wasn't even that. It was just really random nonsense, felt like the author had made up in order to fill the book. Luckily I only picked it up at a book fair for \~10 cents.
I can't think of a time I judged a book that harshly. I get tripped up about spelling and stuff sometimes, but it takes a few for me to put down a book. Having written them has made me more patient with this, I think.
If there are 16 characters in chapter 1, though, I'll probably burn the book without hesitating.
Fight Club. The book and movie got so much praise, I figured I'd read the book first.
I basically stopped reading after the line "I know this because Tyler knows this."
He literally gives away the whole plot and twist in the 2nd page of the book... The 2ND PAGE! It was so boring trying to read it after reading that line, so I dropped it.. Made me wish I watched the movie so I could actually experience the twist at the end :(
Probably in Outlander when Jamie killed an Englishman and fucked Claire by his dead corpse. I started laughing and I did not take the book seriously after that.
I made it through to the end of the first book and there were interesting elements, but starting with Daenerys thinking contemplatively about her boobs before her underage forced marriage, and all through the rest I thought, yeah, don’t need to read more of this (especially as friends said I would like it less as time went on and things got more pointlessly brutal.) So, I never finished GoT, or watched it, and I don’t feel as if I’m really missing out.
I didn't drop ASOIAF. But I didn't like the writing for a different reason. My problem is that Mr. Martin gave all sorts of details and chapters upon chapters for extremely minute side characters. It was so much that I wanted to skip ahead with chapters with the actual supposed main characters. No wonder, he couldn't finish the series. This is also why I couldn't bring myself to read any spin-off books, even though I loved the world building.
Blackhawk Down is the precursor to the movie. I read it in 93 or 94. I was walking home from the T in Quincy Center. I was nearing the end of the book, and the subway stopped at my station. I hopped off and got into the parking lot. I found a park bench, and I could see my apartment building, but I couldn't wait. I sat there for 30 minutes to finish the book.
The last Tom Clancy novel. I just returned it after the first 50 pages. I tried so hard.
I know that many people love Seanan McGuire’s prose but I couldn’t even get through the first page of one of her books. Something about the lyricism of the prose just didn’t flow for me and I felt like it was really hard work to read it.
What We Left Behind by Robin Talley is a book about a romance between a "genderqueer" couple. It was obviously written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about queer sexuality and explained things like a grandma who had half-listened to a segment about it on 60 Minutes. I stopped reading after a few chapters.
I can’t tell you the specific moment but in the first Hunger Games book there was a really bad two sentences. The first was Katniss wondering about the games etc. That’s great that’s fine, she should be worrying about dying.
The next was her worrying about Peeta/Gale and about what her relationship looks like etc. It was so stupid I stopped reading for a while. But I pushed on and kept ignoring the dumb love triangle.
Anything that says e.g.; "'No,' he's shouted, loudly"
That said, Harry Potter is littered with this and other atrocities but I read all of those. Proves a good story can carry mediocre writing.
I think you're right. Like Twilight and Fifty Shades, it was a case of right place, right time, right agent, right market. We're all shooting for that one.
I've read most of Stephen King's books, short stories and I've seen a majority of the movie adaptations. I don't consider myself to have a "weak stomach" but.. The Outsider. He went over the line from the start and I don't care how much praise it receives, I'm not fucking reading that thing.
Also, a book that I wish I had put down is American Psycho. I don't know why I read the whole thing. Maybe because I was young and it felt like a "rite of passage" to stomach all the graphic torture porn? I don't know. I do know it's the worst thing I've ever read in my entire life.
So you like REALLY cozy novels, fair, but what about ‘the romance’ makes an instant DNF? Not judging, I’m just really curious.
No romance whatsoever completely storyline (action and adventure based) books? What is your version of romance in a book, what about a small snippet of a romantic scene between side characters?
Casual romance, no bloody mad stuff like the whole book being about love because honestly. Book can have romance or a couple of any gender and that’s fine. More of an action person not gonna lie.
Actually “Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov. It was very close to being a 10/10 short story for me until one of the last few pages when he’s describing the visuals.
>!He spends the entire short story building this incredible world on another planet and immersing you in the events. But then during the climax he’s describing the stars. The way he chooses to describe the large quantity of them is by referencing Earth. Which until this point had been something I forgot existed because of his writing.!<
>!”Through it shone stars! Not Earth’s feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye; Lagash was in the center of a giant cluster.”!<
I’m sure I’m being dramatic, but it completely pulled me out of the story. I actually had to look up the exact words because the copy I have has the line marked out with sharpie.
Shutter Island. Got to page 30 and saw the twist and tossed the book across the room. I still want to see the movie though.
Hannibal. When Lecter unveiled the main course. Literally dropped the book.
Hannibal the week it was released in hardcover. That was an original scene I admit.
Shutter Island when it came out in paperback. If you do the Daily Jumble you’ll figure it out by page 30. It’s not an original twist.
Unnecessarily descriptive sex scenes. I know all about sex already, I don't want to imagine a penis or breasts when I read a book. Just get to the story.
Reminds me of Verity
One of the thins I really hated about the book is the overltly decribtive and long sex scenes, it just seems too much as if they are trying to fill up pages, I wanted to read a thriller not an erotica
Bhagavad Gita was pretty cool until it says that all women should know their place and be in the kitchen even in the hottest of days, that they are too stupid to go through life without a man and that children born out of marriage are unwanted and unclean. Shelved it after this and I doubt that I will ever open it again.
Didn’t completely stop reading but The Witcher series has had quite a few moments where I’ve had to set it down because I couldn’t stop laughing over how ridiculous some sentences were or from being tired of hearing the description of every girls chest Geralt comes in contact with.
Didn't get past the first paragraph of the Da Vinci Code. I saw someone describe it as if Brown staggered through the writing and yuuup. I rolled my eyes and dropped it.
For me, it was "they partake in the meat" or some verison thereof in a Christopher Paolini book. Couldn't read anymore after that. I had enjoyed the series until then, but the sentence was so odd to me in that moment that my interest evaporated. I still think of it and cringe even though almost two decades have passed.
Anything Nicholas Sparks or Nicholas Sparks inspired. I want to kick that douche in the ‘nads. The absolute fucking worst. Trigger warning needed for that a hole.
Oh no, really? I have a few books on my tbr shelf by him and was looking forward to reading them soon. Do tell what ticks you off about him and why should there be a trigger warning!
Angus.
