What are your reading pet peeves?
Here are a few of mine that have popped up recently.
* Huge cliffhangers with no release date/very long wait for next book. I agreed to read and review a self-published series with 2 books in it so far. I read and really enjoyed book 1 so I jumped into book 2. I enjoyed book 2 but it ended on a huge cliffhanger. No biggie, it happens. So I go and search to see when book 3 might be coming out and not only is there no info yet about book 3 but it looks like the author waited 2 years to release book 2 *face palm* who knows when book 3 will be released. If you are going to have a cliffhanger ending at least let your readers know how long they will have to wait to find out what happens and PLEASE don't make me wait 2 years, its cruel. Total bummer.
* No recap after years of wait for next book. I received a review copy of book 5 in a series that I really enjoyed. So what is the problem you may be asking.. Well it has been almost 2.5 years since book 4 and I really can not remember all the details on how things ended. It would be great if authors had a page or two with a recap or timeline to refresh readers memories.
Your turn!
Cliffhangers like you mentioned, book series that don't really wrap up (perhaps there's no choice if the author doesn't know when he/she writes the last book that it is the last one, but ouch for the reader when there are threads left unknotted) and stupid main characters that make you want to slap sense into them. Ebooks which aren't less than print books. I don't care what the big publishers say about costs, there's no way we shouldn't be getting a couple bucks lopped off for being ebook readers.
ReplyDeleteOne more: misleading covers. Hannah Jayne's series comes to mind. The lead character is pretty silly and is more likely to cower waiting for her friends to save her than she is the kick ass, leather clad cover heroine. Shame on the publisher!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the recap on new books in a series. I read a lot and it can take me a while to start recalling the pertinent background.
ReplyDeleteA new peeve for me is serials masquerading as a series. In a series, I expect closure of a number of lines in the plot for each book. Some plot lines belong to the long arc of the series and may take until the end of the series to resolve. In a serial, the book is really a chapter or section of a book and not much resolves at the end. For example, a series may solve murders in each book but not resolve the whole villainous plot until the end of the series. In a serial, nothing resolves until the end. If something is a serial, I want to know up front.
How could I have forgotten misleading covers. I could not agree more on that one. Carol I totally get what your saying as well.
ReplyDeleteAnother one is when a self-published author gives a date...and misses it! By like a year! I have been waiting forever for the 2nd in the Demons at Deadnight book as an example. So irksome!
ReplyDeleteAhh yes! It is even worse when it is not a self-published author. I have been waiting over a year and two release dates have gone by for Kate Kaynak's YA series
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