Are your reading an otherwise good novel and finding something about it keeps bugging you? Something you want to argue against? Something that keeps throwing you out of the story?
I am reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. It's a pretty good book and I've no intention of trashing it here. But a couple of factors are driving me crazy:
1. Major Pettigrew is supposed to be stuffy and formal, but he's too stuffy and formal for a modern 68-year-old. 68 really isn't that old. My father-in-law is 86 and is more hip and comfortable with technology than Pettigrew, who is befuddled by the newfangled cordless phone and still a little in awe of the power windows in his car. Haven't power windows been around since the Eighties? What modern 68-year-old is going to give them a second thought or harken back to roll-down windows? I'm not buying it. He's also much more doddering than any 68-year-old I've ever met.
2. Everyone in the story (so far) with the exception of the LI is shallow, self-centered, tacky, weak and stupid. This doesn't make the Major shine as the last of the courtly gentlemen; it makes him come across as judgmental. The MC would be more likeable/sympathetic if he didn't spend all of his time being teddibly disappointed in everyone else. And the remaining cast would be much more believable if they weren't all caricatures of modern excess.
So what's bugging you in that novel you're reading?
I am reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. It's a pretty good book and I've no intention of trashing it here. But a couple of factors are driving me crazy:
1. Major Pettigrew is supposed to be stuffy and formal, but he's too stuffy and formal for a modern 68-year-old. 68 really isn't that old. My father-in-law is 86 and is more hip and comfortable with technology than Pettigrew, who is befuddled by the newfangled cordless phone and still a little in awe of the power windows in his car. Haven't power windows been around since the Eighties? What modern 68-year-old is going to give them a second thought or harken back to roll-down windows? I'm not buying it. He's also much more doddering than any 68-year-old I've ever met.
2. Everyone in the story (so far) with the exception of the LI is shallow, self-centered, tacky, weak and stupid. This doesn't make the Major shine as the last of the courtly gentlemen; it makes him come across as judgmental. The MC would be more likeable/sympathetic if he didn't spend all of his time being teddibly disappointed in everyone else. And the remaining cast would be much more believable if they weren't all caricatures of modern excess.
So what's bugging you in that novel you're reading?