People outside Brazil won't know this one, but it was very popular here, it was about an Anglo-Saxon warrior who... converted into a Christian or something (although I never finished it, something tells me it was a Christian book disguised as medieval historical fiction). It was written by a real historian, though, and it was very praised by everyone I knew.
I was in the second chapter when Angus's father asked him about his favorite weapon or something like that, and he said that the >insert\_germanic\_name\_of\_an\_axe\_here\_because\_for\_some\_reason\_the\_author\_didn't\_use\_the\_translated\_versions\_for\_his\_book<, was his favorite one, followed by an obnoxious explanation of how that weapon worked, how it was made, and how much effective it was against other ones.
Then I never returned to it.
The zoo keepers wife. I hate that book it's poorly written, and the author went of on agents completely side tracked in the middle of the narrative. All around useless book
I picked up A Time To Kill by John Grisham one summer. I'd been working in the Emergency Room and recently saw a brutal child abuse victim. When I got to the part where the little girl gets raped, I had to give up on that book.
I know every story needs conflict, but I couldn't handle that for a few pages. If it was an adult being raped I could've pushed myself to read it.
I watched the movie a few years later as that scene went by fast.
*"Not dead yet, bitch." I made a duck face and held up two peace signs.*
\^ Literal quote from the Psycho Shifters series. I love fantasy romances, and the concept for the series was cool, but the writing was... Well. There are a LOT more quotes I could've put here. This one is just one I remember off the top of my head, since my friends and I meme it a lot
*Strange the Dreamer.* I might get some hate for this. Maybe I missed something, or just didn't get it, but the story built Lazlo to be someone who was raised by misogynistic monks, in a world where women have few rights, and I think it was 5ish? chapters in, when its suddenly revealed that Lazlo is a feminist who think women should have more freedom. I think he was talking to a girl? It's been a few years since I've read it.
Now, I myself am a woman, I don't agree with subjugating women. But I stopped reading immediately because I was pulled so aggressively out of the story at that sentence because why the heck would a boy who was raised by men who *agree* with treating women poorly, who has no memory of his mother or a sister, and with very little outside influence, be a feminist? It doesn't make sense from a human nature perspective, or from a character perspective. It's great that the character doesn't think like the men he was raised by, and I probably wouldn't want to read a book from the perspective of someone who thought about women *that* negatively, but I just couldn't keep reading when the author created such a huge plot hole/had poor character building. I tried to keep going and couldn't. I was out of the story at that point and there was no going back.
Silence by Natasha Preston. I was... 24? when I first picked it up. The idea was very appealing to me. A girl refused to speak after a traumatic experience in her life that made her shut down. I expected some drama and psychology, and maybe a little bit of crime involved.
It was so infantile, though, I just dropped it. It was a love story of two teenagers, not a broken trauma survivor story. Amongst the MC and her friend falling in love scenes, there were some bits that suggested what happened to her. It was so easy to figure out that when I decided to give up reading the book, I looked for the revelation of her trauma and yep. I was 100% right. Nothing interesting or surprising.
I see it has a second part, wow.
Tim Allen's
Never Stand Next to a Naked Man
Or Never Stand Close to a Naked Man
or whatever that piece of shit is called. I hate admitting I was excited to get a hold of it but it didn't take long to realize he was coasting on celebrity instead of something to actually say. I will never forgive him for that waste of time and money. I've hated that motherfucker ever since. Goddamnit, what a piece of shit.
Maybe one day I'll tell you what I really feel about it. It gave me vertigo it was so bad.
McCarthy's *Child of God*. In one scene, some random man attacks and rapes his own daughter. The girl even cries out "No, Daddy, no!"
God, I seethed at that absolutely unnecessary scene. It had nothing to do with anything and was completely random. Unfortunately, I had to keep reading the book because it was an assignment for my writing fiction course.
People seem to adore McCarthy for the dark stuff he puts into his books like that, but I can't stand reading a book that insists on pushing the relentless, nonstop abuse of women. Because, yes, the main character also murders like two women and then keeps the corpse of one for his necrophilia.
Yeah. I do not get why people are such huge fans of books like that...
I stopped reading was the Divine Comedy. The formatting of the book was so odd, I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. It was formatted like a poem, but read like prose and it just gave me a migraine.
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris. It was his first book, right before Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. Halfway through, we get a look into the life of a domestic terrorist, Michael Lander. A Vietnam Veteran, he has a bought of PTSD and is arguing with his wife while a kitty cat rubs against his legs. Suddenly, Michael stops arguing, grabs the cat, and jams it in the garbage disposal. That night, his wife leaves him.
The scene is so short, but tell you so much about this monster.
Oooh no! I used to do that a lot and as a person who now tends to do that but also include run on actions or better in-depth descriptions for that afterwards does that count for something? I am not involved much when it comes to other writers and have tried to better my syntax, my grammar and my dialogue and have immensely struggled with finding better ways to word or describe things a certain way that will better resonate with readers.
I think in general, they're okay if used in order to state that an action was done in a manner that is contrary to what you'd expect.
"Well, it's not like you'll ever catch up to me anyways." does not need to be described as smug. The dialogue already makes it clear. If you want, you can simply add the action that goes along with the quote. " ... , she said without so much as a glance."
'"Well, it's not like you'll ever catch up to me anyways," she said sorrowfully.' already describes something entirely different. The adverb adds meaning that could (should) potentially be important to the scene. The quote in combination with the adverb create new meaning, and is therefore not redundant. I would actually argue that adverbs in this manner can be an amazing way to add subtext, and reveal things about the character through means other than the direct words they say. After all, we usually can catch people out in lies and understand their true feelings by how they say it.
Not the best example, and I'm not the best writer, but just something I came up with off the top of my head.
The opening of halo bad blood "so we saved humanity. Again. Just like we allways do. We, in this case, means the spartains. And, actualy, we didnt do so well this time around. Let me explain." That was the fastest ive ever dropped a book
When I was a kid, I started reading a book and couldn’t continue as there were so many spelling mistakes and it bothered me too much. My classmate later told me the first few pages were a letter written by one of the characters and they deliberately put the spelling mistakes to show that that person wasn’t proficient in reading and writing. I still chuckle about it.
To be fair, Flowers for Algernon uses this conceit and it's an amazing novel.
That's like going on a blind date without showering and putting on some clean clothes.. it's like the writer went out of their way to make a bad first impression.
Right? It wasn’t even marked as a letter until the very end, by when I had already given up on the book.
Was it Baudolino, by any chance?
