I usually stray away from a lot of YA novels too, because they’re often about school drama and romances and I don’t want to read about that. I’m more into fantasy or adventure novels and the like, most of the things I see in the YA section are about models or highschool kids.

I also don’t like books that are primarily about drugs (unless its some deep dark story about an addict). I’ve read a few books where the main character does drugs so nonchalantly that it just turns me off to the whole book and makes me hate the characters.

I mean – why go to all that work to build a great yarn up to it’s first peak – only to lose it completely in a detour that makes no sense (to the reader). That’s not to say I don’t enjoy a detour or three – but it’s in the construction of that story that it becomes clear that this is a detour you have to take, to take maximum enjoyment out of they tale being told.

Lazy journeys and obviously ‘lost’ journeys just don’t do it for me.

As to types of characters and whether they’re simply good or bad – whether they’re slightly good or mostly bad – none of that necessarily bothers me. People in real life have shown me the amazing things they are capable of (or the some of the most horrid things too I guess) so I find people really hard to constrain in particular ways at times.

Key characters for me – depending on the skill of the writer – can be as fickle as we all are and can ‘turn on a dime’ when it comes to their personality – so I tend to enjoy someone who can show this reality of ourselves in our real lives – through their characters.

Cheers

Actually, you make a good point about weaknesses, etc, being part of what makes a character three-dimensional and interesting. Much of my griping about Mary Sues and SUPER AWESOME ALPHA-MALES is that they either don’t have flaws or are so flawed that you’ve got nothing to root for in them (i.e. they’re both one-dimensional type charas). I have no problem with my cool, tough ladies having 3D, realistic doubts/weaknesses/etc in general–I was actually thinking specifically of the types of self-doubts that women are kind of naturally bombarded with in our society. “You’re a girl, so you’re not as strong. You’re a girl, so you’re too soft-hearted to excel on a brutal battlefield.” Etc. And while many would argued that the moral conflicts that being “soft-hearted” bring up make this female character more interesting, possibly better than her “cut-and-clean, no problem sleeping at night” male compatriots (in fact, it’s not necessarily a female-exclusive conflict at all RE: Bros. Karamazov, etc. LoL~), but I don’t like that we naturally assume/expect a female warrior will have such conflicts, but would find that an interesting twist of a trait in a male character.

In that vein, I feel like the idea of women and their portrayal–no matter how much they grow or how great they become later in the story–always seem to start in the same narrow conception of “woman” or “feminine.” And many times, when a woman is introduced who starts off different (maybe she’s already got a foul mouth and gunslinger mad skillz), she is either written off as a minor and or unlikable character, or quickly shows her “feminine side” so that male readers can see “aw, she’s cute/attractive underneath all that toughness after all” and far too often ends up losing all that was initially cool/powerful about her so that the hero can take over as the tough one, and she’s conveniently pigeonholed back into her role as “love interest.” =__=

That said, Vivi Vega brought up a good point–the folks who write the flattest, stupidest female characters are often also writing flat, stupid male characters (though they still get to do the fun things like beat the badguy, etc, and have marginally more personality than the female characters). And while I read a lot, my reading list is far from exhaustive, so maybe I just haven’t found the excellent strong female characters I’m looking for yet (I’ll definitely take your rec for Graceling–thank you!).

And Mel, thanks for putting yourself out there and posting–I’m sure it IS a little freaky to get your words picked apart by all these faceless folks lurking in the gloom of the Internets (like yours truly ), but discussions like this are what help us all learn and grow and discover how better to express our thoughts. I certainly learned from this–thank you!

Dragon Tattoo left me a little cold, too, though it’s been about six months since I read it. I remember feeling like it had been written specifically with the intent of being turned into a movie– not that I think that’s necessarily true, but that’s the impression I had. I guess that in fact there are books written expressly for this purpose (anyone see The Kid Stays in the Picture? Anyone else fall out of their seat when they learned that Mario Puzo was going to write a suburban pastoral until Robert Evans told him to write a book about the mafia that Evans, then head of Paramount, would then turn into a movie? Welcome to how The Godfather came to be – at least, according to Evans). But it bugged me anyway. I like my books to feel like books, not like way stations to something else. And if you ever read The Godfather — well, it’s topnotch storytelling. But you have to overlook some veerrrry clunky prose.

