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40 Annoying Literary Moments That Drive Readers Up The Wall: As Shared By The Bored Panda Community
Most of us enjoy cuddling up with our favorite book in the evening and immersing ourselves in the author's imaginative or actual world with a goal to learn, entertain and relax.
However, from time to time, when reading a book, we notice things that seem to spoil our entire appetite for reading! This is where our community members share the biggest literary pet peeves they've noticed!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
Where did putting the number of the series on the spine go? Huh??? SOMEBODY TELL ME!!!
Final score:
233points
Kirsty 2 years ago
To add to this, changing the style, writing direction/size, size and or picture style of a series of books so people can never have a pleasing set. Looking at you discworld. Slowly buying my way through the editions specifically made to stop this issue that people had to scream for years for.
RELATED:
#2
Women characters written by men. Especially when everything they do has to do with their breasts. Or when it’s an adventure/action novel and the woman has to be portrayed as emotionless, fully badass, and completely misogynistic to other women because god forbid a girl with stereotypically feminine qualities is also tough and powerful.
Final score:
222points
Rose Romano 2 years ago
Oh, yes, yes, yes. I tried a few novels with women as the central characters written by men. Now I don't care what the book is. If it's about a woman and written by a man, I will not read it!
#3
Typos, misspellings, inaccurate changes in later scenes (in the first, he ordered a burger, but later in the same meal he cuts his steak), using the wrong name. Where the hell are the editors?
Final score:
199points
#4
How every single book that exists is a New York Times Bestseller or is written by a New York Times Bestselling Author... That's like the participation award for writers at this point.
Final score:
172points
#5
When you're reading a really good book/series, but its quality starts to go down slowly.
Final score:
166points
Rose Romano 2 years ago
Something that drives me crazy is those fantasy series in which there's a little magical person who has to save everyone. We're almost at the end and none of her magic powers are working. Suddenly, she remembers an old power that she hasn't used in years and everyone is saved!
#6
If you're kidnapped, but fall 'in love' with your kidnapper, it's not love. It's Stockholm syndrome.
Final score:
163points
#7
Lending a book to someone and it coming back dogeared, or otherwise messed up.
Final score:
159points
#8
A series that revolves around a "Chosen One" who is often a whiny impetuous brat.
Final score:
159points
Peter Trudell Jr 2 years ago
There have been a lot of those lately, a lot of them "young adult" series (or is the phrase 'new adult' now?). I love Urban Fantasy and can't just pick up a new book, I have to research the author and make sure it's not another paranormal romance. Can't I just have modern era supernatural beings interacting with humans?
#9
Incorrectness. Just they are straight-up wrong somewhere in the book. I also can't stand authors that like to sound smart (or just are smart....) and they use way too many words.
For example:
The quick brown fox jumped over the log.
The expeditious mahogany Vulpes vulpes (the scientific name for fox, had to look it up) ascended into the amalgamation of nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, water, etc. Thereupon, the creature plunged to the earth on the far periphery of the length of the limb of a deceased large plant enclosed in the bark.
I'm all for describing things and using details, but there is indeed such a thing as 'too many words'.
Final score:
158points
#10
This goes back to Highschool. Having a book you loved as subject matter in English, and after the teacher and class have analysed it thoroughly, you can't even look at anymore.
Final score:
157points
Rose Romano 2 years ago
I hate it when I think I'm being a good little reader by reading the introduction to a novel before reading the novel and then they tell me the ending of the story in the introduction. I don't care if the book was first published a hundred years ago!!!
#11
In books when the "villain's" problems could have been solved by rational thinking, and the main characters are the actual jerks.
Final score:
142points
#12
Female "characters" with zero personality that are simply a love interest or damsel in distress.
Final score:
133points
#13
When an author is great at building suspense and creating a creepy atmosphere, and then, the silly and disappointing climax comes. (Looking at you, Stephen King!)
Final score:
132points
Kelly Shaw 2 years ago
Literally. He can write a good general story but cannot finish a book to save his life.
#14
When you fall in love with a series, and it has some form of impact on your life - but the author turns out to be a douchebag. Separating art from the artist can be difficult.
Final score:
125points
#15
Why does the fate of the whole world usually lie on a hormonal 16-year-old who can duel, hack and invent at level par to a 30-year-old sucked-of-life adult? Oh, and they usually are portrayed as social outcasts who will eventually marry their crush happily ever after.
Final score:
123points
Tuesday Next 2 years ago
I mean, that happens a lot in YA because those books are written for teenagers
#16
When a story starts off as a mystery, but suddenly gets a big portion of romance right in the middle of the investigation. With many pages spent wondering if the feelings are mutual. Ugh... I want to know who the killer is and how they did it, not if the main character gets a mate.
Final score:
114points
Arctic Fox Lover 2 years ago
We (my family) have the same problem with movies. We'll search and search for a long time, finally find something that seems to be interesting, start watching it, then it'll slowly turn into a cheesy romance to the point where it isn't worth watching any more.
