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Things in books that annoy you


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On 11/06/2021 at 9:44 AM, poppy said:

 

Lol, I love Miss Marple. I think it's the little country village setting that I enjoy. I just suspend belief when I read these kinds of books  :lol:

I've only read one but I'd definitely read more! There's something comforting, intentionally I think, in that type of classic detective story. They're compelling because there's a mystery but they're also relaxing, even though they're about murder :lol:.

 

On 27/01/2018 at 11:29 AM, willoyd said:

the inappropriate use of 'myself' especially when used as the subject of a sentence

I have to say, I've never actually noticed that in a book. You'd think it would be picked up by editors!

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It always annoys me, that in a lot of modern books, (and films/TV) the protagonist is in a sticky situation, and decides to call for help. Only to find that their mobile phone has no signal, or is out of battery! I suppose the older equivalent, was that they could never find a phone box, or that if they DID find one, it had been vandalised! A trope that can work, so long as it is not beaten to death with over-use. I am a great crime fiction reader, and it just crops up often enough to annoy me, which I know is my personal issue,and I can understand the writer using it as a valid point to increase the tension of the scenario, but nevertheless, it does grate after a while!

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8 hours ago, timebug said:

It always annoys me, that in a lot of modern books, (and films/TV) the protagonist is in a sticky situation, and decides to call for help. Only to find that their mobile phone has no signal, or is out of battery! I suppose the older equivalent, was that they could never find a phone box, or that if they DID find one, it had been vandalised! A trope that can work, so long as it is not beaten to death with over-use. I am a great crime fiction reader, and it just crops up often enough to annoy me, which I know is my personal issue,and I can understand the writer using it as a valid point to increase the tension of the scenario, but nevertheless, it does grate after a while!

Try coming to rural France, Timebug! I've lived in 3 different places here and mobile signal has been poor in all of them, we've finally got decent internet (most of the time) but I often have to go out in the garden to be able to hear what people are saying. Better than our last house where you had to stand on the well to get a signal!  

 

Rosamund Lupton's Three Hours is about a school shooting and nearly all the besieged seniors had forgotten to charge their phones. I have never met a 17 year old who didn't have a charged phone. Fortunately it's a good enough book to be able to suspend disbelief.

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On 05/07/2021 at 9:11 PM, Hayley said:

I have to say, I've never actually noticed that in a book. You'd think it would be picked up by editors!

 

I can't remember where I've read it - it's certainly more a feature of speech than writing - so will have to look out for it again.  Editors aren't perfect: I finished reading Stephanie Scott's "What's Left of Me is Yours" a couple of weeks ago - overall an enjoyable book, but the word 'practice' (the noun) was consistently misspelled as 'practise' (the verb), something you'd equally think would have been picked up by them. 

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I don't like reading a book where the two romantic leads don't get together at the end. It's not that I  really into romantic fiction. Sometimes I think an author thinks he can't give the readers what they want because where's the artistry in that? Unless it is a really great artistic ending, I would rather have the happy ending. 

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On 09/07/2021 at 2:07 PM, willoyd said:

 

I can't remember where I've read it - it's certainly more a feature of speech than writing - so will have to look out for it again.  Editors aren't perfect: I finished reading Stephanie Scott's "What's Left of Me is Yours" a couple of weeks ago - overall an enjoyable book, but the word 'practice' (the noun) was consistently misspelled as 'practise' (the verb), something you'd equally think would have been picked up by them. 

Maybe it's because they had an American version of spell checker?

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Really annoyed by the ending of Sanditon, blamed on the author Jane Austen!

 

All the rest of her novels end up with reasonable happily ever after endings for the main couples, but not this one.

Why the change of formula?

(Adding insult to injury, even the television adaption followed on as the same. How often are novels changed when they are made into tv serials or movies?!)

 

Happy :readingtwo:  All

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There are going to be two more series of Sanditon, shown first on Britbox then on ITV, although the lead, Theo James, won't be coming back, so presumably that storyline is over!

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On 15/07/2021 at 9:42 AM, Madeleine said:

Maybe it's because they had an American version of spell checker?

Very possibly - but it was an English author with an English publisher.

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