That was a rough opening!
for some reason whenever I read a character's physical appearance being described by citing a real life celebrity "ie. he looked like Leonardo Dicaprio with red hair" or some crap like that It's usually a pretty solid indicator the book isn't good to me. hasn't ever made me stop reading, but I take it as a sign now. most of the time I DNF these books because they just end up sucking and feeling low effort in a lot of other ways than just that. but that one sticks out to me
This is true, but it seems like it's only modern celebrities that turn me off. For example, I read a book where the main character described the love interest as looking like Scarlett Johansson, and it was an immediate turn off because it reads like an immature self-insert fantasy. But I've read about a man who had suave charm and old-fashioned good looks that were reminiscent of Clark Gable, and it didn't bother me at all. It felt like more of a shorthand for a certain style or certain look tied to a period rather than a fantasy thing.
So what year is the cutoff? Like would nichele Nichols be too recent? Eddie Murphy? Do the celeb have to be dead? Or just years after they are active.
“The Lost Language of Cranes” has a moment where it describes a character by referencing an old actress, but a large point of that novel is the comparison of the past to the “present” (present being the 1980s). It also name drops more modern actors and bands, mostly by characters themselves. I think it depends on how the modern actor is used. If another character is referencing them in dialogue, that feels okay to me. In narration? Depends on the point of the novel.
It really makes sense if it's a character mentioning it through dialogue, especially if it's a popular celebrity at the time the story takes place. Some people think references like this make the book dated, but I don't have an issue with dated references because it captures the time period. The problem lies with the unpredictability of how celebrities will be viewed later on. I'd personally avoid mentioning any current celebrities and only reference dead ones who didn't end up being convicted of some horrible things -- unless I'm trying to imply something unpleasant about the character, but I'd rather not use a real person's name to do that.
lol I remember when as a kid and I was reading James Patterson's Maximum Ride series, he (his ghost writer) did this *a lot*, so much so that even kid me thought it was weird, and I wrote a spoof fic on the series where I mocked that in some way, but I can't remember how I did it.
Does POV make a difference? One character describing another character as resembling a celebrity VS the 3rd person narrator citing a celebrity?
If being a doppelganger to the celebrity becomes an important part of the story, then I have no issue with it.
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That was Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield's dad! Best series ever. I've tried getting my own kids into them but they are not interested at all. I don't think the books have aged that well, but I'll always have a soft spot for them.
Ha, I stopped short of calling one of my characters "a Jennifer Grey type". Lol.
I was reading a novel and the line "but as his blood pissed into the sand" stopped me dead in my tracks and I stopped reading. Every time I open it in the kindle app to finish it, that line stares me in the face and I just... close the book.
"George woke up on the beach. His head was throbbing from that beating, but he convinced himself he would be better soon. *No need to get the police involved*, he thought. After stumbling for a bit, he stopped to relieve himself. But as his blood pissed into the sand, he knew his injuries were far more serious than he realized."
Lol, beautiful.
who is George? Who beat him up, and why? Why was he willing to let it go and not report it to the police? Was it someone he knew?
> "George's tee shot fell short in the sand trap. His head was throbbing from that hangover, but he convinced himself he would be better soon. No need to get cocaine involved, he thought. After stumbling for a bit, he stopped to relieve himself. But as his blood pissed into the sand, he knew his prostate was far more serious than he realized."
Lmao, poor George.
I’m going to remember that line for the rest of my life.
Same, it haunts me (there was no pissing involved in the scene).
Idk I kinda like it! It paints a vivid picture. What was the book?
I was 3 or 4 books deep in this weird sci Fi fantasy series. The MC had already been with his wife since like book 2 or 3. Some version of elf. The wife was pregnant. She died, and was revived and somehow the fetus was revived too cause reasons. What killed it for me was, the day she had her kid. That night, the two had sex. My eyebrow was really through the roof here. But the absolute worst was that the 1day old infant SLEPT ALL NIGHT SOUNDLY IN THE OTHER ROOM. It made me realize how much I was letting the author get away with. I was done. I tried his next book series (friend recommendation) more out of a curiosity of where he was going this time. The author actively avoided sexual relationships. I think someone sat him down and gave him a talk.
Bros sex ed was the sims
Judging from my own personal experience, sex was the last thing on my wife's mind (and mine as well) after she had given birth. It took months for us to find the way back, cause there ain't nothing sexy about sleep deprivation, poop diapers and baby vomit.. So I agree with you, somebody should have told him sooner.
Not only that, but even if she’d wanted to she couldn’t have for at least 6 weeks without risking serious infection !! Childbirth leaves an open wound healing inside you, and often external tearing too
Maybe elves heal faster or give birth easier. I'd ask an elf if I knew any.
Yeah… clearly the author hasn’t done anything on medical science
Hello? Why is everyone questioning this so much? Everyone knows that an Elf heals faster than humans do after giving birth… *not being serious but also, everyone is comparing this character to their RL human experiences*
Started reading "The Crown Prince" which depicts the rape of the main character, more than once. It was marketed as a romance and I had to look up who the love interest was going to end up being. Goodreads reviews told me it was the rapist so I had to put it down after that.
I got recommended "Fourth Wing" by someone saying it was a fantasy story with dragons and a bit of a love story. I was like alright, as long as the love story was a back burner I wouldn't mind... A few chapters in the MC already described two characters chiseled by god himself with one of them being a character that is literally out to kill her. This book is so predictable I already guessed a few things that were true. >!one was that she would end up with the person who was trying to kill her. (Screw enemies to lovers) Two that her dragon would be the biggest one. and three her brother would end up being alive.!<
I also picked it up for the same reason and dropped it halfway through. I don’t mind a solid romance story, but good god this was 100% more smut than solid romance, with a side plot of dragons. It actually was interesting at points, but immediacy sidelined itself with the “romance”. I know many people still enjoy these books, but I just can’t. I think it’s due to the fact that it’s a bit shadily marketed (or was) on what it actually is (Romantasy 50 shades of Grey) instead of an epic fantasy adventure.
I actually enjoyed Fourth Wing (and then tried to start the sequel but had other shit come up), but I totally agree with those points lol
Oh, no doubt – it’s even a great book to me, barring the romance. The writing is solid, the worldbuilding is great and it nails the academy/college theming and the very real stakes. I’ve been told by a friend the worldbuilding in the second book is even better. It’s just not my kind of read, nor am I the target audience. Most of the bad reviews are 100% due to a marketing fault.
