Saturday, April 20, 2013

7 Bookish Pet Peeves



  • Whiny characters: if you're going to be the star in a book, can't you at least be interesting?

  • Girl meets boy who happens to be the perfect guy, as well as swoon-worthy, generally having an old-fashioned name, and they become best friends and fall in love until they find out the boy's past (the girl has nothing to hide) and then they love each other undyingly (this is why I hate teen paranormal romance)

  • Bad endings

  • Endless descriptions that don't actually further the plot (I'm looking at you, Tolkien; as much as I love hobbits, I don't necessarily need to know how every type of terrain was awful and what they ate for breakfast)

  • Ignorant parents (Spoiler alert: This may be shocking, but in real life, parents are actually involved in their kids' lives, for the most part. They even impact what their kids do and how they act or something. Whooa.)

  • Plots that just seem to hinge together (now, if that dashing boy hadn't come into the picture, that smart/nerdy/clumsy girl who's secretly insecure yet obviously pretty might have actually had to figure something out for herself for a moment there...)

  • Fake dialogue (I do not say, "Oh, ____! You are okay!" when one of my friends is hurt. Surprising, isn't it?) 

3 comments:

  1. I don't like ignorant parents either in books. Parents need to be involved in YA literature! They're hugely important to us! It slightly bothers me (okay, maybe a lot) when the heros (usually 12+) go on wild adventures and they're parents don't even notice. I mean, huh?!!

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    Replies
    1. I agree. Most twelve-year-olds don't have the independence needed to go on such adventures, anyway. And then at the end, the character finishes with, "Oh, yeah, that trip I went on. Well, it's all okay now. When I was gone, I stopped time, so you don't need to worry about me."
      (That may or may not have made me feel very inferior when I was younger. I mean, they stopped time at my age, and I just sat on my bed reading about it?)
      And I don't know of any parents who wouldn't notice if their kid was gone for an hour without permission, let alone days.

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    2. Exactly! Talk about freak out session for the parents. And, if the parents are too annoying, you just knock them off and have wonderful orphans! (Orphans are free to go on as many adventures as they like, of course.) I'm not scorning Percy Jackson or anything (I did enjoy it0...buuut, it does get old fast.

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