Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

WITH NO ONE AS WITNESS by Elizabeth George.

She killed off the pregnant Lady Hellen Clyde.

I am still angry with the author and she is not invited to my house.  Ever.

The characters belong to the author and so do the consequences of the author deciding what to do to and with them.  It’s called the plot and that is the author’s as well.

If my authors are happy, that’s the first I’ve heard of it.  As the first reader on behalf of the public what I do is try to convey the impact of some decisions about plot and character which don’t work for me. But the author’s name goes on the book and the choices ultimately should be up to them.

Kate

Helen not Hellen, I know.

Poor woman deserved better.

I’ve told my editor stuff I planned on doing to characters in various series and she’s flat out told me no, absolutely not, you are not doing that, and made me take it out.  And by “made me”, I mean she’s written me 8 page single spaced editorial letters about why it’s wrong. 

Sometimes I’ve fought her on it, but usually I’ve done what she said and taken it out (case in point, if left up to me, Book 2 of the Princess Diaries series would have been called “Princess of Puke” and would have featured long puking scenes.  We won’t talk about some of the other things I wanted to do that she talked me out of). 

And, looking back, even though it enraged me at the time, I’m glad I did it, because she was always right. 

And that’s why when that particular editor recently left my publishing house, I followed her.  Because sometimes you just get so caught up in the story, you can’t see properly.  Maybe those other writers just don’t have editors who care.  --Meg

COUNTERFEIT LADY by Jude Devereux, the first and last book of hers ( or is it his?) I will ever read.  The ‘hero’ is a spineless, drunken fool, the ‘heroine’ is such a doormat that she ought to have “Please wipe your feet’ tattooed on her forehead, and the villainess is fat. That’s her main evil trait:  eating her way through the planet, while Mr Spineless and Ms Doormat do nothing to stop her.  I consider that an insult to the Fat Women of the World.  I was furious with the author for writing such a piece of crap (which gets my vote for Worse So-called Romance Ever) and with the publisher for letting it see the light of day. There ought to be some sort of standards, to protect the reading public.

The most recent book that angered me was Liz Carlyle’s Two Little Lies

It made me angry for a few reasons. The book that preceded it (One Little Sin) was rather enjoyable, and it introduced me to the characters that would be featured Two Little Lies.

The problem was that the first book did NOT give me a good impression about the characters of Two... (Possible Spoilers Ahead) In Sin, Quin was affianced to a girl, who happened to discover him engaging in sexual activities in his study with a woman who kept slapping him with her riding whip.

Lies carries on the story between Quin, and the Italian opera singer (the woman with tendencies to whip men).

Which meant that Lies had to re-tread old ground for the first quarter of the book--simply from Quin’s perspective and not his jilted fiancee’s. Which was boring.

THEN there were even more flash-backs to establish the relationship between the two characters. Flash-backs on top of flash-backs made me really, really mad. Since the actual story about these two people in the present, didn’t even get going until half-way through the book. By then, I didn’t really like any of the characters very much. They whined a lot, they complained about their lives, about the bad choices they’d made, etc.

And there were practically no sex scenes. The most exciting one was the one in Sin with the riding crop and that was just sexual play--they weren’t even having sex.

So. Recap of why I was angry about this book: Double flash-backs were double boring. Self-indulgent characters who WHINE. A LOT. And practically no decent sex scenes (and by “decent,” I mean “naughty"). BUT the supporting characters were very interesting and it was actually the supporting characters who kept me reading the book.

LOVER REVEALED by JR Ward.

I was not so much angry as bitter. I just felt like she’d walked Butch and Vishous to the line (they embraced naked for God’s sake!), and then wussed out. How much more interesting the long-term relationship would have been if they’d crossed the line and then had to go back!

But no.

Also, a little hot BDB butt secks would have made me happy. Maybe it’s just me.

I don’t want to name names, but I get really mad when I’ve been waiting and waiting and WAITING for a couple/character to get their story, only to find that a) the most interesting parts of their story were already written like, 3 books ago and/or b)the story is boring, lame, and totally unworthy of a character I have grown to love over several books

I think I mostly get mad at the author, for stringing me along through a zillion books, and for writing what I consider a lame story when I know, based on past books, that she is capable of writing truly awesome books. Kind of like a mom getting pissed at her kid for not working up to his or her potential. I’m not just mad, I’m very disappointed…

As for who those characters belong to, it’s the author, obviously. But at a certain point, especially with ongoing series, I think there’s more of an obligation to give readers what they want, even when it might be more interesting creatively to kill off a long standing character or do something equally unexpected. 

Oh, and I’m like, supposed to have a vision? Crap. I better email Hilary, pronto, and see if she has any ideas… Kidding aside, my editor (and Kate) had a huge hand in the concept for the series I’m working on now. Since I’m really new at this game, I rely on their years of experience and knowledge of what readers respond to.

I have a third kind of reader-anger, which is when an author does something that makes me unhappy but that I know makes the story stronger (e.g. killing off a character I like, separating a couple I want to be together). I get over this anger eventually.

I definitely get angry at the author, not the book.

I think characters do belong to the author, but as you say, reading is an emotional process, and the second type of reader-anger you mention makes me feel betrayed. It’s, maybe, like breaking up with someone: no one may be technically in the wrong, but you’re still mad as hell and don’t want to be in the same room anymore.