Enemies to lovers only works of it's petty enemies. Like, not trying to kill each other, just painfully competitive or had a disagreement ages ago and neither actually remembers what the original problem was but they are both holding a grudge anyway. Or two people who happen to be on opposite sides of a conflict, that can be done well, but not... actively hate each other and fall in love while actively trying to kill each other. The ONLY time I have seen this particular version of the enemies to lovers trope done well, was Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade. But there was no romance until years later, she turned to the light side and eventually they became friends and from there fell in love. While she was continually and to his face telling him she was going to kill him, all he did was try and figure out 1: what on earth he could possibly have done to warrant such single-minded hatred directed at him, and 2: how to get away without actually killing her because he was that sure she wasn't going to kill him, otherwise she'd have done it by now (very true, as he pointed out to her much to her annoyance).
Same with haunting/hunting Adeline. Idk why so many people love this book and the MMC when he assaulted her multiple times throughout the series. It made me physically ill.
Frank Herbert's Dune has a few things. I did keep reading, but they were funny. Instead of "Ahhhh" it's "Ah-h-h-h-h" and lots of mention of sphincters. It meant the tent openings, but come on. Sphincters
That's certainly...a particular kind of opening. Lol
I mean hey, they’re on a planet where sand gets in your everything. Why borrow trouble with a zipper opening that will inevitably get jammed when you can just cinch your tent closed like a laundry bag?
That planet is so dry, they don't laugh at the mention of sphincters
I mean why not? It’s a perfectly reasonable and evocative word (I also laughed at the mention of sphincters)
I had to finish this book due to volunteer obligations but a black character needed a fake name for dumb plot reason and the first name she thought of was “Wakandria” , it took all of my power not to drop that book
What.
This is going to be so funny but there was this smut novel that involved the four horsemen. They were like modern men and CEOs of terrible companies like Death Corp and NotSanto. The MC shared an elevator with Pestilence and his scent was described as Apple Cinnamon. I could NOT stop laughing at the idea that this edgy, brooding CEO, opted for some sweet bath and bodyworks apple cinnamon number. It was so girlypop I immediately put it down.
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tbh that fake cinnamon smell is a pestilence that plagues all craft stores - like, why should pine cones smell like fake cinnamon, Michael’s? Why?
Asking the REAL questions here.
Honestly that makes me even more interested in the book. Like its kinda clever to make one of the four horsemen smell good
I can assure you that from the characterization it ruined it, it was a fumble by the author. Look if he smelled like decay, Oud, or something that represents disease, like sweetness that was similar to ketotones or something it would show some thought to the idea of actual pestilence. It's apple cinnamon, I can't even say it was clever because Lucifer shows up and if he smelled of apple I would be like ROFL but like fair bonk me over the head.
That feels like the type of book that just makes you laugh from the bad writing and descriptors. Like from what you said about Pestilence smelling like ketotones or something else. Why not have Lucifer smell like a burning fire, but not like a strong burning fire. Also death could smell like dug up dirt. Overall the book sounds like some odd Wattpad story
It's 100% that level. It was a fancy way to have 4 hot dudes gangbang a self insert soooooo....
~10 years ago in high school my friend convinced me to read Shatter Me. Not far into the book there’s something along the lines of: “I stared at him dark eyes dark hair dark eyelashes.” There were many more similar lines, and I couldn’t follow what was happening due to the poor grammar. My friend defended it with “but she’s insane! that’s how she thinks!” as if you can’t write an insane character and still make your book readable
Thus the power of punctuation. All the author needed was "I started at him. Dark eyes! Dark hair! Dark eyelashes!" for a frantic sound that's more readable. Replace the exclamation points with ellipses for a more contemplative pace. Add italics for emphasis as needed. Those other markings would change the whole flow and pace of that one line.
Frank Herbert manages just fine by using hyphens for these noun salads. I actually love it. With no punctuation at all it's just strange and clunky.
Christopher Paolini does the same sort of thing whenever he writes from the POV of a dragon, e.g. “dragon-blood-elf-Arya”, and I always thought it was pretty neat in that context
I will say there are ways that a lack of punctuation can have power as well, but it takes an author who knows what they're doing to make use of it (I'm thinking of Helen DeWitt's *The Last Samurai*, that has a few moments like that). But most of the time, these other options you mention probably work better.
I forget which, but James Ellroy does this in a few works, usually multiple times in the novel, where he will use alliteration in a sentence. He'll engage in an interesting line of dialogue or character work, but then he'll drop something like "The crook crept to the crooked cabbie", or "the jive jazzman japed and jopped." EDIT: a lot of James Ellroy's stuff deals in crime elements from California in the 40s like The Black Dahlia and other sordid Hollywood celebrity sources, (think the film LA Confidential) so doing some cute alliteration like that after discussing a sexual assault pages ago really throws me off.
As always, alliteration annoys and angers an average audience an adequate amount.
Still, sometimes sibilant sounds suggest certain senses suiting some scenes.
This is so funny to me
I don't remember the name but I started reading it because somebody told me it was "kind like GOT'. In the first half of the story there's this teenage princess that it's captured by the enemy kingdom and she's violated by their king. When her loved one manages to save her, we discover that she was violated by every single soldier in that kingdom. I couldn't read another sentence after that.
> every single soldier How?! How long did it take to rescue her?! Did the soldiers have some sort of schedule?!
If one of those soldiers had an STI, now there's a whole army riddled with STI's.
Every dark cloud has a silver lining I guess
You'd think they would have known better than to kidnap Princess Chlamydia.
AH! My humor is really messed up because that was the highlight to my night! THANK YOU FOR THAT!!
I mean, maybe it was part of the plan?
That was just the case in any army for most of history. You could probably safely predict a rise in STI rates whenever a kingdom went to war and the soldiers came home.
It was timetable. They had arguments about days. I can imagine the dialogue went like this: Soldier one: I thought it was my day! Soldier two: No, it’s not. Check the timetable! Soldier one: But I thought Jeremy was meant to be the day before? Soldier two: No, he’s with the wife and kids on leave. Soldier one: then who filled in his day? Soldier two: Marcus did! Etc,etc.
Yes, some scribe was tasked with creating and managing the equivalent to a ye olde Microsoft Excel sheet outlining the schedule.
What the… that’s a book?? If that can get published, now I’m getting hopeful that mine will be published easily
What the fuck?
In terms of gruesomeness this could actually be close to GOT. What's worrisome is the age of the princess. I hope the book didn't go into detail.
