I read “Uprooted” by Naomi Novik, and didn’t like it much. The main character THOROUGHLY described each new outfit she would accidentally conjure for herself with magic, and reveled in the experience of wearing plain “homespun” dresses.
I don’t know how many times I had to read “homespun,” but now every time I read “homespun” I get war flashbacks. I’m currently reading a book that now has made me read “homespun” four times. I’m glad I like the book, because that’s almost too many “homespuns” to read.
So, any similar experiences?
by Son0f_ander
9 Comments
The twilight series weirdly refers to dumpsters a lot, and capitalizes it every time. I can’t see that word without thinking about that shitshow.
Sanguine and lithe are used a lot in YA or YA-adjacent books. And not just once or twice in an appropriate context, I mean multiple times in a single chapter.
Nothing wrong with either of those, but it’s basically a meme now for the protagonist to be “lithe” or every character’s expression to be “sanguine.”
on the upside: I’ll die grateful to John Irving for giving me the word “witless”.
Mordecai Richler overused two things: the verb “charged” and the adjectival phrase “with appetite”. they both fit everywhere he used them, but yeah. it’s that thing where you get to know an author and you come to expect it from them with just a slight dose of cringe.
I’m not sure it ruined it per se but in the Wheel of Time books he refers to smiles not reaching character’s eyes so often that it became an inside joke among my friends. Like I get it it means they’re evil blah blah but when you have like 600 evil characters that get screen time it repeats… a lot
Axiomatic
Piers Anthony had a character in The Chronicles of Amber that used the word. Every. Other. Sentence.
“It’s axiomatic!” at least six times a page. I hated that word by the time I was done.
gone girl. *every time* the old boyfriend’s mother appears, Flynn finds it necessary to tell us her personal odour is “vaginal.” once was just as gross as the nth time, but it was a clever insight so I didn’t begrudge her that once. repetition put me off the whole book and off Flynn herself.
The word smirk/smirked. Why is everyone smirking all the friggin time?
And not a word, but I completely loathe the phrase “let out a breath (s)he hadn’t realized (s)he’d been holding”. Immediately rage inducing. Imo it should never be used, but if for some unholy reason it is necessary, please not more than once per book!
Women fiddling with their braids constantly
Sand… Dune ruined sand for me