Crazy for Feeling So Lonely That I Decided to Read You

Published: August 20th, 2013

Asylum

By: Madeleine Roux

HarperTeen

ISBN-13:  9780062220967

For sixteen-year-old Dan Crawford, New Hampshire College Prep is more than a summer program—it's a lifeline. An outcast at his high school, Dan is excited to finally make some friends in his last summer before college. But when he arrives at the program, Dan learns that his dorm for the summer used to be a sanatorium, more commonly known as an asylum. And not just any asylum—a last resort for the criminally insane.

As Dan and his new friends, Abby and Jordan, explore the hidden recesses of their creepy summer home, they soon discover it's no coincidence that the three of them ended up here. Because the asylum holds the key to a terrifying past. And there are some secrets that refuse to stay buried.

Featuring found photos of unsettling history and real abandoned asylums and filled with chilling mystery and page-turning suspense, Madeleine Roux's teen debut, Asylum, is a horror story that treads the line between genius and insanity.

Review

     Dan Crawford is doing something different this summer - getting away from another summer spent alone and friendless, by going to the New Hampshire College Prep program.  Once he's there Dan instantly bonds with fellow students Abby and Jordan.  All three of them have secrets they're hiding and when strange things start happening in their dorm, which used to be a mental hospital for the criminally insane, everything begins to fall apart.  Exploring in the forbidden areas of the asylum, the teens find things they never imagined hidden in the shadows.  With their pasts and futures both in question, all the teens must fight to stay sane while solving the mysteries of the asylum - especially Dan, whose connection to the place might be linked to the mystery of his birth parents.  Can Dan, Abby and Jordan stay alive long enough to uncover the truth?

     This book was a BIG. FAT. DISAPPOINTMENT.  Seriously, I have been more scared by R.L. Stine books as a child than I was reading this book!  I still get chills when I think of Fear Street and the gruesome, evil things that happen there.  This freaking mental hospital was just so unrealistically portrayed.  First of all if they've renovated it into a dormitory for a college summer course, I'm sure that in reality there wouldn't be a huge roped off section that nobody had been in since Crazytown shut down originally.  I can get past that, cause it's slightly necessary for the framework of the plot.  But the characters, plot and mystery in this book are so poorly executed that it's more pathetic that anything else.  The 'found' photographs are so obviously fake and there are so few of them to begin with that they're not really an integral part of the story.  Yet it's being marketed as the horror equivalent of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.  It is nowhere near good enough or well researched enough for that comparison.

     Roux has a serious case of the "telling instead of showing" blues.  We are told so much about the character's personalities and about the events that happen.  But we never really get to experience any of it for ourselves.  Of course, that could just be because Dan (our main character) is supposed to be a genius who's had a difficult life and is a cardboard cutout instead.  He is kind of a douchebag, who really just wants into Abby's pants and doesn't even like Jordan (who he thinks is over-emotional), but describes him as one of his best friends throughout the entire book.  Abby is the stereotypical artsy, 'creative' type and is also about as interesting as when that plastic bag is blowing in the wind in the movie American Beauty - in other words, not at all!  Jordan is the character who definitely belongs in a mental hospital, as a patient.  He spends the entire book having serious mood swings, jealous episodes and basically acting like a schizophrenic, bi-polar with the emotional maturity of a kindergartner.  Yet Dan and Abby seem to think he's this awesome person, who they absolutely have to save from himself.

     The mystery to me was what the author actually intended the mystery to be in this book's plot.  The whole thing was just really convoluted.  I was never sure whether the killer was reincarnated, possessing the living 'host' or if the 'host' had a split personality.  The two main mysteries I guess, were whether or not Dan was related to the similarly named sadistic hospital warden, Dan Crawford (I think he turned out to be a nephew or great-nephew?  Could be wrong...) and if Abby's long missing Aunt had really been in that hospital/if she was alive.  Neither of theses was resolved all that well, and I think Roux was setting up for a second book at the end.  With the lack of plot, character development (or, ya know, personality of any kind!) and overall scare, I definitely won't be continuing.  The only reason I finished it was to see how she was going to wrap things up.  NOT a recommended read, and definitely an author I won't be reading again.  Overall, a big fat disappointment.