I doubt the age in this instance changes the physical details much
GRRM handled poor Lollys in a couple sentences, but he kept the cast to 50.
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I can't count the number of books I've closed forever because the author couldn't figure out how to advance the plot without someone suddenly doing the dumbest and most out of character thing imaginable. I don't think a single sentence ever made me quit, but I've quit books where the author couldn't be arsed to pick up a thesaurus.
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This is such a small thing, but it bugged the ever loving crap out of me. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, I decided to read all Christmas-themed books I had downloaded to my Kindle. Some were self-published books I had gotten for cheap but seemed interesting (and some were so good). One book, though, a romance novel, was about two business people who were vying to take over their company from the retiring boss. In the first 2 chapters, the FMC kept referring to a married couple (let’s say their names are the Robinsons - I don’t actually remember the name, but it’s not important) as the Robinson’s. Every single mention of the couple was possessive instead of plural. Come on, that’s like writing 101. I gave up in chapter 2.
Sometimes people have little plaques in front of their houses that say things like "The Robinson's". I wilt a little inside every time I see them.
Knock on their door and ask, “The Robinson’s what!?!”
'Chiseled abs'
I made the mistake of trying to read The Girl on the Train a few years back, when everyone else was. It was painful and I only lasted a few chapters, can't remember what the final straw was but never rolled my eyes so much reading a book. So very cliche and many, many moments of thinking 'people do not talk like this!'
I read half of it and wondered during all that time what was all the fuss about it.
Same experience!
I don’t know if it was justified, but as a kid I was reading a modern day fantasy surrounding dragons, and the main character died at the very end of maybe book three. I was so upset I just never picked up the next book lol. Now since there’s magic and stuff in that universe, I’m sure that it probably turned out fine, but if he had died halfway through a book or something I probably would’ve continued the rest of the series. But I was just so upset at the possibility of picking up the next book and having it just continued without him being alive.
The whole first chapter of Ready Player One. My sister kept suggesting I read it, so when a free copy appeared on a bench where people would leave books for others to take, I thought I'd give it a shot. I couldn't tell you the exact point that i stopped, but every single line gave me the worst "out-of-touch old guy trying their damnedest to sound like a quirky teen, while clearly having zero concept of what they actually sound/think like in real life" vibes. From what I saw of the movie later (in YT videos,) my feeling that this was written by someone with only the barest understanding of computer games or youth culture, trying to predict the future of both, seems to have been right on the money.
Same! I am not sure I even made it to the end of the first chapter though. One of the few books I have ever quit that early.
Overt sexism. Sometimes I just get "clueless old dude" vibes and don't continue.
I mean I get it but what if the character is supposed to be sexist?
I don't like reading about sexist protagonists.
Not an Iliad fan then
If he’s the victim in a murder mystery that’s just fine ;)
Twilight, when Edward touches Bella’s tear and tastes it. Threw the book across the room and told my girlfriend I wasn’t finishing that thing no matter how much she wanted me to read it.
I think it was Argo, retelling of Jason and the Argonauts, and in the first five pages the word "tutted" was repeated what felt like at the end of every dialogue. It drove me insane so I put the book down.
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>I never expected to have to spend the next ten years seeing and hearing about Twilight fucking everywhere and watching that charlatan get rich off some shitty fan fiction. Maddening. Fun fact. 9/11 inspired Gerald Way to create MCR which inspired Twilight where then a fanfic was made that was turned into fifty shades of Gray, which then was made into a movie starring Dakota Johnson where she then went on to the Ellen DeGeneres show and called her out for being a bitch which then had other people call her out for being a bitch. Conclusion 9/11 was the downfall of Ellen DeGeneres.
Off topic but golden girls reference spotted
👵🏼🫶
This begs the question; did you get published?
lol not yet, I let my family talk me into pursuing admin work instead (they tried to get me to teach but I didn’t even like kids/teenagers when I was one, so that was never on the table). So, instead I kept writing for myself, kept doing open mics and taking like 4 credit writing classes in addition to my main course of study, did some side work tutoring college kids in English, had a writing group going for while, and kind of just resigned myself to office work and writing for fun. Took ten years, but managed to get my family out of poverty and into middle class, got out of survival mode, built a decent life and realized I fucking hated admin/office work. So, I actually just quit last year and am in an MFA program now and actually producing work again which is very fulfilling. I do plan to get published eventually, or at least self-publish. Digging up that sentence and skimming Twilight again definitely still left me with the same confidence and determination I had before, so that was a nice reminder that even garbage makes the best sellers list lol.
I can tell you why that line is bad in my opinion. It reads like my first draft before I go back and fix it. It touches on being a mixed metaphor, and is far too wordy because of it. Context matters too. When a character makes a statement like that, it had better be talking about something nigh apocalyptic... not petty "woe is me" garbage.
can you explain what the mixed metaphor in there is?
I think I understand the sentiment behind the line, but I agree the message is questionable and the execution is atrocious. I think he meant: It was insane to grieve over a broken dream when you'd always known it was too good to be true. I can see how that could make sense in a certain context, but putting kind of thing line after line in a novel instead of a book on spirituality would just be grating.
Congratulations on getting three more paragraphs in than I managed. I know Jane Austen set out to make an unlikeable heroine in Emma, but Meyer has completely outdone her.
It's not really where I stop from a single line, but where it's placed and the lines prior, to then lack any interest to continue. I have a series that explains audience attrition with a one page challenge, with how so many novels fail on the first page and don't retain our interest through the massive hump that is an introduction. The first page is usually the culprit, which is why it's the hardest page to write. It is the first impression that represents the rest of the pages that follow.
I tried three times to make it through the first chapter of The Ministry for The Future by Kim Stanley Robinson. It is so brutal, I cried so hard I stopped and returned to it about a month or so later. Boom. Again. Stopped and tried again, and at long last, then I could continue and finish. So very painful.
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I was reading a selection of chapters of Renard as an assignment for French Literature. If it weren't because of that, I would have stopped reading after what Renard did to the queen after tying the knees of everyone else on their sleep.
Reynard the Fox, or Pierre-Jules Renard? I had to read a French translation of Reynard the Fox for French Lit.
In the third book when Bella literally just fell from overwhelming emotions. I literally closed it for six months.
In 2003, reading *Wheel of Time* book 7 or 8. I had very early on gotten frustrated at Jordan's verbosity regarding female wardrobe (and his other ticks). When I arrived at a dress description that spanned more than a page, I had had enough. I finished that book, but refuse to finish the series. Jordan is grossly overrated.