Charlaine’s blog doesn’t surprise me at all. I met her a few years ago at a boom signing, if I recall correctly, she claimed that she and Laurell were friends. And further, Charlaine said she was a huge fan of Laurell’s. I imagine it’s hard to watch your friend and colleague take so much heat from former fans.

*shrug*

And if it only takes one person to write a book, what’s with all the dedications on the first page? “This book would not exist without the help of Yadda Yadda Yadda”?

I certainly don’t think that fans have any say over what happens to characters, but they have every right to express their opinions as loud as they like.

Errr BOOK signing, not boom signing.

*head desk*

I’m an avid reader, and I do get disgusted with long-favorite authors because of the direction their writing has taken.  Case in point, anything written by Linda Howard in the last couple of years has been a severe disappointment, especially her tendency to linger (waste page space!) on the pov of the bad guys.

That said, I know the author is the ultimate ‘god’ of his/her universe.  I’m along for the ride.  If I don’t like it, I can move on to another universe.  But constantly harping about how the ‘author’s done me wrong’ has never entered my mind.  He/she is the owner of her work; me, I’m the owner of my wallet and have the option of not buying that person’s work anymore.

I haven’t been angry at a book in ages. Can’t remember the last. Maybe because few of them have been significant enough in my brainpan to make me feel cheated. Is that terrible? No, I just don’t read as much as I should.

As for the village analogy--dude, you won’t wanna see my stuff before my CPs get hold of it. UGLY. And that’s before the pros step in and make is saleable. Solo authors turn into crazy authors who can’t self-edit.

I have to answer Ms Harris a bit.  I am a big fan of her Southern Vampire books.  Now I know they aren’t romances, but rather a hybrid of romance, mystery and paranomal.

She started her books off with the heroine Sookie Stackhouse falling for Vampire Bill.  Then a few books in, Vampire Bill began to fall out of favor.  Then there was Vampire Eric, Werewolf Alcide, and Weretiger Whatshisname (I don’t like him, can’t ever remember his name).  But I’ve stayed with the books, even though I’m a Bill fan (and terrified that Ms Harris is going to kill him off), because the books are good.

However, the last one wasn’t that good.  I felt Sookie was out of character, didn’t pick up on things she would have normally.  Basically, the book was a bridge, connecting where the previous books have been to where the story is going.

I know that Ms Harris has a very vocal message board at her site and an author can’t please everyone.  But who are we to be upset with when the characters seem to spiral out of character?  Are we to be upset with the fictional characters or their creator?  As someone who paid $25 for Ms Harris’s last hardback, I have a right to my displeasure.

Larry McMurty kills off his main characters with an alacrity that drives me nuts. But I can’t help myself; I keep coming back.

After Lonesome Dove I swore I wouldn’t read another. But then I read the sequal.
The hero in the sequal gets killed off after getting his arms and legs chopped off and squirming his way across the desert. I exaggerate, but not by much.

I swore then I would never read another. But then I did. I read ever single one of his books. I hated myself while I did it. But his characters are so damned good I can’t stay away! And then he kills them.

Maybe this explains why S&M shows up in so many of my books. Hmmm. Back to the shrink.

What was the last book you got angry about?

Karin Slaughter, she did a very bad thing, with one of her main characters. I think that donkey has been flogged well enough now though.

Prior to that was Patricia Cornwell, she too did a very bad thing with one of her key characters. Readers went crazy, then she tried to make it all better, by cancelling out the bad thing that she did.

It was never the same after that though.  Kind of like trying to stay friends after you split up with a former lover.  Awkward and uneasy.

Sweet Revenge by Nora Roberts. Dear lord that book pissed me off. I didn’t realize it was a re-release of something from the 80s. I expected better from Nora Roberts. Even when I realized it was probably an earlier work I was disappointed. It wasn’t funny. I didn’t like the characters. And it had a rapist abusive sheikh for chrissakes! Oh and I can’t forget the hero who magically healed the heroine, who was afraid of sex after witnessing her mother being raped by her father the sheikh, with sex. Man, it still pisses me off that I spent money on that book.

But, I don’t think I was really mad with the author. Disappointed yes, but I was mad at the book for sucking so hard.

The characters definitely belong to the author, though, which makes it hard not to get angry at the author when a book isn’t what you expected.

I get more annoyed when authors tend to carry on series far beyond their logical conclusions.  Case in point: Jean M. Auel (enough of the mammoth sex already) and Diana Gabaldon (enough of the OMG I know the future we’re all going to die—but then we don’t—followed by sex).  I would rather leave my characters who I’ve grown to love at a time and place where I can feel good about them and know that there’s a HEA.  The parallel is when a TV show goes on for far, far too long.  No one really watches it and it sinks into obscurity, clinging to guest starts and cameo celebs.  Those are the things that make me upset with books/authors.

MaryKate - I agree. I would have liked to see the Vishous/Butch thing explored further. One thing that grated a little was when they finally have their embrace - it was followed by this was Never going to happen again, NEVER EVER, that’s NEVER EVER EVER. She couldn’t just let the action speak for itself and leave it ambiguous.

