We all talk about the books, characters, and authors we love (I am particularly annoying when I start to gush and have my fangirl moments). So, not meaning to offend anyone, I decided to do a post about the other side of the coin…what drives me crazy, annoys the face off of me, or generally makes an impression in all the wrong ways.
- least favorite series I forced myself to read through to the bitter end – Sons of Destiny by Jean Johnson. As I am badly known for, I tend to buy all of the books in a series before I start reading the first one, assuming I will of course feel the love. Nope. I liked precisely one character in the entire series, Morg, and I read the books solely to follow his development until his story came along…in the last book. I decided part way in that Jean Johnson’s writing style just didn’t fit my reading needs, since more often than not I was angry at the books, the characters, and myself for buying them. I did some sort of odd fist-pumping happy dance when I was finished, yelling that “they didn’t beat me!” And they still sit on my shelves, because I am too stubborn to throw $100worth of books away.
- least favorite character. EVER. – Kelly from Sons of Destiny by Jean Johnson. This is perhaps the easiest question I could ever answer, since my loathing was so absolute. Random normal chick gets sucked through a portal to another dimension, of course with the specific skill-set (sewing, butter churning, etc) to not only survive but thrive on this somewhat rustic island, and proclaims herself Queen and supreme ruler. Now you must remember her only superpower is to channel her inner domestic goddess and turn some curtain fabric or something into a cover for her throne – and a matching “court” outfit. And everyone else on the island is a mage with actual special powers. Oh, and she is featured prominently in all eight books. Since she is queen and all. I so wanted her to die.
- character I should love but didn’t – Ethan Sullivan from Chicagoland Vampires series by Chloe Neill. I liked the books. Liked the characters and the storyline and the world. Wasn’t that fond of Ethan. Heroes usually can do no wrong for me, but he hand-rung and back-tracked more than a victorian maiden, and was the king of mixed signals “want you…need you…can’t have you..can’t stay away from you…want you more than ever…but wait…”. He did redeem himself in the last couple of books, but I am still not on the bandwagon. Yet.
- least favorite storyline – Intrepid Female Reporter. Ever since back in the days of Lois Lane, I have not liked this storyline, but paranormal romance has taken my distaste for this to a whole new level. Usually the story goes like this – sassy female reporter starts digging into a series of mysterious events. Hot alpha hero tries stop intrepid female reporter from finding out the truth about whatever he is, and exposing his secrets to the world. Sassy female being, well, intrepid, finds herself in approximately 312 dangerous supernatural situations that said hot alpha hero must rescue her from (of course after warning her that BAD THINGS would happen). Intrepid must find “the truth” no matter what the cost , and after a long state of disbelief comes to accept that vamps/weres/gargoyles/angels really do exist. And in the case of Shayla Black‘s Doomsday Brethren series, firecracker reporter Sydney Blair becomes the voice of the supernaturals, doing live news broadcasts through a magic mirror. Complete with her own slogan.
- most eye-rolling author – Christine Feehan. Now, I have every book from every series that Christine Feehan has written. They are my guilty pleasure (along with the Breeds), but she can make my eyes roll like no other. What absolutely kills me every time is the info dump we get on characters. For example, in the latest Ghostwalkers book Samurai Game, Sam Johnson is a former army ranger, trainer, hand to hand combat expert war hero linguistics expert with degrees in molecular biology, biochemistry, astrophysics and nuclear physics. His teammate Jonas Harper is an expert pickpocket master of disguise cat burglar who grew up throwing knives in the circus. I roll my eyes so hard I am surprised I don’t give myself a headache. Oh, and the main characters, in the middle of their supposed first sexual encounter, stop to have a four page discussion on nanite technology and micro-biology.
So, what makes you cringe, cry, or turn your books into a wallbanger? Any series you just can’t hack anymore, or any plot device that makes you crazed?
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The series that I can’t get into no more will have to be JR Wards Black Brotherhood series. I stoped reading it since Mannies book. I just can’t get back into it. And I think part of the reason was something said about the race of her vampire that just made me upset.
Least fav character in a series for me is.. I thought this would be a hard one but then the character that I hate/loathe the most came to my mind. Kaia the annoying Harpy from Gena Showalters Lords of the Underworld. I hate her character so much. She was so annoying, so childish. I used to be a strider fan until he unfortunatly got paried with Kaia and now he isn’t the same stridey that I know and loved. That book never happened in my mind.
