This can be taken so many ways!
Let’s talk about them all ♥ It could be because of a stupid ending, bad writing, bad editing, a certain character you abhor, even a bait & switch cover. (We won’t cover text-books here… “Then Satan said… “Let’s put words in math.”) We’ve all wanted to do this at some point.
What book sent you over the edge?
Why?
My bane is stories that go along fine, until the writer can’t think of an ending… this can go wrong in many ways. The worst – a story that has had no religious content whatsoever – ends with God saves the day. Then, there is the same concept – switching God with aliens/monsters/supernatural. Let’s not forget the “…and then he woke up & realized it was all just a dream…” bullshit excuse for an ending.
I don’t bitch too much about bad editing. Sure, I have my moments of annoyance (not comma misuse – comma ABUSE). IMHO, there are so many great writers that I may have missed had it not been for self-publishing. I can put up with a lot, more than the average person can. If I’m pissed enough – I’ll just go straight to the writer, virtually shake them, then offer up friends that will beta test and point out errors for them to go fix.
I have thrown a book when a beloved character dies, but never too hard, and never too far. Just enough for a slight hissy fit – not so far that I’d have to get completely off my ass to retrieve it. I’ve had to reign in my temper tantrums with my purchase of a Kindle. Can’t lose my library over Dumbledore!
Leave your best of your worst here in the comments! Interact with me, people! Let’s talk literature!
The Bloody Book Blogger 
17 replies on “What books piss you off?”
Lately, it’s the books that, after reading for 20-30 minutes, STILL don’t interest me at all, those are the ones I get mad at. Especially a short story. If I”m not interested after a few minutes, I consider my time to have been wasted and get pissed!!!
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Especially if you’ve paid for it! Wasted time & money!
I wish I could stop reading after X amount of time, but… I can’t. It’s an OCD thing, or an addiction thing. I can’t just stop forever.
Example… not a bad book – just one so gruesome I have a hard time picking back up… Genital Grinder. OH! Fukk! You know what? When my Kindle had a nervous breakdown – I lost my GG notes! Oh, barf. Now I have to lightly reread the SS I already made it through, PLUS finish the rest!
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I get so mad when a book makes me hate it!!! I want to love it! I try to finish books even if I hate them or are bored by them, sometimes I put them down and try to pick them back up, maybe in a better frame of mind…works sometimes… I didn’t get GG because I knew I might be something I might just not be so very comfortable reading and wouldn’t want to pick back up if I set it aside… good luck to you!
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Picking it back up in a better state of mind works for me sometimes, too! Or, at the very least, I’m not as invested & can skim faster.
Thanks on the GG luck! I thought I could handle it. How wrong I was. I expected just gore, maybe. I didn’t expect what I started!
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Self-Publishing seems both liberating and challenging. You’re liberated in that you free yourself from a lot of big-time publisher constraints (of course this is mostly assumed) but you deal with separating yourself from a mass of writers (dare we call them that) that don’t have enough concern, patience or ambition for the craft to take their time and do their work right. In turn, this reflects on all of us self-published authors, making it just a bit more difficult to shine in that bleak, bleak world.
And with what was said before about short stories, being an author of those types of anthologies, I agree. If you don’t capture the attention quickly, you’re not doing it right. This holds true in most human interactions. Why would it be any different in writing?
Good post. The GIF cracks me up. Cheers.
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Excellent point!
I’m glad you commented – I am excited to read Amid the Recesses! It sounds wonderfully weird, delightfully disturbed… really, it sounds great!
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Well, I’d love to hear what you think of it. It’s more a focus on beauty than anything else. But, I suppose you could be the judge. And “Humansville,” the first story is more of a nod to a classic slasher, but it evolves from there.
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Ha! I just wrote a post about this very thing – as a kid Little Women pissed me off so bad – Jo didn’t get Laurie, spoiled little Amy did, while Beth died and Jo got stuck with an old German dude. It broke my heart and I never forgave Louisa May Alcott. I even rewrote the ending. http://reliablyuncomfortable.com/2013/03/27/finally-romantic-justice-for-little-womens-jo/
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OMG! I ♥ YOU!