As for the book that last upset me. I almost hesitate to mention this ‘cause I know blogs and message boards where discussion is still ongoing. But it’s Karin Slaughter’s Skin Privilege (Beyond Reach in the US). I’ve given away all the books in the series. I read the end and felt like I’d wasted my time and money.

I’ve gone off series before (LKH) but I’ve kept the books I enjoyed. But this last Grant County book...it’s the first book that’s made me appreciate Kathy Bates position in Misery.

I think what bugs me most about the Harris post is her disingenuous “surprise” that readers are so invested in books/characters that they become angry when the books take a direction they don’t like. When an author invites readers to interact with them (and with each other) via a blog or message board or forum, readers will feel more comfortable voicing their opinions. Is that so difficult to comprehend?

As for the last book that made me angry, I think it was Stephanie Plum #12, when Stephanie kissed Ranger while living mostly at Morelli’s house. Infidelity is my #1 bulletproof squick, so between that and the lazy writing (barely 200 pages, 14-point type, 16-point line spacing, and 1.25” margins) I felt quite justified in not only skipping #13, but in donating #s 1-12 to my local Goodwill.

I’m starting to get a little scared by the spamblocker’s psychic abilities: my current word is reaction99.

Gee Mary Kate,

Um I am not gonna waste my time even reading that JR Ward book.

Thank you for the heads up.

I agree with Two Little Lies.  85% of the damned novel was unnecessary and blatantly stupid.  It felt like John Jakes old crap.  Wallow, wallow, sex, wallow, wallow.

Anyway, I hate to harp on her, but I not only can’t read Hamilton anymore… her promotional nightmare with Micah was an outrage.  I picked it up, took one look at the gi-normous font and print spacing, and discovered she’d gotten a novel’s worth of cash out of me for a cheesy, incomplete, bad novella with unpleasant TMI sprawled over every page.

Johanna Lindsey’s Captive (not the last, but the one before-- may have the title screwed up) was, IMO, so badly written I was convinced the first few pages were either a joke or something awful had happened to her and an intern was forced to write the book.  I haven’t picked up the new one.

I think everyone was pissed at Charlaine Harris when she killed off the husband in one of her other series. I can’t remember which one. It was a big deal, I guess, but I read the last book first, so I didn’t really care. But I recall that her readers were outraged. Tough titty.

I was pissed at the Vampire Queen’s Servant. Sorry Joey. I suck, I know it. I just didn’t like her guys. Sorry. I couldn’t find ANYTHING redeemable about her. Nothing. And that made me a little mad because I was so looking forward to reading it. But I will keep reading Joey Hill. :)

“Also, a little hot BDB butt secks would have made me happy. Maybe it’s just me.” ABSOLUTELY agree with you there, Mary Kate.

The characters belong to the writer, during the process of creating them and telling their story. A writer can’t write with readers hanging over her shoulder giving their opinions, their hopes, their wishes.

Which one(s) do you listen to?

But the characters become the reader’s when the reader opens the book. And she has every right to get as angry as she wants, as happy as she wants.

An editor edits--and thank God for good, solid, smart editors who tell us no. (No to Princess Puke!)

I don’t think writing is a collaboration. It’s a partnership, and that’s a different thing to me. Ultimately, it’s my decision whether to listen to my editor, and to take her direction. If I’m a good partner, and trust my partner, I’m going to listen, and the majority of the time, take her advice.

The reader then becomes another partner--each individual one. A writer can’t listen to all of them, as they’ll often contridict each other. What one loved, the other hated. Who’s right?

Both.

But…

When a large group of readers agree, the smart writer needs to listen, and to consider. Just as she listened to her editor, and considered.

When a book meets my bedroom wall, it is almost never because of something that a character has done.  My major beef is with style.  If an author I enjoy has gone off the rails and written something that is more an exercise in, “Look how literary I am!  Aren’t you impressed by my magical writerliness?” than an actual story, I’m done.  Every time this happens, I have a mental image of editors fleeing like rats from the author’s sinking ship.  And if the editors have abandoned them, so will I.

I read to be immersed in a world, not befuddled by wordplay.

lisabea,

Did you see the new Joey Hill “Rough Canvas” out over at Ellora’s Cave?
It’s got man on man action.

I am reading it as we speak… Get it!

Unfortunately, the most recent book to piss me off was by a new author that I met and absolutely adored. I rushed out (err - 6 weeks later) to snatch up her book. At first, I loved it. It was riveting, and so well written. I was in love with the characters, especially the main character, and then suddenly at the second to last chapter, the main cc revealed that she was in fact the villain and had been lying to the reader the whole time about her role in the book’s murder. I was so pissed about that. It completely let the air of the balloon for me. I truly hate those unreliable narrators.

I tend to be a good (or maybe lucky) picker. The last book I remember getting really angry about was the third book of the Bitterbynde Trilogy by Cecelia Dart-Thornton. Terrific trilogy, really liked it, well written, nice riffs on Celtic myths and legends, heroine makes progress at the end of each book, heading nicely toward a HEA…

[SPOILER WARNING]

...until BOOM! Ten pages from the end the heroine is RIGHT BACK WHERE SHE STARTED, no HEA, no memory, no friends, no lover, massively disfigured by horrible accident.

[OK, safe to read now.]