VERDICT:  1.5/5  Stars (This is me being VEEERRRYYY generous!)

*I received this book as part of Around the World ARC Tours, run by the lovely Princess Bookie.  No favors or money were exchanged for this review.  This book was published August 20th, 2013.*

Follow Me Friday #29 - Or The One Where I'm Culturally Lacking

     So, Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and AlisonCanRead. It's where you answer the weekly question and then link yourself and you go and check out other blogs of your interest, helping to support out endeavors as a community. Also, do it just because it's fun! :)

Q:  What book (or T.V. show or movie) have you not read/seen that seemingly everyone else has?

A:  So I'm going to do one of each, just cause I feel like getting blasted by all corners of the blogosphere:

Just tell me why I should be interested?  As someone who doesn't like zombies, I'm just not.

Walking Dead isn't my thing for pretty much the same reasons as 5th Wave.  But Breaking Bad?  I honestly don't really have an excuse.  I'll probably watch the whole thing two years from now, and everyone will be all like, "Where the Hell have you been?" LOL

Yeah, no excuse once again.  As it is I've seen every other Avengers movie - I just am not interested in Iron Man enough to watch the movies.  But I am excited for Thor: Dark World!

     I can't wait to see your cultural lacks (if they're anything as big as mine!) and I hope you have a great Friday!  Thanks so much for stopping by! :)  I do prefer Bloglovin' follows, but am also trying to build up my Facebook and Twitter followings (especially my Facebook page).  All the links are on the right sidebar! <3

The Canterville Ghost (1996) - Mini Movie Review

The Canterville Ghost

Release Date:  January 27th, 1996

Main Cast:  Neve Campbell, Sir Patrick Stewart, Joan Sims, Donald Sinden, Cherie Lunghi, Edward Wiley, Leslie Phillips

Rating:  PG, for some mildly scary moments

Synopsis (Provided by IMDB):

When a teenaged girl moves to England, with her brothers and parents into the ancient Canterville Hall, she's not at all happy. Especially as there's a ghost and a mysterious re-appearing bloodstain on the hearth. She campaigns to go back home, and her dad, believing the ghost's pranks are Ginny's, is ready to send her back. But then Ginny actually meets the elusive 16th-century Sir Simon de Canterville (not to mention the cute teenaged duke next door), and she sets her hand to the task of freeing Sir Simon from his curse.

Review

     For a made for TV movie (and especially one made in the 1990s) the production values on this are really good.  I assume that has something to do with Sir Patrick Stewart producing it (and I'm going to make a judgement leap, funding it) and starring in the title role, as Sir Simon de Canterville, the ghost of Canterville.  The movie starts out with Ginny, her Mom & her brothers, Washington and Adam, travelling to England to join her Dad who is preparing the house they'll be living in for their arrival.  It's supposedly haunted, but he is a rationally minded scientist and doesn't believe in ghosts.  So when the ghost starts trying to scare the Otis family out of the house, Dad thinks Ginny is behind it and wants to send her home.  At first she wanted to leave, but now she's started to like it there and is making friends (maybe more) with the young Duke next door.  Can she get the ghost to help her convince her Dad that he's real?  And what's all this about a prophecy?

     The acting was pretty good for a TV movie.  I think Neve Campbell made a pretty convincing disgruntled teenager, upset at moving to another country.  The little brothers were amusing and not overly obnoxious, as little brothers who enjoy pranks tend to be in movies sometimes.  The parents were probably the weakest characterizations, with the Mom seeming good-natured, but empty headed and the Dad just seeming like a complete asshole.  He treated Ginny like a stranger he barely tolerated, and didn't show the slightest bit of doubt she was the one behind the mischief.  The way he talked to her/treated her seemed overly harsh for a family film.  Really out of place and unsettling.  I did like the romance between the young Duke next door, Francis, and Ginny.  It was all very sweet, young love type stuff.  They share a couple kisses, but nothing inappropriate for younger viewers.  Sir Patrick Stewart as the ghost, Sir Simon, gave a really wonderful portrayal of a man who once made a grievous mistake that ended in tragedy and has spent hundreds of years as a lonely ghost.  His gradual shift from vengeful, angry ghost to sad & lonely man who can't move on was really believable and makes you, as a viewer, empathize with him.  I did feel like they drove the whole prophecy thing into the ground.  It's much more subtle in the original story by Oscar Wilde.  There was some humor in this, like the original satire it was based on.  But it did take itself a lot more seriously - sometimes it was good, sometimes it was bad.