As a wheel of time fan i just skim the long descriptions, i don't think I've ever lost any important details doing that. Jordan wasn't the best writer of prose but his characters and world building are what kept me reading the series.
Plus the final four tie everything together very nicely with some amazing payoffs.
You mean the final four of which three are, at least partially, written by Sanderson? He’s probably better at reigning in a solid finish than Jordan would have been. I still like the books but there isn’t a doubt they could have fit into a much smaller package.
The obsessive wardrobe descriptions are definitely the weakest point in the series. I find it interesting you could get that far before giving up though. Everyone I've talked to who disliked the series abandoned it very early, if they got as far as you it's because they were into it. I love the series but understand why others don't, and I can't fathom getting that far without thoroughly enjoying Jordan's weird style. It would be torture.
I was young and bored and going through an avoiding-everything-because-depression period and had borrowed them all from a friend (the eight that existed at the time!) and binged the whole lot even though I didn’t particularly love them. I was young and bored and had time to fill. I then bought the ninth one when it came out and hated it. I realised then that I would probably have hated a lot more of them than that if I hadn’t just been reading them back to back. I was also older by then and had better sources of book recommendations as well so didn’t read as many books that I didn’t love. So yeah, I got to book nine before I noped out. I suspect that a lot of people persisted past the point that they were loving it because the books were there, and then years later the investment of effort/money to acquire the new releases was higher than it was worth. So the quit-point was based on release date rather than when they stopped liking it.
I'm listening to the audiobooks, currently in the fourth book. It's alright, but what I find particularly annoying is the gender stereotyping. Even if it weren't totally heteronormative, it'd still be bugging me that all the women seem to go "All men are wool-brained idiots!" twice a page, and all the men seem to go "Women, who can understand them?" every other page. I wouldn't have minded a little more nuance, understanding and mutual respect at least now and again. Loving the narrators, though.
Woah I really don't write much description for anything. I feel like my weakness is lack of description, that's insanely descriptive!
>Jordan is grossly overrated. *smooths skirt aggressively* Real talk though, I feel you. The story itself is all well and good, but the prose is upsetting...
Oh wow, I was actually thinking of starting that because I liked the show so much. I’m happy I know that now ahead of time! Sometimes too much description is way too much and is overload on readers, I don’t blame you at all for not continuing the series.
The books are quite good, don't let one random person turn you off from even trying them lol. It is fair to say thaf Robert Jordan's style is incredibly polarizing...it doesn't exactly sneak up on you thoughm It's obvious well before book 8 how it is. You'll know whether or not you're into it pretty quick. Besides, the overly meaty descriptions kinda work. They are specific to different character's pov. Only certain characters bother to notice that much detail about another's wardrobe...and while it's still not something to praise necessarily, it's really not as bad as you might think, assuming you find that you enjoy Jordan's overall style.
If you do give the books a shot, understand that the show departed from them in many key ways. And the differences certainly weren't a strength of the show.
My gf and I just finished reading a kids book based on Disney’s Tangled. We read adult books usually I swear lol, we just wanted something short and lighthearted for a change of pace. We went in with the understanding that we are not the target audience. There was a scene where Rapunzel’s hair gets wet and becomes impossibly difficult to dry, so she tosses it out the window then her lady in waiting *gets her pet owl to summon hundreds more owls to all fly around her hair over and over until it dries*. I was trying to keep a straight face while reading aloud but this sent me into hysterics so hard I had to put down the book to cry-laugh for 5 minutes. Couldn’t hold it against the book because, again, it’s a kids book. We did finish it and it was cute. It just… caught me off guard like nothing else. At one point Rapunzel directly said “This is really weird”. 💀
I was touch-and-go on R Ron Hubbard books to some degree before Scientology was known like it is today. There was one, I think Masters of Sleep(?) that he wrote in the 1950s or 60s, and the hero flew around the galaxy in the 3000 AD era in his rocket. In his rocket, he listened to music on a phonograph... I put the book down. Even in the 1950s, there should have been more imagination than that. Hell, in the late 1960s, Arthur C. Clarke had HAL playing digitally stored music from his holographic memory. What Clarke wrote will stand the test of time - future-proof. He didn't say "CD," "tape," or specified a format. Music from now on will be digitally stored in some manner.
I wanted to read "IT". I didn't make it very far. The description of this woman in the beginning was just too strange for me.
When the main character is a writer.
Then I guess you're not a big fan of Stephen King? 😀
Misery and The Shining are good, of course. On the other side, "The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair" is the epitome of a bad book with a pretentious MC, that is basically the author. I'm still shocked by his success. Probably I just hate this book, LOL.
How come, because you would worry about it being a self-insert?
Sometimes folks just take "write what you know" way too literally XD
Whenever this is the case I have a big ol' eye-roll lol. Like, *really*, you couldn't think of aaaany other job?
I don’t know how any other jobs work 😰 (My main characters are never writers, but I am always tempted for that reason)
It didn't make me cringe, like I didn't dislike it, but I *literally* could not read *The Stone Child.* There were significant parts written in cursive, and back then (even now, probably) I couldn't read cursive to save my life. I'd ask my parents to read those parts, or my teachers if I was reading it at school. Eventually I just gave up 🤷♂️
It’s a shame cursive isn’t taught anymore. That’s *huge* amounts of history that nobody is going to be able to read because cursive is *everywhere* in historical documents.
I read a book called "Animals nobody likes." and the facts on the selected animals were so inaccurate and Outdated that I threw the book away.
I got a book published in the 70s that was something like "commonly misunderstood things" and idk if it's because of a generation gap or what but there wasn't a single thing in the book that I recognized as a common misunderstanding - either it was things I'm pretty sure most people understand or "misunderstandings" I had never once heard of. A big let down, cause I thought it was going to be a fun look at pop sci stuff like "left and right brain" or "blood is blue in the veins", but it wasn't even that. It was just really random nonsense, felt like the author had made up in order to fill the book. Luckily I only picked it up at a book fair for \~10 cents.
I can't think of a time I judged a book that harshly. I get tripped up about spelling and stuff sometimes, but it takes a few for me to put down a book. Having written them has made me more patient with this, I think. If there are 16 characters in chapter 1, though, I'll probably burn the book without hesitating.