I believe I may have yelled “I just read 1000 pages for THIS?”

I think I was mainly mad at the book. With a side of pique for the author and whoever let her do that. Up to that point it had been great, though.

I also get disappointed when good series slide. Again, I’ve been a pretty lucky picker up to now, so it hasn’t happened that often.

Lisabea, I think I read that Charlaine Harris—it’s the only one of hers I’ve read. Mainly I was puzzled, in a “Huh. Well, that came out of nowhere” kind of way, but I suspected I would’ve been quite annoyed if I’d been a long-time reader of the series.

I picked up a book the other day (sorry, I got rid of it, don’t remember the title or the author) but after 30 pages I put it back down, pissed because I’d already wasted that much time on the story.

What did author do? Wrote in so many cliches that I began to think it was the goal. As if the characters speaking and thinking cliche lines weren’t enough, their jobs, their internal conflicts, problems with family EVERYTHING FEAKING THING was nothing but one big cliche.

Grr....

The only author I ever got seriously pissed at was Stephen King when I got to the end of “Cujo”.  I was so upset that it took me nearly 10 years to pick up another Stephen King novel even though he had been a favorite up to then.  I’ve probably only read three of his books since then.

I have had other authors that I’ve left in the dust because their stories got annoying.  Cathleen Coulter is really pissing me off with her regurgitated novels.  They read like they were written 20-30 years ago.  Story styles and storylines have changed over the decades.

Also, a few years ago I picked up a bunch of Harlequin romances at a garage sale...something like 10 for $1.00.  I read a bunch of them and was getting really irritated.  Then I thought to look at the published dates and they were all from the early 80’s.  All the stories had a similar theme where the “hero” basically blackmails the heroine to be with him.  We call that sexual harassment these days and I really can’t stand to read those storylines any more.

Of course readers have the right to be sad/annoyed/angry when a book doesn’t turn out they way they want.  Everyone is entitled to her own feelings.  But that doesn’t mean those feelings need to be aired outside the privacy of one’s own head. 

Can you imagine it in an art gallery?  “You know, she used more blue in her last painting, and I liked it so much better.  This painting should be blue!  And all her future works should feature blue as well—because I like blue!”

No matter what happens in a book (movie, painting, whatever), someone will hate it.  Someone else will love it.  The creator of the work can’t please both; so she has to please herself, first.

I don’t get angry when it’s the “author’s vision” of the character and it seems to follow some kind of arc.  I get very annoyed when things seem neatly wrapped up in an HEA, and then there is another book and they have broken up because ... well, there is no logic to the character change.  It just happens. The book hits the wall, the author is removed from my buy list.

And paranormal series can make me crazy.  The big baddy can’t be the *ultimate* evil in every book if it’s different every time.  How many apocalypses can there be?  How come no one ever discovers mediocre evil plots? Or demonic forces that will take out, oh a square mile or two of New Jersey instead of destroying ‘life as we know it’ EVERY DAMN TIME they run into something sinister?  If the first book in a series confronts an ultimate evil and does come to some kind of reasonable resolution, it has to be extraordinarily well written and plotted with really appealing characters before I’d even consider buying the second.

Mostly if I am angry, it is at the author.  Why would I blame the book?  The book has no say in how it’s written.

Gwynnyd

Of course the characters belong to the author as she/he created them and they can do what they want with them.

BUT. . . . .

they need to be prepared for reader reaction. Just because they think that what they did was the best thing for the book/characters doesn’t mean everyone is going to agree.

And when readers get pissed, the authors need to put on their big girl pants and deal with it.  Not whine about what a bunch of ungrateful idiots the readers are.

Taking the questions in order:

1. I don’t think I’ve ever been angry about a book. Well, not about fiction. I’ve been angry about nonfiction books, but that’s not under discussion here.

2. I don’t get angry, but I do get disappointed. I’ve read books that I thought were bad, or not as good as the author could be. I always hope that the author will get better again, or back to the sort of thing I dig, but I know in reality that that is unlikely. It’s a rare author who can keep my interest past six books; they tend to wind down like a top after that.

3. I’m disappointed in the book when I feel that the author is telling a story that I’m just not interested in. I’m disappointed in the author when I feel that they “phoned it in” or just did a lot of illogical, silly things with the plot and characters. I often am annoyed with the editor at that point, too, since it’s her job to keep the author from displaying stupidity, but I know that editors don’t have a magic author-control switch.

4. The characters belong to the author. Period. I have come to tolerate fanfic as an expression of how captivating an author’s world is, but in the “canon” works, the author is God, and the readers can dig it or they can stop buying the books.

5. I haven’t got an editor yet, but my agent made excellent suggestions on my first novel. She really “got” what I was trying to do, and made suggestions that made a lot of sense to me and amped up my own vision. When/if we sell the book, I hope it’s to an editor who sees it the same way.

The only books I really get mad at are those that leave you hanging...and there isn’t a sequel.

Gone with the Wind pissed me off royally.  The first book that I read of Guy Gavriel Kay’s was the only book I’ve ever thrown at the wall (too lazy to look up the name now).

