It’s time for some more complaining.
I think anyone who reads extensively gathers a lot of pet peeves along the way. When you read a lot, you see that a lot of authors will commit the same faux paus or use the same tropes, and the more you read the more recognizable these patterns become. Unless this isn’t how it works, and I’m just a Negative Nancy who fixates on the aspects of books I don’t like…
My “pet peeves” aren’t usually something that will make me stop reading a novel altogether, but they’re definitely something I will notice throughout the novel. I tolerate my pet peeves, but I certainly do not accept them. They are peevish, and they should stop bothering me.
In the first post, I talked about some general pet peeves that are likely to bother many readers, but these ones are a little bit more specific to my own preferences. With that said, keep in mind that these may be things you appreciate or enjoy about books that you’ve read. Different opinions are the spice of life! But, these are my personal opinions and some of my personal pet peeves that will irritate me endlessly when I have to endure them.
- Books written in first person POV
We’re starting with the most controversial pet peeve. Many books are written from first person point of view, and I don’t go out of my way to avoid them. I often read them and enjoy them, but it’s not my preferred style of writing. To me, it’s almost always too casually written. This makes sense, because not every character is a writer, and to make the character realistic, the author will then write like that character. However, I like good writing. I do NOT like the type of writing that sounds like someone is speaking directly to me, which often happens with first person point of view. In my opinion, that casual, speaking to the reader POV should be reserved for children’s novels and blogs. - Unnecessary POV switching
In the same vein, I also find books with unnecessary POV switching to be extremely inane. It takes a lot of skill as an author to make several interesting, fleshed out characters. When you write a book that’s told from different perspectives, each character has to be interesting enough to keep the reader engaged in their part of the story. They should also be presenting a unique side of the story, not just retelling someone else’s side from their perspective. There has to be some new information being added to create an interesting puzzle as we piece the story together from their different perspectives. When done correctly, I think this is a great way to write a book. However, sometimes these ideas start out with a proper function (think Game of Thrones), but then it becomes a sort of trend that authors imitate when their books don’t have the same purpose. If there isn’t a reason to tell someone else’s perspective, don’t. That’s how you create bland characters and books that jump around for no purpose other than to enhance the “creative appeal” of the novel. Bite me. - Leaving out proper punctuation
This is a really touchy one for some people, I think. Many contemporary novels like to experiment with punctuation or writing style, which is a point of the genre. That’s part of what makes it “contemporary,” you know? However, I find reading these types of books extremely frustrating. Cormac McCarthy’s novel, The Road, is a good example of this. In The Road, McCarthy leaves out any punctuation for dialogue. This makes it difficult at times to discern who is speaking, or when someone is speaking or merely thinking. It’s certainly an intentional choice, but I personally don’t think it helps the story along in a significant enough way to make it justifiable. Another author who has done this is Jose Saramago in his novel, Blindness. In Blindness, the dialogue is written one sentence after the other, with no indication that it is switching from one person to another whatsoever. The dialogue is all contained in the same paragraph, making it easy to lost track of who is talking. I think this is done to add to the cohesiveness of the peoples’ experience in the novel, but it is certainly frustrating to read at times. It qualifies as a pet peeve. - Unrealistic dialogue
Speaking of dialogue, another major pet peeve of mine is unrealistic dialogue. There are two forms of unrealistic dialogue that will really, really bother me. The first is dialogue that’s used as exposition. Imagine someone saying, “Hi, Jose, my friend who I’ve known for years and years.” No one would every talk like that, right? It may be an extreme example, but there are a lot of novels that will use dialogue in this way to introduce characters or give some background about what’s going on in their lives, and I personally think that’s lazy writing. If it’s not a genuine conversation people would have, then find another way to show us what’s going on. The second form of unrealistic dialogue is the type of dialogue that’s too perfect. I notice this when the author is writing a character that’s right all the time, always says the right thing, always has the perfect comeback, and so on. This may be more of a character flaw than a dialogue flaw, but reading the dialogue of a character who acts like this is excruciating. - Frequent use of the same metaphor or imagery
In the first installment of this post, I mentioned that I really dislike metaphors where the comparison simply doesn’t make sense. Another issue I have with metaphors and similes is when an author will repeatedly describe someone or something the same way. One really great example of this is in one of The Lotus War books, where Jay Kristoff constantly reminds us that a character has “bee-stung lips.” It’s not terrible imagery, but reading it every time this character is described becomes grating. Similar to this, any time a character’s unique feature is extremely harped on is irritating to me. We get it, they’re different. Describe something else now. - Ex Machina-type endings
To me, Ex-Machina endings are just too lazy. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen them done in a way that I enjoy in modern literature. They’re just not my thing. There’s also something supremely frustrating about reading a novel that has you on edge the whole time, only for the ending to be something you never could have guessed. I love being caught off-guard by an ending, only to realize the signs were there the whole time and I was just having trouble deciphering them. I hate being caught off-guard by an ending because there were no illusions to it in the writing, the author just had to find some way to end the book. Sometimes this can be an exciting way to end a book, but it always feels thoroughly unsatisfying to me, hence why it’s a pet peeve. - Oddly-named characters
Now, I don’t hate all unique or odd names that are present in books. Sometimes, they’re refreshing or cute, which is fine. What I’m talking about here is the trope that is very common in YA novels where the main character has a very “unique” name. The example I have is from an adult novel, but it’s Galaxy “Alex” Stern, and the reason her name is “Galaxy” is because her mom is one of those hippie-ish ladies, you know? I am aware that this happens in real life, but I don’t think the amount it happens in reality is proportional to the amount of times I’ve seen this pop up in books. Although, there is an alarming trend of naming your kids after weird things, or terribly misspelling a name to make it “unique”, so maybe it really is getting more popular. I can’t wait to see a generation of books written about “Brynnleigh” and “Rexlan”. Yikes.
Overall, those are some of my reading pet peeves. As I said, I don’t usually dislike them strongly enough to stop reading a book because of it, but it is something that will weigh on me as I read. Since I’ve spent so much time complaining today, maybe a future post will be about things I personally love to see when I’m reading a book.
The Lit Wiz