40 Annoying Literary Moments That Drive Readers Up The Wall: As Shared By The Bored Panda Community

Where did putting the number of the series on the spine go? Huh??? SOMEBODY TELL ME!!!

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.

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?

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.

When you're reading a really good book/series, but its quality starts to go down slowly.

If you're kidnapped, but fall 'in love' with your kidnapper, it's not love. It's Stockholm syndrome.

Lending a book to someone and it coming back dogeared, or otherwise messed up.

A series that revolves around a "Chosen One" who is often a whiny impetuous brat.

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'.

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.

In books when the "villain's" problems could have been solved by rational thinking, and the main characters are the actual jerks.

Female "characters" with zero personality that are simply a love interest or damsel in distress.

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!)

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!