And I agree about the present tense. I’m in the middle of a very popular, shall-remain-nameless book that’s written in the present tense, and I had to slog through the first 150 pages before I felt like I wasn’t being choked by this very narrow perspective. The thing is, I recognized that from page one, it’s a beautifully written book — it’s just that I find the present tense to be a very unnatural, largely stilted voice. Of course there are exceptions (the book I’m reading just turned into a cracker of a plot, so as of last night I was up until 2am reading it, and I’d recommend it for sure), but overall I find present tense tough to take.

And I’m amazed at you guys who read the last page first! I constantly catch myself trying to peek ahead and forcing myself not to. Fascinating.

I loved all of the comments and will respond to one or two. Firstly about present tense. When I began writing Francesca I reached about Chapter 3 and it wasn’t working because I was writing the story in past tense. So I started again in present tense (only the last chapter is in past). In both Francesca, Jellicoe and Piper’s Son I wanted both the character and the narrator in the same place – not knowing anything beyond the moment.

Jo, we had almost identical feelings about Dragon Tattoo. I felt it could have been in the translation, but it was definitely Bloomkist who did not work for me. With regards to Lisbeth, I perked up a bit when she came into it and liked her because there wasn’t much to dislike, but I do agree that I had come across characters like her before, especially in YA, Fantasy, Crime and Sci Fi. Everyone who spoke about the novel said there had never been a character like her. I think many high brow reviewers have not been exposed to genre reading.

I’m desperate to go back to Memory, Harriet, and read chapters 1 to 6.

Cy, I loved so much of what you had to say, but in response to your question to me, I think I may not have made myself clear about ‘one dimension kick arse heroines with male traits’. I love cool tough women and I don’t see that necessarily as male. I also loved the delightful Ms Cashore’s Katsa who is very kick arse, but still manages to be so female and challenged those “feminine preoccupations and activities”. This came through in her decision making and in her relationship with many of the characters in Graceling and it makes her multi dimensional rather than one dimensional. I suppose it’s more the Angeline Jolie type (when Angelina is making awful movies, that is. Because she makes some great movies) where it’s all guns ablazing and all love them and leave them and all the alpha representation you described in one of your points. I suppose I should not have said “male traits” but “male stereotypes” that appear over and over again in film and books.

On a few points I would have to disagree with you. I would never describe someone who “single mindedly perfects their craft” as being more male than female and I don’t think weakness or self doubt belongs only to the female sex. More than anything, I don’t mind seeing weakness or self doubt on the page or in people. I think it makes them human. It’s why Buffy always worked for me. She was kick arse, but was undeniable female and she kept on choosing the wrong men (especially Riley) but she wasn’t defined by them.

It can be overcome, but it’s a hurdle, and one I’m never convinced is actually necessary. It just seems like an author showing off.

For some reason I can’t stand light/cute/clever novels. I like books that make me feel and these ones don’t. Cozy’s are out, so are certain YA and fantasy novels (there are some REALLY popular ones that left me feeling — eh). I’d rather read about Wallander wandering around, being self-destructive and bleak.

Not sure if it’s true, but it does sound a bit… old, doesn’t it?

Other than that… I really don’t enjoy hard sci-fi, space is just not my cup of tea, and predictive love stories aren’t what I set out to read, generally. Fantasy and/or unpredictable love, though? Yes, give me!

I’m not quite sure WHY I feel like this, only that I do, but, as you say, I suspect in many cases it’s other things about the stories that bother me, and the present tense is just the most obvious thing to leap out at me.

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Also political and sporting identity ‘autobiographies’ ie. books they didn’t write. Ego is a dirty word. Get over yourselves already.