#17
Generic villains. Let's make them dark, menacing, sinister, pointed, and ugly, and they must always be dressed in black and alternating between a sneer and a maniacal cackle. The kind where you can just take one glance at them and know with all certainty that "that's the bad guy."
The actual biggest threats in life are undetectable - take notes!
Final score:
109points
censorshipsucks 1 year ago
Well according to hollywood, you can tell who the villain is by whether or not they are using an apple product. If they are using one, they're not the villain.
#18
When writing a series, authors often do a bit of recap to tie in the new book to the previous book. I become annoyed when the author does this by having one character monologue the back story to a second character who already knows said back story.
I also dislike discontinuity. If a character has black hair and brown eyes, she shouldn't suddenly become auburn with green eyes in the next chapter.
Final score:
107points
#19
Books for teenagers and young adults that romanticize violent behavior.
This wouldn't be so bad if it was occasional, but I feel it's very common in books targeting those age groups. Sometimes, perhaps even often, that character is eventually ousted by a "better" character and the reader is supposed to see how terrible the abusive character's behaviour was. Unfortunately, it mostly serves to normalise that behaviour.
Final score:
91points
Ian Webling 1 year ago
I came across a book in a family member of my wife's which was part of a of a 20 volume series on projectile vomiting. Why romanticise that?
#20
Reading the first book of a series, then waiting for ages for the second one because the author has decided to start a completely different one... I want to know how the story will end!
Final score:
90points
#21
It gets to me when I'm reading a novel with a character smokes three packs of cigarettes a day and never coughs once in the whole book.
And then there are the scenes in which three or four people have a serious discussion which lasts for four or five pages, and everybody's coffee stays hot until the last line.
Final score:
89points
#22
I get most of my books from an online website, Quotev. You can write and publish books there. I sure have my fair share of books on there. I hate it when I find a book I'm interested in, but the grammar is terrible! Run-on sentences, the paragraphs aren't separated, incorrect spelling, and no punctuation! It's physically painful to read.
Final score:
82points
#23
I don't like when any novel starts to be focused on romance more than the actual story. Romance is an okay aspect, but that doesn't mean it should take over the plot of book that isn't under the category of romance.
Final score:
77points
#24
When a famous writer has a book published only because they are a famous writer, not because the book is good or worth reading. Far too many examples to mention.
Final score:
76points
#25
In a multi-book series, taking up most of a chapter catching readers up on the last 20 or so books. You can't get to the new story for having to reread the old one. Again.
Final score:
76points
#26
When stories just stop. There’s no proper ending to the book, it’s like the author just got bored and gave up. The amount of times I’ve read a book that I’ve been really enjoying and at the end, the writer has just thrown anything together to end it. It’s incredibly unfulfilling and frustrating.
Final score:
67points
Julie 2 years ago
One of my beloved writers is Samuel Clemens. His book "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". It was written as a perennial. He set it aside for some time and was forced by publishers to finish it. So he did, and I am sure it was not at his literary mindful leisure. But he did finish it, and the ending does seem forced, but it does not negate the pure joy it ensues. Sometimes it is not the authors fault, I just enjoy the entirety if it merits enjoyment.
#27
When the author changes something that was kind of major. For example, say the main character was in a fight, and it mentions that he/she gets a bad cut in the side, yet three paragraphs later, the author goes on describing a nasty cut on his leg - never even mentioning his/her side cut.
Final score:
67points
#28
I work at a library, and if a book's author's name is larger than or above the title on the spine, know that I personally want to hunt down and punch whoever at the publishing house made that decision
Final score:
65points
#29
When the author uses the character's name a lot instead of using pronouns. I just read a book that used the name at least 7 times in a 5 line paragraph instead of using pronouns.
Final score:
65points
Kirsten Kerkhof 1 year ago
I read a book where the author mentioned two male names in the start of the chapter and from that moment on, the names were no longer used. I had lost track of which guy did what after half a page. It was almost as if the editor had objected to slight too many names and the author was like, "Then I will get rid of ALL THE NAMES! Happy now?"
#30
When the "hero" refuses to kill the villain or wait too long and they escape. Like, really!?
Final score:
63points
#31
I hate it when I read a story and the author writes: "this is relevant later." Yeah, no way, duh! If it's irrelevant to the story, it should be edited out.
I think what the author conveys when they include that is: 'I am the only smart person, and everyone else is an idiot that I have to tediously explain everything to'.
Final score:
60points
#32
When characters all have similar names and descriptions, I keep getting confused. Or when they have a male hero whose personality is about being buff, female characters who are just there to look pretty.
Final score:
60points
Crystal Graham 2 years ago
I always have thought this about "Sauron" vs "Saruman" in LOTR. So confusing the first time I read it.
#33
Not giving a reader all the clues needed to solve a mystery. Don't cheat, you can write a good mystery or you can't.