I gave up on Charlaine’s series pretty early on. I was still reading LKH at the time, so Charlaine’s books seemed (to me) like LKH Lite in the South. Then LKH dropped Micah and that was it for me, as well. Which makes me surprisingly sad because I LOVE the Anita Blake series. And I had thought that she was getting all of her wild ‘n crazy sex out in her Merry Gentry series but… no. Now it’s all just wild ‘n crazy sex and, if I had wanted that, I would have just bought some erotica. (LKH also wrote some random book based of an RPG card game, I think, called Ravenscroft, or something similar, and that book scarred me for LIFE. It was appallingly disgusting and I must have been high when I bought it.)

Back to the topic at hand: I never, ever assume that a writer is writing for anyone but him/herself. It’s their world, and their characters. The author is merely inviting me into that world.

BUT if a book angers, or disappoints me, it makes me wary of buying another book from the same author. I give new authors a chance all of the time and I often never give them a second chance.

And with established authors (series or not) like Harris and Liz Carlyle--one really bad book can be enough to put me off their work indefinitely. And not out of any sense of betrayal, but because reading a bad book from an author I had previously enjoyed just makes me sad. It makes me feel like an English teacher who is telling her student that she could do SO MUCH BETTER.

I was really, really looking forward to the new Nora Roberts ("High Noon") only to get royally pissed off with her main characters. The heroine is so strong, hard working, wonderful, etc. that she made my head hurt - nobody, not nobody, is that self-sacrificing. The hero was no better - come on folks, he WON THE LOTTERY, loves his family and is there to help with laundry when you need him. Can anyone say pandering?

To an extent I agree, my character’s are mine so back off dammit.

But then I read a book by Erica Spindler and saw red for a week. I saw the twist in the plot at chapter one and her heroine was dumber than spit. She had sex with a guy. The afterglow was her throwing up dinner, because she was that uncomfortable with him touching her and then the same heroine decided to get engage to him and told herself she’d get over it eventually.

WTF?!!

When this happens I think something has gone wrong in the village. I understand and believe writer’s should write first for themselves, but at some point you have to think of the reader. I’m not saying censorship, but an author should asking themselves how would I feel about this character if I wasn’t writing he/she but reading he/she’s story?

The most recent book that pissed me off was “The Jury” by Fern Michaels.  Has anyone else read this dog?  You have my sympathy.  Thank Jebus it was given to me and I didn’t pay money for it.

It has bad writing, mean-spirited physical abuse, man-bashing, and so many other bad points.  The book opens with the main character estranged from her love interest.  Apparently her past bad behavior has driven him away for good.  Until they magically get back together with absolutely no mention of how they resolved their issues.  So very bad...are all Fern Michaels like this?

As a reader I get angry when one or both H/H do obviously stupid things. The BIG misunderstanding ploy annoys, really annoys when used more than once in the same book. The other thing is when an author kills a great series by never letting it end. Brilliant is exceedingly difficult to repeat endlessly in the same world with the same rules.

I’ve only had one editor and she is a GODDESS! She has told me NO a few times, but she has been sooooo right. Only once did I insist on a point. I am dang lucky to benefit from her knowledge and experience.

I can’t remember ever being as angry as I am right now at Stephanie Laurens and her publisher, and her editor and her hair dresser… sigh. Her newest, Beyond Seduction, is the same book with different characters.

She is a wonderful writer. Hers is beautiful, almost poetic writing… but every single couple in the last few books thinks exactly the same thing as the couple in the previous book. Does the same thing. Says the same thing (to themselves, no less). STOP IT.

Why wouldn’t the editor say: “Steph, you’ve done this one before hun, 14 times?”

Yes, it’s her world and she’s god in it, but I’m not paying with my time and money to worship at the alter of an author’s lack of imagination, or unwillingness to take some chances.... or an ego that says the readers won’t recognize this as already having been done, by me, a lot.....

Every author is going to piss some readers off some time. J R Ward would have seriously pissed off some romance readers if she had let Butch and V have sex, and she seriously pissed off some romance readers when she didn’t let them have sex. Doesn’t matter, she wrote a great story and no one can say it was a bad book--- it may not have gone where you wanted it to, but it was good writing and an interesting story. Her characters, her decision, but not boring.

Stephanine Laurens, not so much anymore

Katie, LKH wrote a novel for the tapletop RPG Ravenloft.  My husband has been a gamer since middle school, and collects the novels from a number of different gaming worlds.  I’ll play any game, but woo boy, some of those books are not pretty.

Teddypig,
I am so incoherent. What I meant to say was this: I didn’t like Lady Elyssa what-ever-the-rest-of-her-name-was from the Vampire Queen’s Servant. She was too dark. Which makes me sound like a whiner for expecting a nicer vampire, but, hey, that’s just me. She was all: “I kill humans, deal with it. I am evil dark dark dark”, and he was all, “Yea babe, that’s cool. Where do I sign on?” NOT sexy. She had 1000 years worth of baggage, which just made the relationship too much work. I couldn’t finish the book. Waa. Sadly, it hit the wall.

I’ll down load the Joey Hill tonight cuz it looks very, very good. ;)

Oh, too funny and how timely.  I just did a blog at the LotC blog about 13 Pet Peeves of a Cranky Bibliophile because I read a really awful batch of books in the last few weeks.