Character that I should love but didn’t was. (I know that after I hit post comment a lot of people are going to chew me out. But I don’t care.) Sienna from Kiss of snow, thats right I am not a Sienna fan at all. I love Nalini Singh to death but the three characters from her series that I don’t like were Sienna, Brenna, and wait for it, Elena. I thought that Sienna and Brenna were nothing but brats. And Elena is always in someones business and always up in Dimitys face.
I found that I had to start reading the BDB in a different way in the latter books. I went into them first expecting a PNR, but now I go into them thinking they are just a very involved action book with vampires. I still enjoy them, but in a totally different way than I did.
I am hit or miss with the Lords, and I would go so far as to say I wasn’t really fond of any of the harpys. Too much slapstick comedy, which I am not a fan of at all. Doesn’t suit a story featuring millennia-old beings. I like some humor, but goofy doesn’t cut it.
Sienna seems to be a love or loathe character for many people. If you are like me, you feel guilty when you don’t like a favorite author’s characters, and I try and talk myself into liking them.
Don’t hold back, tell us how you feel
Other than to add my vote to the Black Dagger Brotherhood getting old and tired to me I just have one comment
The glut in self publishing has given us several exceptional writers (Elizabeth Hunter being the prime example) but it has always given us a wave of very poor writers who having poor skills in writing a plot and turn to using sex as filler in their books that do nothing more than add pages, good writers use their sexual encounters to move the story/romance along, many of the current wave show up more as B movie porn.
It really is too bad, because the poor writers give self published authors a bit of a bad name. I really wait on trusted reviews before I would try a self-pubbed series, since usually I see bad photoshopped covers, hear about poor editing and reworked fan-fiction and run away screaming.
I feel you on Christine Feehan’s book. Devoted fan. I’ve always loved her books and series. Though I have stopped reading the Drake Series because of what she did to Ellie( I never finished it). I felt that it was unnecessary evi and that the Drake series was her “light” series.
I do get annoyed with the too much information and too many facts. I am glad she has done all the research and she knows what she’s talking about, but come on!!!!!!!! Facts and details are very important but seriously —- 10 pages of crap I can barely keep straight no matter how many times I re-read it. Details needed – but overload of information is too much. Keep it simple — just not too simple!!!
Also, as much as I love her series, I do think she needs to start wrapping it up. Continue on, but its time start on the next generation of Carpathians and STOP adding teams and stick to storyline and give a clear overall view for the Ghostwalkers. Sometimes I feel that she leaves out needed information and too many scientific facts.
I am the only one on this?
I finished the Drake sisters, but the Sisters of the Heart is a bit of a stretch. They aren’t bad, per se, but they seem to…lack something, I guess. I consider them her sort of lower level series. I know Christine does a lot of research, which is to be applauded, but not every factoid she found must be put in every book. I don’t think I am necessarily slow on the uptake, but I have to re-read her long (long, LONG) scientific sections in the Ghostwalkers several times to figure out what the hell she is talking about, and it takes me out of the flow of the story sometimes.
I think, as much as I have loved them over the years, that the Carpathians need to go off into the sunset now. It is time to wrap things up and focus on the three other series that still have many, many stories to be told. With her new reduced schedule and pushbacks (5 months on Leopard’s Prey), it will be two years between books in the series. Way too long to wait, at least for me. She originally said she planned to write each Ghostwalker’s book, but with…what…something like 20 characters left, there is not a chance. And like you say, we still haven’t come across all of team four yet. If she made the Ghostwalkers the focus rather than the Carpathians, she could maybe get a grip on the storyline and timeline issues and make a decent dent on the stories yet to be told.
I also finished the Drake Sisters and it is the ONLY thing of hers I have found consistently good and nothing since then. The last book was bit more brutal that required perhaps but it did a good job since the second half of the book was devoted to taking care of Ellie (and of course that sweet revenge thing
I actually was a big fan of the Drake Sisters series, including Elle’s book. I am not fond of the abuse of a main character during the story (past issues are fine, but living them with a favorite character is hard), but I was so glad to see her and Jackson find their way to the HEA. The Sisters of the Heart books don’t have the same feel, at least for me.
OMG I thought I was the only one completely confused by the Ghostwalker teams. I emailed her some months ago and asked for a org chart of who was on which team. She said they were working on it. My biggest eye roll for Christine Feehan is when she say molten lava.
