My Literary Pet Peeves

I have finally gotten some time to actually finish (or almost finish) a bunch of books I had started YAY ME! I have also discovered I am a bit of a book snob, expecting the near impossible of my beloved books.  Once again I am going to have to put in a bit of a disclaimer here, this post is in no way bashing books or authors, it's just a post about the part of the whole experience of reading, and to my fellow addicts out there you all know the more you read, the more there is to nit-pick.  OK disclaimer portion of our tour is out of the way on to the whining.  Yep today's post is about my book pet peeves, my literary Achilles heels, my biblo-flys in the ointments if you will.  See the more books I read the more a pattern emerges of things I love about books, and things that really annoy the heck out of me.  Let us explore some of them shall we.

Napkindad

Deus ex machina- this literary device as defined by Wikipedia.org is " 'god out of the machine'; plural: dei ex machina) is a plot device whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object."  This is one of those things I absolutely HATE in books, I can be cruising along, really enjoying a story, thinking what a great author this is when BAM you realize there are only 10 pages left in the book and not a single thing has been resolved.  All of a sudden your long-lost mother who just happens to be an all powerful zombie god-mother who has access to unlimited funds and is also the lead singer in that awesome band you promised your friends you could get tickets to appears and everything is all better...even though the story was about film noir mystery solving monkeys?!?!? (Not a real book but seriously that actually sounds like a kinda cool book)  A word to authors, not everything has to end epically (is that a word?)  not every tiny detail needs to be gift wrapped, and yes we want the end of the book to actually make us feel like reading the whole book was worth it, because to me when you fix something last second with a curve ball that has little or nothing to do with the rest of the book it feels like a waste of time to read the last 200 or so pages.  All that being said I would guess that trying to end a story would be extremely difficult and I myself would have no idea how to write a satisfactory ending to half the books I complain about.

Series that won't end- I hate, hate, hate it when you get almost done with a great story, the author has given you a beginning, middle, and once on little detail is revealed and end...you get to the last couple pages when all of a sudden a bunch of weird characters show up, or the situation just kinda peters out when you realize OH NO they are going to make this into a series!  Now I have nothing against series, if they are either a) planned that way (like Harry Potter) or b) the material is obviously episodic (like Nancy Drew).  When a story feels like it is complete and ESPECIALLY (I really like my caps lock today) when the next books are not anywhere near as good as the first one it feels like the author (and/or publishers) just want's to squeeze extra money out of us.  Along the same idea, I hate it when a series that starts good goes on to long.  I have read triliogies that are awesome then at the back of the last book you see and excerpt for the next book and I'm always bewildered 'cause I thought the story wrapped up nicely.  I have also seen authors who feel there books should be trilogies (what is with the love of trilogies?) when you could usually very easily combine the second two books into a much better story.

Unclear writing styles- this is what I call books that feel like they were written with more then one voice or writer.  There is only one author listed, but it feels like there are disparate viewpoints or styles mixed into one book.  I am not talking about books that have several points of view, but for example, I finished a book about a month ago that the premise was very interesting and the world building came across complete, inventive and mature.  The story itself however seemed very simple and childish, the descriptions were trite and stereotypical.  I am not sure if the author took somebody elses idea's and built a story around them, or if there were actually multiple writers, or if the editors just really screwed up.  These books usually drive me insane because I want to like them so bad, as certain parts are so well written, but the hacky parts are made just that much worse!

To much blatant politicizing-I understand that a book is an expressive art form for an author, and when it is done correctly I don't mind when they try to get a personal ideal or belief into there books, but when it starts to take away from the story, or go into blatant preaching/politicizing to me it just gets obnoxious.  I have read books and series that I love and have been able to mix in these idea's almost flawlessly, and I have read books and series I love where on second reading I skip whole pages and chapters that contribute nothing towards the story.  The exception here obviously is when the book is supposed to be about whatever topic the author is pontificating on.

I want to like a book, but I can't- sometimes I'm not sure why I don't like a book.  The story is fine, there are none of my biggest pet peeves, nothing to offensive, but for some reason I just can't get into the book.  This is usually the most frustrating for me because I always want to like a book, I always go in looking for ways to love a story and when I can't tell you why I don't I feel like maybe it's just me.  Sometimes a person will recommend a book to me and I will be very excited because it seems like my type of genre, or the premise sounds exciting and I crack it open...and nothing.  I keep reading because on many occasions once I get a couple chapters in I can really get into it...but still nothing...kinda like a bad blind date, it looks great on paper but no chemistry in reality.

What are some of your biggest pet peeve?  Can you figure out what books I am referring to with my complaints?  Am I really being too nit-picky? Should the 14 chapter camping scene in the last Harry Potter get it's own special peeve?