Let’s summarize the blog:

1 - Getting the facts wrong.
2 - Getting the culture/vernacular of other countries wrong.
3 - Getting foreign languages wrong because you’re too lazy to crack open a dictionary.
4 - TSTL characters.

As for my editor, I LOVE her.  She has an eagle eye, makes suggestions for improvement, but knows when not to push because there are somethings I just won’t give in on (e.g. comma placements).

I’m with Chicklet on Stephanie Plum. Number 12 gave me the creeps. I’m done. No more of the love triangle, no more Grandma, no more bloody funeral home, no more Lula - I just can’t take it anymore. What else is there for her to do other than die in one of her cars that constantly seem to blow up or get married to Morelli and have his damn babies? I just can’t be excited about a character who hasn’t grown AT ALL in the entire time these books have been coming out.
FFS make a bloody decision all ready and be done with it!

My verification word? Taking43. Make that taking 43 very deep breaths to calm down!

I remember the first time a book’s ending upset me-- I was five and the story was “The Little Mermaid.” So I simply tore out the last two pages of the book and stuck in my own ending.  Problem solved (except for the parental lecture on not tearing pages out of books).  Silly as it sounds, when a book’s outcome annoys me, or a character development bothers me, I rewrite it in my head.  As far as I’m concerned, Scarlett always gets Rhett back and Lady Helen Clyde is still alive and kicking.  When I re-read, I just stop reading before the bad bits.  Hey, it works for me. Although I realize that it does raise all sorts of other concerns about authorial ownership and the integrity of the story....

Thomas Harris

Hannibal

SPOILERS

Except I don’t really care if I spoil this book, because IMHO, people need to be warned off.

Clarice Starling, one of my all time favorite strong, female characters, becomes a drug-addicted, cannibal love slave.

There are other parts of the book that are merely, wall-bangingly bad. But the ending is an abomination.  It doesn’t just read as a character violation, or shameless cash grab by the author.  It’s as though Harris wants to punish his audience for liking Hannibal Lector too much, and demanding too much gore and depravity. 

The vibe I got, as reader, was that he held me in utter contempt.  And it’s even more annoying that it’s beautifully written.

The movie has a totally different ending, and is 100 times better than the source material.

~Can anyone say pandering?~

I can understand and accept that any reader doesn’t like characters I write or a storyline, or, well, pretty much anything inside the book.

But I don’t get what you mean by pandering. See, this assigns a motive to me, as the writer--who you don’t know. And it becomes about me and my motivations--which you couldn’t possibly know--and not about the story.

It’s like: Say you think I screwed the pooch on any given book. Okay with me.

Say you believe you know why I screwed the pooch. Not so okay with me.

I’m still violently bitter at Suzanne Forster for The Morning After.

GIANT SPOILER ALERT:

The hero drugs the heroine, marries her and has sex with her to get her pregnant while she’s roofied up, all so he can steal her amniotic fluid to cure his dad of some rare disease, and lies to her about who he is through the entire book, and she just lets it go? WTF?!

See, six years later, and still violently bitter.

For my editor self, it’s a fine line, especially on the first book with an author… it’s a giant trust issue until you’ve built up a good relationship where they know you know what the heck you’re talking about.

I’ve asked for entire chapters to be cut, and while the author was really upset by the suggestion, in the end, she was very happy with the finished book.

As for keeping my authors happy, I try to pick my battles. Let it be a bit of a give and take as far as edits go. I’ve played devil’s advocate, I’ve offered compromises and I’ve stood firm on the really really big things.

Ultimately, my only goal is to produce the best, most awesomest book evah. And I just hope that my authors remember that when they’re stabbing my voodoo doll. *grin*

I think that until the book is released, the characters belong to the author. Once the book is out, it becomes more collaborative because the readers start to imagine different endings or missing moments, etc. This is where fanfiction comes in.

I have two examples of books that made me rather angry.

1) Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. At that time, I was a fairly active fanfiction writer and clearly imagined where I thought the story should go. Apparently, JKR did NOT get my memo and the book totally did not meet my expectations. I HATED it at first. Now, with time and distance, I see that the book is just fine. The issue was with me and my overblown reader expectations.

2) I just finished the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer. I love, love, love her conception of vampires. The Cullens are amazing. That didn’t stop me from wanting to kick her TSTL heroine, Bella. Seriously, could she be more of a selfish, self-absorbed brat? And that obnoxious werewolf, Jacob, is just as bad. I suspect I’ll read the next one because I really do love the vamps but I wanted to toss the book across the room last night.

“The characters belong to the author. Period. I have come to tolerate fanfic as an expression of how captivating an author’s world is, but in the “canon” works, the author is God, and the readers can dig it or they can stop buying the books.”

I can’t disagree more strongly with this statement. As soon as the book is published it belongs to the readers and they can interpret it any way they like. The author is only ‘god’ in the sense of creating the world. Like ‘god’ they then stand back and let people do whatever they please.

If a book in a series sucks royally and the author assassinates her own characters, I’m quite within my rights to shrug, dismiss it completely and go off and read a better-written fanfic.

Yeah JK Rowling, I’m looking at YOU!

In general, the things that piss me off about stories are these:

1.Infidelity. Yes, I know it happens in real life. If I wanted real life, I would go the fuck outside.

