I have this pet peeve when I’m reading that drives me absolutely mother-f-ing crazy. What is it, you ask?
FLASHBACKS.
I freaking hate them w/ a passion. I rarely hate anything b/c hating takes up too much energy. But I hate flashbacks. I hate when I’m all into a story and then all of a sudden it flashes back to 34 months prior. Wtf?
The book that really stands out when I think about it is Breaking Point by Suzanne Brockmann. It is book 9 of her Troubleshooter series and is the story of Max Bhagat and Gina Vitagliano. I don’t mind if there is a prologue telling something in the past that drives the story, but I don’t want a flashback every other chapter, fcol.
I’m currently reading Dead Right by Cate Noble. I picked it up b/c the blurb sounded really interesting. The hero and heroine have a history; the hero thinks the heroine betrayed him and is determined to kill her. Doesn’t that sound good? Well, it was good for the first few chapters. Now I’m on page 118 and the h/h haven’t even met up again. They haven’t been in one scene that takes place in the present day. If I was at home, this book would be a wall-banger. Unfortunately “cube-banger” doesn’t sound as good.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that a back story is needed in some cases. I can even appreciate the need. I just hate it when it’s in flashback form. I’d rather have “Part 1: A long, long time ago”, “Part 2: A long time ago”, Part 3: Present Day”.
What are some of your pet peeves? Do you hate epilogues? Do you hate flashbacks like I do? What was the last book you read that had your pet peeve in it?
This cracks me up! Sometimes, I just skip over the flashbacks. I’m reading a book i LOVE right now, Richard K. Morgan’s “The Steel Remains” and the ONLY thing I don’t like about it is the flashbacks. I skim them, see if they are necessary, and if not, they’re forgotten. If so, I’ll pay attention. For the most part, I don’t like flashbacks either.
I hate prologues, oh and flashbacks. sometimes they are good, other times not.
Last book I read that drove me crazy was The Iron Tree, in which we in the beginning prologue on page 2 learnt that the two main characters would die…I don’t want to know that
I don’t mind flashbacks–when they are well written.
But then I can (and do) say that of every single of my peeves–epilogues, secret pregnancies/babies, long standing family feuds, revenge plots, etc.
If they are well written, I don’t notice them. When they aren’t… ouchie!
Robin, the flashbacks were probably about half the story, so I couldn’t skip over them. As it happens, I just finished that book and started another that has…wait for it…flashbacks. Sigh.
Blodeuedd, that sounds awful. Even worse if you didn’t expect it.
AL, I have to give you that. There are some flashbacks that are well written. I just hate being taken out of the story.
And that is the problem, isn’t it?
Sometimes I wince when someone recommends a particular book because–gah!!!! look! secret baby/pregnancy/amnesia/epilogue wedding or babies (or both)/name your peeve.
But, depending on who is doing the book pushing, I read the book and holy cow, it works–for that story and with that author’s voice/writing.
So it’s back to ‘never say never’ no?
I just hate the inexplicable prologue (that’s really chapter one.) Flashbacks don’t bother me, although they do occasionally confuse me. — willaful
Wendy, that made me immediately think of It Had to Be You by SEP. If Dan wasn’t walking the dog at the end, it wouldn’t have been nearly as good. LOL
My biggest pet peeve is pointless revisits of characters from previous books. It wasn’t until I read Brockman & Robb that I understood some writers CAN write good, strong 2nd , 3rd characters well – worthy enough to become a series. But not McNaught. For example, there’s a scene in “Until You” where Victoria, Alexandra & Whitney all appeared together and because their personalities are so similiar (or dare I say same?), I cannot bloody tell them apart, much less from Sheridan. Same goes for the guys. And when their roles in the book are so minor – what’s the point?
As much as I love Matt (& because of it), I wish she will let him go off into his happy ever after, already.
MPH
Ohmigod, spare me from bad sex scenes. I think that Christine Feehan can usually write a damn good story, but she should have someone else right her sex scenes. She uses such awkward words and then keeps reusing them – and she has favorite words that recur from book to book to book.
Breaking Point is in my TBR pile!
I too hate the cameos from previous characters. That turned me off Mary Balogh.
I also dislike authors pimping their other books within a story (e.g. Dark-Hunters reading Kinley MacGregor books). I don’t mind if it flows into the story, but just having it there for no good reason is irritating.
I love prologues and epilogues, but only when they’re not chapters in disguise (e.g. the epilogue in Lover Unbound).
Internal monologues. I can’t tell you how many books I’ve read recently where three quarters of it takes place inside the character’s heads.
It’s especially irritating when the characters are in the middle of a steamy scene and all of a sudden there is two pages of insecure internal rambling narration. Arghhh
Care Bear Epilogues. We all know the type. The pointless epilogue where heroine is knocked up with triplets and the Alpha bad ass hero is cooking dinner. Yeah, yeah, yeah – we get that they live happily-ever-after. No need to ram it down our throats.
I just finished my March reading list and said about what you did about Cate Noble’s book. Too weird. I’m not wild about flashbacks and couldn’t believe Ms. Noble was able to hold my interest with the main couple getting together so late in the book.
My main pet peeve is first person POV. As soon as I realize a book is 1st person I think “darn” and want to skip to something else. I can get used to it if it’s well-done (I now have some favorite series that are 1st person, like Stephanie Plum, Harry Dresden, Adrien English, etc), but it takes a LOT of good reviews to get me to start a book that’s told from that POV. And I will always prefer 3rd person.
Hehehe. My current (because it changes 🙂 is unprotected sex in contemporaries. I just think of all the numerous STDs out there and I’m like….are you [insert author’s name] insane? And then I start ranting internally…
Flashbacks I can kind of live with…as long as they don’t go on and on and on, etc.
I dislike flashbacks especially if they occur every other chapter, every few paragraphs (one book I read did that but I can’t recall the title at the moment), or goes from Present then back to Past then back to Present. I prefer the book to be split in two parts by Past and Present instead.
I don’t have anything against prologues — if they’re there good, if not no big deal. But I do like to see epilogues to get a glimpse of what the H/H HEA is like and not necessary to show family plus baby either.
Hmm…flashbacks don’t bother me if they’re done well. A great writer for that is Cindy Gerard, esp. in To The Brink. Phew!
In my WIP (now have a title! Whoot!), I had to use a flashback, but, and this is a big but, it’s maybe a page long and will be the only one in the book. It tells a super important piece of info that I didn’t think character rehashing would fix.
And like most of your other commenters have mentioned I have a ton of pet peeves, but if a writer is really good and can pull it off, then I’m okay with it. It all depends on the execution.