Final score:
60points
liam newton-harding 1 year ago
I had to stop reading P. D. James because of this, holding back information from the reader, in a Mystery Novel. Specifically, "The Lighthouse", when they find the criminal, who they had never suspected, threatening a hostage, at the top of the lighthouse, screaming psychotic, misogynistic profanities out across the ocean. There had not been a single hint that this character was so overwhelming mentally ill anywhere in the book. I was done with the writer, at this point.
#34
When the author loses track of where what is. This is usually hands, arms, feet, background items, anything really, etc. It happens a lot, more than it should, and I know things get edited, but you need to keep track of continuity. I've read a book where they lost a whole dang character between two paragraphs.
They were sitting on the far left couch laughing silently at so-and-so, then two paragraphs later, they're climbing in the window with people welcoming them like they just got there and no mention of the person on the couch because it was the same person.
It is also a big issue in steamy books I've found. You lose track of what is where, and some things just aren't possible. I've checked the Kama Sutra - it agreed with me.
Final score:
59points
Arctic Fox Lover 2 years ago
Yep lol, steamy books especially. One minute person #1 is on the back of person #2, and the next, person #2 has their neck twisted like an owl's to kiss person #1, or person #1's lips are stretching half a foot to reach person #2's.
#35
Changing the look, style, size, colouring, text direction, font size part way through a series.
Final score:
57points
Elliot Fowler 2 years ago
One of the first books I read was from a series called 'ranger's apprentice'. I hated when the cover art in book 4 featured the characters. The first 3 books had nothing but the title on the cover. So when I saw the designs in book 4, they looked nothing like what I invisioned them in my brain. I hated that!
#36
Unnecessary details. Imagery and figurative language adds depth to the whole novel, but when it’s goes on and on and doesn’t end up contributing to the plot, that’s when I start getting bored of the book.
Final score:
56points
William Teach 2 years ago
I've ended a few series over that. And given up on a few books and authors who do that, seemingly because they're trying to turn a 120 page book into 200
#37
Using glasses as props. I hate it in books, movies, and real life because people have enough problems without a necessity being treated like a piece of decoration.
Final score:
56points
Bill Evs 1 year ago (edited)
The glasses thing that really annoys me is how a character who wears them will at some point lose them for some reason. Yet said character just continues to function as normal. Like, they wear glasses for a reason and that reason is they NEED them. I wear glasses/ contacts and without them I certainly couldn't take part in some frenetic fight or drive a car in a high speed chase. Just because the sh*t has hit the fan doesn't then mean your eyes suddenly go "don't worry, here's some 20/20 vision to see you through to the end I've been holding back on".
#38
I don’t like when authors of fantasy novels feel the need to describe the qualities of a certain race every time that character appears. Like, you don’t have to mention that the elf is “fleet of foot” every time they do something.
Final score:
55points
Rannveig Ess 2 years ago
I was forced to read Ann Rice's "Interview with the Vampire" because my niece had to do a book report on it and was so sick with the measles she couldn't eat, let alone do her school work so I'm the nice Aunt. :) I was ready to claw my face off at the number of times Rice used the word "Preternatural" to describe anything the Vampire did. Like, 4.298 times. At least. It got cloying and boring. You get it - he's a vampire. It was as if she'd just read that word on the "Learn-A-Word-A-Day" calendar and was determined to use it in a sentence.
#39
Novels written in the present tense. So annoying. First thing I check for when browsing books in the library or bookshop.
Final score:
54points
#40
What happened to actual chapters? Current fiction seems to have chapters of 2-3 pages. I grew up reading Dickens, Dumas and other classic writers. The chapters were dense and long but worth the read. I feel this is pandering to the "short attention span" of the current generations, maybe it makes people feel good about themselves that they read 5 chapters ???? I just feel like the current best-selling authors are phoning it in, some writers have series where the sex scenes between the hero/heroine are exactly the same from one book to the next (I'm talking about you, J D Robb) If you can't come up with something interesting and different, just skip it. That's what I do.
What do you think ?
Becky Samuel 1 year ago
My pet peeve is when I start reading something and realise it's a straight-up repost of an article a year old.
Powerful Katrinka 1 year ago
Introducing a pet or other animal to the story for the sole purpose of killing it later on for a big emotional affect. One of the things I loved about "Corelli's Mandolin" was that the adorable pine marten survived the whole ordeal.
Asriel Dreemurr 1 year ago
Pandas, if you’re reading this and you don’t know what a Pine Martin is (Like I didn’t until just now), look it up. Your mind will thank you for being graced with their existence.
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Becky Samuel 1 year ago
My pet peeve is when I start reading something and realise it's a straight-up repost of an article a year old.
Powerful Katrinka 1 year ago
Introducing a pet or other animal to the story for the sole purpose of killing it later on for a big emotional affect. One of the things I loved about "Corelli's Mandolin" was that the adorable pine marten survived the whole ordeal.
Asriel Dreemurr 1 year ago
Pandas, if you’re reading this and you don’t know what a Pine Martin is (Like I didn’t until just now), look it up. Your mind will thank you for being graced with their existence.
Load More Replies...
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