2. Stories where nothing gets resolved and everyone’s unhappy at the end. I mean, screw that. Read above about real life and going the fuck outside.

3.The characters are miserable for the entire book. When I read, I’m sucked in, and everything is happening to me. I get upset and frustrated, instead of having a good time. THE FUCK OUTSIDE.

But the things I hate the most, the absolute most, that make me fling books across the room in fury, are:

4.When the author is trying to say something with the book, and it’s bullshit and/or isn’t backed up. I read Citizen Girl a while ago, and let me tell you, I was ready to set the book on fire. The author wanted to say that pornography was wrong-- fair enough, convince me-- but she spent the whole book preaching to the choir. The exaggerations frustrated me along with some pretty stupid assumptions, but it only made me support pornography out of spite at the end.

5.Old style science fiction bothers me. I know it’s a product of its time, but I can’t deal with books where all the females are either simpering, boring, overly-sweet twits, or BATSHIT INSANE. My own fault for reading old scifi, which was written for teenage geeky boys, but seriously buddy-- just because girls don’t make sense to YOU does not mean we don’t make any sense at ALL.

Lord, back in the day I would get really angry about reading bad books.

Back in the 70’s or 80’s, the guy (Eric something) who wrote Love Story went on the write a book called The Class, I think, and it absolutely reeked! I wanted to go out and find him but I think I was in Spain then. I still think I got robbed.

A while back I read a book called The Reluctant Miss Van Helsing. It was so godawful it prompted me to write my first amazon review. And I can’t get rid of the frikkin’ book now. UBS doesn’t take romances. I’m still pissed about that experience and won’t give that author a second chance. Ghastly!

Any takers?

Then there’s LKH naturally, big surprise.

J.R. Ward irritated me with her first book (that stupid lingo and spelling) but I probably could have moved on if I hadn’t started running into her freaky fans, but I guess that’s a different topic.

I know which Charlaine Harris series in which she killed off the husband, then she killed the cat, from old-age she said - it was only seven years old! And she had the heroine marry that skinny writer - he was so dull. Kind of a let down. I’m more annoyed that she ended the Lilly Bard series. If Sookie’s started to slip maybe I won’t go back to it.

There are other writers I got turned off of because of weak writing, bad research. I usually don’t get to far with those and sometimes if I hear good things about them I occassionally give them another chance.

I do believe that writing is a solitary process with the help of a good editor. Sometimes the author sees something in her story arc that needs to be addressed that her readers are unwilling to accept. But I also think an author should pay attention to her readers when they bitch about editing or lame plot lines; then the bottom line is in peril.

That was way to long…

My latest disappointment was Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer.  I was upset because the actions of the heroine seemed to completely contradict her behavior from Twilight.  Eclipse simply ruined the magic of Twilight, if I reread Twilight it just won’t be the same.

Dumping Billy by Olivia Goldsmith. I don’t think this was actually written by her, she died around the time it came out. Still it sucked rocks and I was motivated to write a cranky review on Amazon. Especially galling since I loved her other books and her characters were funny, human and she even threw in a little social commentary from time to time (Fashionably Late). Bad Boy stank too but it had some good moments and a geek hero.

The public wants unique, brave and inspired fiction. It does not want pandering crap. In order to get unique, brave and inspired fiction, you need to give the author the authority to do her thang.

However.

If a writer wants to get published, then she has to write material that other people enjoy reading. Yes, she depends on her own instincts and talent to do that, but she is still applying those instincts and that talent to the problem of giving others what they want. It’s not a selfish endeavour.

Where authors like Anne Rice, et ilk, go wrong is in thinking the books they write strictly for themselves deserve to be published.

It’s the difference between masturbation and sex. If you’re having sex, then you need to think about someone else’s pleasure, as well as your own.

What we readers are complaining about, when we complain about an about an author who disappoints us, is that we signed up for sex and instead had someone masturbate on us.

The only book I can think of that ever seriously pissed me off was Adele, later reprinted as Thornfield Hall, by Emma Tennant.  If somebody wrote the same story with different names inserted and it had nothing to do with Jane Eyre, I would probably have just thought it was cliched crap that occasionally contradicted itself, and not particularly hated on it.  But I don’t think that you get to use somebody else’s characters when the only resemblance is the names.  I read that book during the summer reading club at the library last year, the staff version of which involved filling out slips to be drawn for free ice cream.  This is what I wrote on the slip for that book:

“This is the worst book ever.  I need ice cream to get the bad taste out of my mouth.”

(I got it, too.  The person who drew it laughed.)

An author is god to his or her characters.  We can like what happens to them or not, but we have to recognize that we don’t get to make the decisions.  Here I’m thinking of the end of Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man Trilogy.  There are a lot of people who think that it’s a bad ending because their favorite ship didn’t become cannon and are desperate for her to write more and make it cannon.  I don’t care for the ending much myself, but I say it’s because she didn’t sell me on the ending well enough- in fact, for most of the trilogy she seems to be selling the exact opposite.  An author can do whatever she wants to her characters, but I expect her to convince me that it makes sense.