I’ve reblogged that, I think we’ll be sending you a list of requests soon!
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I once stopped reading a book for a long time because of how much it emotionally tortured me. I still haven’t returned to it…
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I’m curious…
can I ask what it was, and why?
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It was called The Changeling. It was about two boys who were switched at birth. The human to live in fairy land and the changeling in human land. Really sad, and lovely.
Great magic realism. I’d highly recommend it.
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Isn’t that John Saul? It sounds so familiar …
Did you ever bring yourself to pick it back up?
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So I was looking it up and I realized I got the title mixed up. It’s called The Stolen Child. You can check it out here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stolen-Child-Keith-Donohue/dp/0385516169/ref=sr_1_20?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1365006495&sr=1-20
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I totally agree that one of my major issues is an author, no matter how well known or unknown, can’t close the deal and come up with an ending that fits. What comes to mind is the ending to ‘Cell’. Weak and pathetic and more of the ‘oh shit, now I have to come up with some kind of ending’ issue.
My other issues revolve around accuracy and details. What I mean is an author who is either lazy or has no concept of how real world details actually make the story better. To explain this in other terms. If any author, no matter what genre they write in, uses real world locations, items, vehicles, equipment, etc., then its expected that they should know what they are talking about. I know artistic license comes into play when dealing with locations and certain items but when you add in real world equipment, weapons, vehicles, then you need to accurately identify them and their capabilities if they play a part in the plot. I’ve read too many books where simple little things have been overlooked or misidentified and it just took me out of the story so fast I had to almost force myself to finish the book.
Anyone who has read any of my reviews on other sites knows what I’m referring to. Google is your friend, no shit. If you can’t find it on Google then try another source. The information is out there. If all else fails try the public relations section of the company that makes that particular item don’t just make shit up because it sounds cool. There are a lot of people out there that know about a lot of things and how they work. Ask around, search for a forum that caters to that line of work or profession. Explain what you need and you’d be surprised how helpful people can be.
If an author takes the time to write something that they feel is worthy enough to publish and present to their fan base, don’t short change that fan base and give them a steaming pile of shit.
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Either this coincidence cracks me up, or you are one of the few who have read my reviews since their inception at ZF1… but, you are so on point when you bring up Stephen King! It is because of the Master of Horror that I swore off short stories to begin with! He ruined the SS for me for so long! I’m lucky that I gave them another chance, or I would have missed some excellent works, which, in turn would have led to me missing the authors of those SS’s other books. I might not have made some very cool friends, either!
I loved your reviews that I saw, and your eye for detail is 20/20. You point out things that I may not have picked up on right away, if at all, and you can point them out without belittling the writer, and praise where praise is due. The one that sticks out the most has to do with decomp variables in different climates, I was cracking up, and at the same time wondering if you’d visited The Body Farm.
I’m glad to see that you’re like Art & me when it comes to forcing yourself to finish a book. It proves that we’re not freaks! Even skimming, hoping that something miraculous happens, helps. I get twitchy if I put it down without finishing. I sometimes envy people who can save their time by knowing when to just stop & not look back!
The author in you shines through over the fan in you in this, too. Pride in your work – no matter what that work is – is a beautiful quality.
Thanks for commenting & chatting! I miss the ZF chat-room!
xoxo
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I don’t normally comment about what I read. I’ve read a ton this past year (I guess making up for lost years), but I tend to keep my feelings to myself when it comes to reviewing work. However, since this is a generalization of work, I don’t mind throwing in my two-cents.
I’m not keen of books that start off good (great premise, plot, and characters)…but then, somehow, near the middle somewhere, it gets lost in subplots that have nothing to do with the story but would be beneficial for the reader to understand the background of things.
Then there are the long paragraphs after long paragraphs of description. Endless descriptions of how large a concert hall is, the elaborate chandeliers, the exotic carpets, etc. I skip that stuff altogether.
I have a few more things, but then I’ll be here all day!
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