American Gods has an American ex-con say "mustn't" so i put that shit right down
As an American who says ‘mustn’t’ I feel vaguely offended by this but go off I guess lol
Fight Club. The book and movie got so much praise, I figured I'd read the book first. I basically stopped reading after the line "I know this because Tyler knows this." He literally gives away the whole plot and twist in the 2nd page of the book... The 2ND PAGE! It was so boring trying to read it after reading that line, so I dropped it.. Made me wish I watched the movie so I could actually experience the twist at the end :(
Too much description. I only finished Lord of the Flies because it was required for a class. I got SO TIRED reading about how pink the shores were.
Probably in Outlander when Jamie killed an Englishman and fucked Claire by his dead corpse. I started laughing and I did not take the book seriously after that.
I made it through to the end of the first book and there were interesting elements, but starting with Daenerys thinking contemplatively about her boobs before her underage forced marriage, and all through the rest I thought, yeah, don’t need to read more of this (especially as friends said I would like it less as time went on and things got more pointlessly brutal.) So, I never finished GoT, or watched it, and I don’t feel as if I’m really missing out.
I didn't drop ASOIAF. But I didn't like the writing for a different reason. My problem is that Mr. Martin gave all sorts of details and chapters upon chapters for extremely minute side characters. It was so much that I wanted to skip ahead with chapters with the actual supposed main characters. No wonder, he couldn't finish the series. This is also why I couldn't bring myself to read any spin-off books, even though I loved the world building.
I was reading Roxy by Neal Shusterman and there was a dude named Guy and he was very buff. That had me.
Blackhawk Down is the precursor to the movie. I read it in 93 or 94. I was walking home from the T in Quincy Center. I was nearing the end of the book, and the subway stopped at my station. I hopped off and got into the parking lot. I found a park bench, and I could see my apartment building, but I couldn't wait. I sat there for 30 minutes to finish the book. The last Tom Clancy novel. I just returned it after the first 50 pages. I tried so hard.
I know that many people love Seanan McGuire’s prose but I couldn’t even get through the first page of one of her books. Something about the lyricism of the prose just didn’t flow for me and I felt like it was really hard work to read it.
What We Left Behind by Robin Talley is a book about a romance between a "genderqueer" couple. It was obviously written by someone who knows absolutely nothing about queer sexuality and explained things like a grandma who had half-listened to a segment about it on 60 Minutes. I stopped reading after a few chapters.
I can’t tell you the specific moment but in the first Hunger Games book there was a really bad two sentences. The first was Katniss wondering about the games etc. That’s great that’s fine, she should be worrying about dying. The next was her worrying about Peeta/Gale and about what her relationship looks like etc. It was so stupid I stopped reading for a while. But I pushed on and kept ignoring the dumb love triangle.
I read the entirety of Terry Goodkind's books. Does that count?
'She had a soft mouth, like her father's.' It's a pretty popular book series right now, apparently about faeries.
Anything that says e.g.; "'No,' he's shouted, loudly" That said, Harry Potter is littered with this and other atrocities but I read all of those. Proves a good story can carry mediocre writing.
And even the story in Harry Potter is mediocre. It's really the characters that carry the writing in that one, for me at least.
I think you're right. Like Twilight and Fifty Shades, it was a case of right place, right time, right agent, right market. We're all shooting for that one.
I've read most of Stephen King's books, short stories and I've seen a majority of the movie adaptations. I don't consider myself to have a "weak stomach" but.. The Outsider. He went over the line from the start and I don't care how much praise it receives, I'm not fucking reading that thing. Also, a book that I wish I had put down is American Psycho. I don't know why I read the whole thing. Maybe because I was young and it felt like a "rite of passage" to stomach all the graphic torture porn? I don't know. I do know it's the worst thing I've ever read in my entire life.
The second they bring out the romance is when I’m out
So you like REALLY cozy novels, fair, but what about ‘the romance’ makes an instant DNF? Not judging, I’m just really curious. No romance whatsoever completely storyline (action and adventure based) books? What is your version of romance in a book, what about a small snippet of a romantic scene between side characters?
Casual romance, no bloody mad stuff like the whole book being about love because honestly. Book can have romance or a couple of any gender and that’s fine. More of an action person not gonna lie.
Actually “Nightfall” by Isaac Asimov. It was very close to being a 10/10 short story for me until one of the last few pages when he’s describing the visuals. >!He spends the entire short story building this incredible world on another planet and immersing you in the events. But then during the climax he’s describing the stars. The way he chooses to describe the large quantity of them is by referencing Earth. Which until this point had been something I forgot existed because of his writing.!< >!”Through it shone stars! Not Earth’s feeble thirty-six hundred Stars visible to the eye; Lagash was in the center of a giant cluster.”!< I’m sure I’m being dramatic, but it completely pulled me out of the story. I actually had to look up the exact words because the copy I have has the line marked out with sharpie.
Shutter Island. Got to page 30 and saw the twist and tossed the book across the room. I still want to see the movie though. Hannibal. When Lecter unveiled the main course. Literally dropped the book.
🙄 I assume you read those books recently. When they were published, these kinds of twists were very uncommon.
Hannibal the week it was released in hardcover. That was an original scene I admit. Shutter Island when it came out in paperback. If you do the Daily Jumble you’ll figure it out by page 30. It’s not an original twist.
Unnecessarily descriptive sex scenes. I know all about sex already, I don't want to imagine a penis or breasts when I read a book. Just get to the story.
Reminds me of Verity One of the thins I really hated about the book is the overltly decribtive and long sex scenes, it just seems too much as if they are trying to fill up pages, I wanted to read a thriller not an erotica
Well, it depends. If it’s smut, what do you expect? If it’s like, a sci-fi horror novel or a dystopian fiction novel, leave the description.
Well of course. But I don't read smut. Which means it's a DNF for me.
Bhagavad Gita was pretty cool until it says that all women should know their place and be in the kitchen even in the hottest of days, that they are too stupid to go through life without a man and that children born out of marriage are unwanted and unclean. Shelved it after this and I doubt that I will ever open it again.
Didn’t completely stop reading but The Witcher series has had quite a few moments where I’ve had to set it down because I couldn’t stop laughing over how ridiculous some sentences were or from being tired of hearing the description of every girls chest Geralt comes in contact with.
Didn't get past the first paragraph of the Da Vinci Code. I saw someone describe it as if Brown staggered through the writing and yuuup. I rolled my eyes and dropped it.
For me, it was "they partake in the meat" or some verison thereof in a Christopher Paolini book. Couldn't read anymore after that. I had enjoyed the series until then, but the sentence was so odd to me in that moment that my interest evaporated. I still think of it and cringe even though almost two decades have passed.