Did you check out the Ghostwalkers Character Guide? I did a breakdown of who was who on each team, and some of the original females. It was the only way I could keep everyone straight. If you haven’t seen it, it can be found HERE http://wickedscribeschristinefeehan.wordpress.com/ghostwalkers/ghostwalkers-character-guide/
I’m just like you when buying the entire series before I start reading it. Well, that’s true mostly anyway. I’m severely OCD when it comes to reading a series for the first time that is. They. Have. To. Be. Read. In. Order. Period. lol I can’t help it! Re-reads are fair game though.
I do not keep books that I didn’t like. I box them up and take them to the used book store for credit. Hopefully I’ll find some new ones I will like.
I have officially give-in up on the Chicagoland Vampire series until it’s concluded. The back and forth yo-yo effect that series has been doing has me throwing up my hands in defeat and utter annoyance.
DeAnna Schultz
Good lord, they must be read in order. Including all anthologies and e-book releases. And there must be absolutely no waiting between books if the next one has already been published. I am trying to get better about parting with the no-go’s, but then I have a hard ending a series that doesn’t work for me. I can only think of…two, I guess, that I have bailed on. There are more that I think I am done with, but I never get around to stopping.
I did a six book marathon to get up to date on the Chicagoland series, but I have to admit I would have been majorly pissed waiting for the next book to be released when I finished some of them. That would have been a pain.
the Carpathians need to go; ditto for getting to a resolution for the Breeds. C L Wilson needs to get going or no one will remember that they loved her series. the BDB like you I had to start thinking of them differently. There are some books I liked others I had to skip reading sections, but mind you I’m still hanging in there. There is not one of Nalini Singh’s characters that I don’t love. I agree that one of the most annoying characters around is Kaia from Showalters Lords.
Carpathians are definitely starting to overstay their welcome – hell, the next book features two entirely new characters, which is a pain. It just smacks of being a way to drag out the series past where it was supposed to go in the first place. I am not there on the breeds yet, since there are so very many more characters that need their stories told. But again, every book introduces a ton of new characters, which are then rarely heard from again (anyone seen Simon Quatres? Sherra?) If she would wrap up some of the “old” characters, or at least revisit them, I think the series would flow better.
C.L. Wilson is tricky for me. Loved her books at first, but the long waits and changes and splitting one book into two threw me off a lot. I get that things happen, but like you say she is almost at the point of having to build her fanbase from scratch again. Which is a shame. I haven’t even read the last two tairen soul books, since I sort of drifted away.
Ethan was not for me either, it’s nice to know I’m not the only one. He drove me insane from page one.
Thought I was alone in that, too. I don’t loathe him or anything, but he was just so…wishy-washy. I want to slap him. Repeatedly.
For me the series I just couldn’t finish was Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin series. There is entirely too much repetition in the books. By the time we reach book four we all know Sofia is goth and her sister is an air elemental! Why repeat that every time the character comes on scene. It’s sad because beyond the repetition I think there is a great story but I had to out it down.
Oh and BDB is time to end after Quinn and Blay. It’s no longer exciting for me. She should just write short stories about the daily interactions of our original characters before the house became the Ritz Carlton!
I just ordered the first book of the elemental assassins series, but I do know that Jennifer Estep really does hammer the same idea home in all of the books. In the mythos academy series, you get the same physical description and power descriptions over, and over…and over.
I am even iffy on Blay and Qhuinn. I have never actually read a M/M story, so going to give it a shot anyways.
I am so over Christine Feehan. I read her books and its the same storyline over and over with different character names. The story arc for the Carpathians has not moved. Its past time overdue, wrap it up already.
Declan Chase from IAD is my least favorite character. He’s an abuser, former abuser I know
because he was brainwashed and confused and all, but come on if I wanted to read about abusive relationships I’d read true crime novels.
What annoys me the most though is when an author just leaves a series hangin for a year or more. I am so upset with Gena Showalter about the Alien Huntress Series. Can I have a little resolution please?
It does really seem that the Alien Huntress books have been put on hold to focus on all of the new series. I haven’t seen anything at all about them, not counting the spin-off series, and we need Dallas’ story, dammit! Actually, I prefer the Alien Huntress books to the Lords, so that is a major bummer.