What's bugging you in the novel you're reading?

Alessandra Kelley

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A fantasy novel set in a detailed fantasy world with gods walking around and magic and the ruling caste has an impossible palace spread in the sky ...

with "ladies' rooms" with stalls and sinks with taps in front of mirrors.
 

Taylor Harbin

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ADVERBS. Sooo many adverbs. I know it's a novel about children, but do they have to do everything "ly"?
 

Snowstorm

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A contemporary murder mystery where about 1/3 of it is interspersed reprints of historical memoirs. I know it's so a reader will understand the historical background and the thinking of its adherents, but come on!
 

Sunflowerrei

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I knew going into it that Les Mis would be a bit of a slog to get through. But I'm in chapter 9 already and we're still talking about the daily routines of the bishop. Where be Jean ValJean? When do I get some conflict?
 

Devil Ledbetter

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I have to resurrect this zombie thread for the book I'm reading. It's a bestselling and highly recommended YA set about 30 years in an extremely internet-centric (and otherwise dystopian) future. I'm only 50 pages in but the sexism in this book is rampant, as if no progress will have been made in that area.

Examples:

A high school teacher's avatar looks like an older male but the MC muses that for all he knows, the teacher could be an Inuit woman in Alaska who uses this avatar to teach because it's the only way she'll be taken seriously. Because of course 30 years into the future women will be considered incompetent, especially if they're women of color and doubly so if they're indigenous. Even for traditionally female roles like school teachers.

The love interest has a hottie avatar but the MC gets a grip by reminding himself that *gasp* the LI might actually be an obese male named Chuck! OMG nooooooz! This female avatar has shown no interest in the MC thus far, but all that matters is her potential to authentically make the MC's dick tingle. This fatphobic, homophobic statement gets double cringe (and sloppy editing) points because the author used the "might be an obese male named Chuck" idea both times this hottie avatar LI has come up. I can only hope whoever the LI really is, she or he has no interest in this sexist shithead lunk of an MC.

The LI shows up armed to the teeth and threatening the MC at a point when he is vulnerable and has something highly valuable to protect. Yet his first reaction isn't I hope she doesn't kill me or steal my valuable thing, it's Oh man she's so haaaaawt. Let's focus on her click-click clacking studded boots!

/rant
 
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FeeFee

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I'm reading a book in which a super nice, super hard working, promising, young, and loved character randomly and grotesquely dies from a bee sting to the neck. If I had skimmed the page I would have missed it.
 

blacbird

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Excessive (at least for me) detail in description of settings. I'm reading a P.D. James novel (Death of an Expert Witness), and while I'm enjoying it, she does get carried away with nitpicky and irrelevant setting details in nearly every scene.

caw