The only author I have been angry with is Sandra Brown.  The first book I read by her was Unspeakable.  I loved it.  Some of the passages were truly poetic and I felt I gained insight into the world of the deaf.  Then I bought 6 (count ‘em) six more of her books, looking for the magic again.  And I hated every single one of them.  One was set in New Orleans.  I hated living there for awhile as a child.  Ok, maybe that’s why.  Next book, hero sucked.  His own mother couldn’t love him.  The sixth and final book had the sucky twins and I was done with her forever!

As for Sweet Revenge by Nora Roberts.  Robin wrote a post at Romancing the Blog, I think, about seductive reads, books that ought to bother you and don’t.  Well, I hate sheik books and I hate books where the h/h are crooks.  But I really enjoyed the story in Sweet Revenge.  Her triology with the vampire.  I detest neck biters.  Squicks me out.  But I thought, ok, LaNora, I’ll give it one chance.  Wound up really enjoying the trilogy.  So I guess that the authors are correct, they write what they think will be appreciated and sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.

But I am still pissed at Sandra Brown for writing 5 crapass books after one that I loved and I will not forgive her during this century.

Knight in Shining Armor
Jude Deveraeux (sp?)

A wonderful story, great heroine, great hero, funny scenes etc..the ending made me throw the book at the wall.

Years later I re-read it, threw it at the wall again LOL.

Moral of the story, men are disposable, just find another with the same eyes.

creeeeeepy.

I am not one to get angry at a book.  I am like many others that I will be disappointed with an author every once in a while.  I have stopped my auto-buy of Linda Howard books.

The one that I remember making me mad was Wuthering Heights.  UGH. Two more selfish, self indulged humans that had NO IDEA how to love anyone or anything but themselves I’ve not seen again.  I was mad that I expected a great romance and got those two.  I was also mad because of the small part of my poor brain that said ‘no, you just aren’t smart enough to get the story’.

I still think it was an awful book though. 

Sam

Amazon.com thinks I’m a god.  Don’t believe me?

Check my blog:

PROOF

btw, my submit word is his59

I’m not even going there.

I agree with a lot of points brought up here. An author is definitely god of their own universe, but if she puts a book out there for readers to read, she should expect criticism of it.

I usually don’t finish books that make me angry, although ones recently that annoyed me were Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight , which I was expecting to be the best YA paranormal book ever, and which, well, was not. I got so annoyed with Bella, and found her relationship with Edward more squicky than romantic that I just couldn’t finish it.

Before that I read Christine Feehan’s Dark Prince , while my inner feminist shrieked at me and told me that there’s no way I will ever find codependent women with psychotic men sexy at all. Except I clearly wasn’t all that angry with the book since I went on to read the next book and liked it a lot better.

I usually get annoyed by lazy research in books.  The last book I became very annoyed about was a Nocturne-- Harlequin?  Where the author screwed up a bit of forensic evidence that she could have researched by watching CSI. Luckily I had picked it up at a thrift store and it went right back the next trip.

Then there was Cast in Shadow.  At the very beginning it started to remind me too much of Simon Green’s Hawk and Fisher series, then I discover that she really wants to be a Healer and Do Good Works.  I gave up right there because that was a one/two punch that I didn’t enjoy.  I could have dealt with Hawk and Fisher reprise-- after all there is not enough fantasy police procedural-- but Healer heroines are right out of it. 

Annoyed at the author in the Nocturn, the Cast in Shadow just left me uninclined to read any further. 

Characters belong to the author but he or she better not bore me with them or I won’t read that person any more.

Right now I am luxuriating in Phil Rickman’s Merrily Watkins mystery series-- She’s a “Priest in Charge” (vicar) if a small village and a “Deliverance Minister” (exorcist)attached to the Herefordshire Diocese and he writes a very believable female character-- in fact most of his female characters are quite believable. 

Don’t know how so many romance readers miss the mark with women in romances heroines and villains.

Oh man, I forgot the one author who I refuse to read any more: Anne Tyler. I had to read The Accidental Tourist for senior English. Hated. It. Hated the characters, hated the story, hated the movie. So, of course, I read Breathing Lessons willingly thinking it couldn’t be as bad. I was wrong. I have worked very hard to block this book from my memory but all these years later I remember that I got violently angry at it.

And I got angry at Anne Tyler. I got angry with her for writing such horrible unlikeable characters in such depressing situations. It was completely irrational, especially since I read one of her books willingly (I got angry with my English teacher for making me read The Accidental Tourist)

But very few books incite anger or hatred in me at either the book or the author. Anne Tyler is just very special. She could write the greatest book in the world that every one loves and I still would not read it.

I just bought (and extremely disliked) Real Vamps Don’t Drink O-Neg, by Tawny Taylor.  Catchy title, eh?  Not so much related to the book, as far as I could tell.  Well, there ARE vampires in it.  But to be fair, I have to concede that two-thirds the way through it I just started skimming to see if the ending resolved any of the plot points, so maybe the o-neg mystery is resolved and I missed it.  Anyway, the back sounded kinda sexy, and I have this vampire thing lately, so I went with it.  The beginning and initial setup was interesting, and then it went nowhere.  In the end, I was just angry I spent $13.

The Midnighters series by Scott Westerfield.

It was one of those happy happy fun books where everything goes right in the end. Of course there was conflict, and they were very good books, but you always knew the ‘Justice League’ would prevail, and that Jessica and Jonathan would fa