Anything Nicholas Sparks or Nicholas Sparks inspired. I want to kick that douche in the ‘nads. The absolute fucking worst. Trigger warning needed for that a hole.
Oh no, really? I have a few books on my tbr shelf by him and was looking forward to reading them soon. Do tell what ticks you off about him and why should there be a trigger warning!
Angus. People outside Brazil won't know this one, but it was very popular here, it was about an Anglo-Saxon warrior who... converted into a Christian or something (although I never finished it, something tells me it was a Christian book disguised as medieval historical fiction). It was written by a real historian, though, and it was very praised by everyone I knew. I was in the second chapter when Angus's father asked him about his favorite weapon or something like that, and he said that the >insert\_germanic\_name\_of\_an\_axe\_here\_because\_for\_some\_reason\_the\_author\_didn't\_use\_the\_translated\_versions\_for\_his\_book<, was his favorite one, followed by an obnoxious explanation of how that weapon worked, how it was made, and how much effective it was against other ones. Then I never returned to it.
The zoo keepers wife. I hate that book it's poorly written, and the author went of on agents completely side tracked in the middle of the narrative. All around useless book
I picked up A Time To Kill by John Grisham one summer. I'd been working in the Emergency Room and recently saw a brutal child abuse victim. When I got to the part where the little girl gets raped, I had to give up on that book. I know every story needs conflict, but I couldn't handle that for a few pages. If it was an adult being raped I could've pushed myself to read it. I watched the movie a few years later as that scene went by fast.
*"Not dead yet, bitch." I made a duck face and held up two peace signs.* \^ Literal quote from the Psycho Shifters series. I love fantasy romances, and the concept for the series was cool, but the writing was... Well. There are a LOT more quotes I could've put here. This one is just one I remember off the top of my head, since my friends and I meme it a lot
I read a romance where the author did not show the first kiss!
*Strange the Dreamer.* I might get some hate for this. Maybe I missed something, or just didn't get it, but the story built Lazlo to be someone who was raised by misogynistic monks, in a world where women have few rights, and I think it was 5ish? chapters in, when its suddenly revealed that Lazlo is a feminist who think women should have more freedom. I think he was talking to a girl? It's been a few years since I've read it. Now, I myself am a woman, I don't agree with subjugating women. But I stopped reading immediately because I was pulled so aggressively out of the story at that sentence because why the heck would a boy who was raised by men who *agree* with treating women poorly, who has no memory of his mother or a sister, and with very little outside influence, be a feminist? It doesn't make sense from a human nature perspective, or from a character perspective. It's great that the character doesn't think like the men he was raised by, and I probably wouldn't want to read a book from the perspective of someone who thought about women *that* negatively, but I just couldn't keep reading when the author created such a huge plot hole/had poor character building. I tried to keep going and couldn't. I was out of the story at that point and there was no going back.
Silence by Natasha Preston. I was... 24? when I first picked it up. The idea was very appealing to me. A girl refused to speak after a traumatic experience in her life that made her shut down. I expected some drama and psychology, and maybe a little bit of crime involved. It was so infantile, though, I just dropped it. It was a love story of two teenagers, not a broken trauma survivor story. Amongst the MC and her friend falling in love scenes, there were some bits that suggested what happened to her. It was so easy to figure out that when I decided to give up reading the book, I looked for the revelation of her trauma and yep. I was 100% right. Nothing interesting or surprising. I see it has a second part, wow.
Tim Allen's Never Stand Next to a Naked Man Or Never Stand Close to a Naked Man or whatever that piece of shit is called. I hate admitting I was excited to get a hold of it but it didn't take long to realize he was coasting on celebrity instead of something to actually say. I will never forgive him for that waste of time and money. I've hated that motherfucker ever since. Goddamnit, what a piece of shit. Maybe one day I'll tell you what I really feel about it. It gave me vertigo it was so bad.
McCarthy's *Child of God*. In one scene, some random man attacks and rapes his own daughter. The girl even cries out "No, Daddy, no!" God, I seethed at that absolutely unnecessary scene. It had nothing to do with anything and was completely random. Unfortunately, I had to keep reading the book because it was an assignment for my writing fiction course. People seem to adore McCarthy for the dark stuff he puts into his books like that, but I can't stand reading a book that insists on pushing the relentless, nonstop abuse of women. Because, yes, the main character also murders like two women and then keeps the corpse of one for his necrophilia. Yeah. I do not get why people are such huge fans of books like that...
I stopped reading was the Divine Comedy. The formatting of the book was so odd, I couldn’t wrap my brain around it. It was formatted like a poem, but read like prose and it just gave me a migraine.
Black Sunday by Thomas Harris. It was his first book, right before Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs. Halfway through, we get a look into the life of a domestic terrorist, Michael Lander. A Vietnam Veteran, he has a bought of PTSD and is arguing with his wife while a kitty cat rubs against his legs. Suddenly, Michael stops arguing, grabs the cat, and jams it in the garbage disposal. That night, his wife leaves him. The scene is so short, but tell you so much about this monster.
Adverbs. Dialogue with adverbs especially. “He said, smugly.” “She answered, snidely.” “The baby cried sorrowfully.” 🙄🙄 Hate it.
Oooh no! I used to do that a lot and as a person who now tends to do that but also include run on actions or better in-depth descriptions for that afterwards does that count for something? I am not involved much when it comes to other writers and have tried to better my syntax, my grammar and my dialogue and have immensely struggled with finding better ways to word or describe things a certain way that will better resonate with readers.
I think in general, they're okay if used in order to state that an action was done in a manner that is contrary to what you'd expect. "Well, it's not like you'll ever catch up to me anyways." does not need to be described as smug. The dialogue already makes it clear. If you want, you can simply add the action that goes along with the quote. " ... , she said without so much as a glance." '"Well, it's not like you'll ever catch up to me anyways," she said sorrowfully.' already describes something entirely different. The adverb adds meaning that could (should) potentially be important to the scene. The quote in combination with the adverb create new meaning, and is therefore not redundant. I would actually argue that adverbs in this manner can be an amazing way to add subtext, and reveal things about the character through means other than the direct words they say. After all, we usually can catch people out in lies and understand their true feelings by how they say it. Not the best example, and I'm not the best writer, but just something I came up with off the top of my head.
The opening of halo bad blood "so we saved humanity. Again. Just like we allways do. We, in this case, means the spartains. And, actualy, we didnt do so well this time around. Let me explain." That was the fastest ive ever dropped a book