Another turn-off is male characters presented as the hero who seem to actually be stalkery and domineering, with no deconstruction of this. I hate Wuthering Heights solely because I was reliably informed (by which I mean, I read it in a book I’d liked) that Heathcliff was a romantic character. I spent the whole book enraged.

(off topic: I loved The Piper’s Son. When I read that there was a new Melina Marchetta novel and it was sequel to Saving Francesca and starred Thomas and Tara, I may have done a little flaily dance in my living room in front of my long-suffering flatmates)

as for my pet peeves, i pretty much have two:

1) stories that obviously haven’t done their research. this means historical fiction is REALLY HARD for me to read, but is amazing to me when it’s done correctly. (“Rampant” is an excellent example of this. killer unicorns that have a historical background that MAKES SENSE! a bad example is a certain author who decided to set a series in san francisco and didn’t even get the name of the airport correctly. i mean, how hard is that to figure out? THE TIME IT TAKES WILL PAY OFF.

2) i also am not a fan of just romance. i like twists and turns. i’m a weirdo that likes depressing things now and then, and reads everything that anyone says is triggery. (i just have. to. know.) and i don’t like female characters who are all “i don’t get why he likes me because he’s so perfect and i’m so not!” AND THERE IS NO CHANGE THROUGHOUT THE STORY.

I recently swore off many of the ‘cozy’ mysteries, as they were getting just too darn cutesy. Also, the protagonist’s need to jump in and solve a crime, even when there is 1)a perfectly adequate police force, and 2)no real need for her (and it is usually a her) to do so was getting really irritating.

1. Terrible writing. I’ve hurled multiple books across the room after page 3 for this offense. I’m not asking for Joanne Harris-level literary perfection from everyone, but books I read have to be written in a style that’s competent, engaging and doesn’t insult the reader’s intelligence. D** B**** is the biggest culprit I’ve ever come across as far as atrocious writing that got published goes, but there’s a lot of shockingly bad writing that gets published AND read. 0__0

2. Dumb, useless female characters. I took a Sci-Fi class in college and was shocked at how stupid, 1-dimensional and utterly USELESS the female characters in a lot of SF books are. Granted, most of the ones we read were “classics” from an older generation of SF when the genre really was a “for men, by men” old boys’ club and I’ve read lots of SF novels since that have had excellent, well-fleshed-out female characters, but yeah—SO not a good intro to the genre. 0__0 I’m still scarred by a certain character whose SOLE qualification to come on an intergalactic quest was the fact that she was born lucky. Her sub-amoeba-level IQ, gigantic breasts and constant fawning over the hero were also boons, apparently. Wow.

3. Mary Sues. Sorry, I know this is a touchy subject since a lot of YA fans indulge in Mary Sue fanfics or books as guilty pleasures. But it’s such a turn-off to me. The whole T******* phenomenon proves that Mary Sues sell like hotcakes, but I feel like portraying your sympathetic heroine as completely useless but somehow able to attract “perfect” guys/save nations/defeat evil overlords, etc, by doing more or less nothing is so… cheap. I like heroines who are smart/strong and are able to actually DO something to bring about the positive outcomes, rather than have everything just dropped into their unworthy laps. There also appears to be a correlation between Mary Sue protags and poor writing, plotting, dialogue, etc, which I guess doesn’t help their case.

4. SUPER AWESOME ALPHA-MALE HEROES who have zero flaws, weaknesses or personality and are absolute chick magnets—in fact, everything with a vagina in the book will, at the VERY least, give him the once-over and a suggestive wink. Or, if they don’t, they’re portrayed as complete feminist, stuck-up b*tches who SECRETLY want him oh so bad. -roll eyes- An extremely popular book by an extremely popular author about *cough* diverse deities living in the modern day *cough* stars one such Ultimate Macho Man hero. I think being completely unable to empathize and/or care about this guy made this somewhat interesting book so unreadable for me that I had to stop two-thirds of the way in.

