As of today I will be launching a new weekly feature for my blog. I will be covering different things related to books & blogging every week.From best/worst book covers to best/worst male & female characters.
Today I'm going to be talking about my biggest pet peeves when it comes to books.If you know me in real life I'm pretty sure you'd expect my first answer to be different than what it will actually be.
My number one pet peeve about books is when they have a character that's "perfect" Gorgeous,smart & with a perfect family with no family skeletons.No person is perfect just as no family is perfect. I tend to get irritated with books that establish a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character. Every single person has some sort of flaw.I would think that writing flawless characters can really get boring.When a character is flawless,they are very one dimensional. Flawed characters add to the story. They are multi-dimensional which make them more interesting and make the reader more interested in them.
Pet peeve number two has to go to editing.There are editors in the world and I wish all authors would use them.I haven't found many issues with the flow of books,but rather the grammar, sentence structure,syntax & spelling.I hate to brag but I won a school spelling bee when I was in 7th grade.My final opponent was older than me and I still managed to out spell her.Even if the author is not a great speller,there are devices that they can use such as spell check.Of course spell check doesn't catch everything but it would be a start.
Insta-love is another one that drives me absolutely batty. I have been seeing this one a lot in books lately and it's just not realistic.I know books aren't always realistic but love stories should at least be plausible and it should make you root for the couple. In both Sweet Serendipity & Picturing Perfect the insta-love showed up in slightly different forms but it was still the same.
In both of these books,the female character becomes so absorbed in the man in her life that everything else suffers.It was really bad in Sweet Serendipity when the female character had kids but she was so wrapped up in her new boy toy that she didn't realize that her youngest was slipping into dangerous territory.
I enjoy the love stories that start off slowly and not involve immediate romps in the sack.I like strong,confident women that DON'T need to jump into the sack the second a man smiles at her.A woman that has self respect does NOT need to jump in the sack with any man who simply looks at her.While I am aware that sex sells (look at the horrid Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy) sex alone does not make a compelling read.Well not for me anyway.
Those are three of my biggest pet peeves. Visit next Friday for my next installment.
What are some of your book related pet peeves?
Editing is a huge thing for me. I can't stand books that are riddled with mistakes. If you can't afford an editor, that's what beta readers and proofreaders are for - use them! It's especially frustrating when the story itself is good but it's ruined by the fact that every page or every few pages has one or more mistake. Insta-love...for me, it depends on the book. I like the slow build of a relationship, but I've found some books where it just works. It's rare but I'm not as picky about it as some people are. If the author can do it in a believable way, I'm ok with it. It's always interesting to see what bothers people about books. It really shows how diverse the reading community is - things some people love, others hate, and vice versa. I think this'll be a fun feature. :-)
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