Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by
The Broke and the Bookish. Today's theme is Bookish Pet Peeves. Since I only thought of five, my list is my
Top Five Bookish Pet Peeves:
- Cover art that doesn't match the book. Confession: I read this one over at Books Kids Like, but it's been a peeve of mine ever since I read The Goddesses of Kitchen Avenue, a novel where the cover picture had absolutely nothing to do with the novel itself - that really annoyed me. Can't the publisher be bothered to tell the artist what the book is about??
- Poor editing. This should really be #1 and now that I think about, it covers peeves #6 - 10 since lots of problems result from it. Sometimes, you can just tell that the book wasn't well edited, and it really bugs me. I once read a memoir about hiking the Appalachian Trail. It was interesting but was so filled with horrible, obvious grammatical errors that it made me grimace through the whole book.
- Everything has a sequel now. This bugs both my husband and I. It seems there are few stand-alone books anymore. Everything is now part of a series. I just don't have the time to commit to reading a whole series every time I pick up a book!
- Plot inconsistencies. This just happened to me recently, though I can't remember exactly what it was. Sometimes, you read something and know it was different earlier in the book. How could both the author and the editor miss this?? (see #2 again)
- Using $1 words when 5 cent words would work just as well (or better). My husband contributed this one. He says Dean Koontz often does this - tends to use big, flowery words that no one understands.
How about you? Do you have any Bookish Pet Peeves?
Hi Sue, I agree with everyone of your items on the list. I especially hate it when editing is poorly done or obviously not done. I am currently reading a book that has no quotation marks around any of the dialogue which makes reading slow down to a crawl. I am so irritated by it I'm about ready to abandon the whole book.
ReplyDeleteI think that sequels are great from a librarians point of view (not a personal preference.) How many kids have read more than last year because their favorite book has a sequel?...Thank you, Suzanne Collins and Hunger Games!
Oh definitely. One is the author's favourite phrase or descriptive word which is repeated too often. Can't think of an example but you know what I mean. Another is the late introduction of a character - especially in crime novels - to suit the plot. Oh it was the mysterious dude what did it.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest peeve though is about Kate Moss' 'Labyrinth'. She appears from time to time on Radio 4 as this brilliant author. But Labyrinth really annoyed me. She obviously got herself into a hole with the plot and suddenly changed tack, changed time frames and so on, just to get the book finished.
Yeah, it's contrived plots that get to me - with the exception of Thomas Hardy. He's allowed to do it because he is a great writer.
Anne -
ReplyDeleteYou reminded me of another one - my husband read Blindness, an award-winner, but it drove him crazy that the author didn't use any character names, just descriptions!
You know I am a huge fan of The Hunger Games trilogy, and other series as well (in fact, the 10-book Pendragon series is one of my all-time favorites!), but it's just become TOO prevalent lately. It's just a case of too many books I want to read and too little time!!
Sue
Jo -
ReplyDeleteI've never read Labyrinth, but I agree with you on contrived plots - just wants to make you throw the book across the room!
Thomas Hardy is on my list of famous authors I can't believe I've never read - will have to check him out!
Sue