5. Cool, tough, non-feminine women portrayed as b*tches or lesbians. I have no problem with lesbians, but why do readers (and writers) assume that a no-nonsense, tomboyish girl who can hold her own in a fight is always 1) a lesbian, 2) totally unattractive, and 3) mean and angry? Look at those Olympic athletes—they’re buffer than the average cubicle-dwelling man, and they’re beautiful (and many of them appear quite kind and friendly). And most of them are also straight. Yet in fiction, they’re always portrayed as freaks or entirely unsympathetic. Most often, they appear as either a minor antagonist from an East European country who gives the manly hero a *little* trouble (never real trouble—they’re just women after all -roll eyes-) or a female grunt in a fighting squad that will be used solely for cannon fodder and will get no characterization outside of “witty” jibes at her sexual orientation and/or unattractiveness. I figured this was mostly due to men being threatened by women who can take care of themselves, but considering you put these gals in as one of your pet peeves, Melina, it seems some traditionally feminine women dislike cool/tough women too? That makes me so sad. :*( If only American moms would stop brainwashing their daughters to aspire only to grow up to become princesses.

On that note, I’m really curious, Mel—why do you dislike unfeminine female characters? To me, they’re the coolest ones BECAUSE they have that no-nonsense attitude and don’t get sidetracked by various weaknesses or self-doubts, etc, that their male counterparts don’t have. I don’t think it’s unrealistic to write a woman who is as single-mindedly devoted to perfecting her craft as her male rivals, even at the expense of traditionally “feminine” preoccupations and activities. In fact, at that high level, it’s realistic that they wouldn’t have the time or the interest in anything outside of their chosen art. So if it appears that they’re being “portrayed as men” in that sense, I think that just means our society considers mastery of/devotion to a craft as “masculine” attributes, and *that’s* what’s truly chauvinistic.

As for things that turn me off in books…hmmm

1) Annoying main characters. I shall not name any names, but one book I read in the past year had a main character who the other main character spent the entire book obsessing over, only to find out in the end that the first main character was uncaring, and annoying. I was just generally bothered by that book after that part.

2) Vampire books. I’m sorry, I read Twilight and liked it and then the hype hit and now most vampire/werewolf/supernatural creature books get on my nerves. Not to say there aren’t great ones out there but…right now I can’t seem to appreciate them.

3) Beautifully written books that just don’t hold my attention no matter how much I feel they should.

4) Books where you have to use a glossary in the back to look up words in an author’s made up language or books where you have to constantly flip back to the map at the front of the book.

I DON’T like stories where the only plot is the romance. So boring. Romance is awesome, if it’s on the side. But it should NOT be the only thing that’s happening.

Another thing that starts a book on the back foot, but only really puts me off if I’m not grabbed in other ways, is Serious Authors who think that they are Above the rules of punctuation, and can therefore ignore the conventions of apostrophes, quote marks, etc. Quote marks in particular – they are there to make the ‘decoding’ part of reading easier, so you can concentrate on character/language/story without haveing to work on separating dialogue from description. So why not just put them in? I can see that sometimes there is a vailid literay reason for leaveing them out, but not always. And even if there is a good reason, and I wouldn’t actually have the author change it … well, anyone who didn’t find reading the last chapter of ‘Ulysses’ to be Really Hard Work has my profound admiration.

There are two things that, while they don’t stop me from reading a book in the first place, can lead me to skipping pages – or even chapters – in a re-read: suffering and/or death, espcially of an animal; and scenes in which the main character does something really embarrassing or stupid. Probably the first time this happened was in Black Beauty – I read the book dozens of times, but the Ginger chapter precisely once. There are plenty of other books I have done this with since. And there are three books by Lois McMaster Bujold that I ALWAYS skip the opening chapters of. In fact, ‘Memroy’ is one of my all-time favourite books … from Chapter 7 onwards. But I just can’t read Chapters 1-6.