     Overall, I really enjoyed this film.  It inspired me to read the short novella by Oscar Wilde, which I hadn't even known anything about before seeing this.  Didn't really scare me all that much, not necessarily a Halloween movie like what I was looking for.  This one was more of a sad, romantic tale and can definitely be viewed for a family movie night.  I'd recommend this one! :)

RECOMMENDATION:  Rent it from the library, borrow it, or stream from Netflix (if available)

The Fragile Things Blog Tour

Two girls on the road to self-destruction.

A village upon the brink of collapse.

A past which refused to die.
An epic four-part horror serial.

Book Blurb: Have you ever had a friend you’d die for? One you’d kill for? At seventeen-years-old, Jennifer should have the world at her feet. Instead, she’s an ex-heroin addict living in a council estate with Tony, her boyfriend and former dealer. Shunned by her family and friends, she dreams of something greater than she’s been given. Beautiful and strange, Ebony has moved in across the street. She’s just lost the one person in her lonely existence to cancer. She’s also a centuries-old vampire, struggling to cope with murderous outbursts and the desire to be something more. When these two lost souls meet, an unusual friendship begins. But with the news of Morris, Tony’s sadistic best friend and drug-dealing partner, being released from prison, Jennifer knows it’s only a matter of time before his path of vengeance leads to her and Ebony, too. With a cast of memorable characters, a village full of secrets, and a gripping story, The Fragile Things is a layered tale of friendship, hope, survival and what it truly means to be human.

Part I.

To commemorate the release of the latest installment, The Fragile Things, Part I will be FREE on October 2nd-October 3rd!  Get your copy today—ONLY on Amazon!

About the Author:

V.Shaw is the author of short fiction collection, The Lady of Chains and Other Stories. Born in Scotland, she studied Film and Media at Stirling University. Having reviewed horror films for the now defunct FatallyYours.com, she now focuses on creating her own monsters.

Part II. I teased you with a sneak peek above. However, may I now present the fantastic cover for The Fragile Things, Part II in all of its eerie, Corvusian glory:

October Read-Along: "Something Wicked This Way Comes" Chapters 1-5

     So, I am starting a day later than anticipated (as usual) but here is the first post in my month of Halloween celebration/activities!  This is also the first post in our October Read-Along (of which there will be a new post every two or three days), which this year is Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury.  In this post we're going to briefly discuss the first five chapters, which only amounts to about 27 pages in the edition that I'm reading.  We'll also talk about a little of the symbolism, themes, etc. that we've seen so far in the book.  So, without further adieu, here the discussion begins!

Prologue and Chapter 1

In the prologue, Bradbury tells us in a very prosy, nostalgic way that it's October and it's one of the best months for boys.  He also tells us who the main protagonists are, Jim Nightshade and Will Halloway, and their exact ages (which we assume will come into play later in the novel).  In Chapter One we start out with a travelling salesman who sells lightning rods.  He comes upon the boys laying out on the lawn in front of one of their houses.  We are introduced to Will (blond and fair) and Jim (dark), who also introduce themselves with the fact of being born just a minute apart.  They are neighbors and the rod salesman gives them a lightning rod, telling them it's going to strike Jim's house and they need the rod.  Jim is skeptical, but as soon as the salesman leaves Will sets about getting ready to put the rod on the roof.  The chapter ends with the feeling that a storm is coming.

Thoughts:  Through the prologue and the first chapter, it's pretty obvious that something important is on the verge of happening to these boys.  Bradbury makes a really obvious play of the contrast between them.  Will is obviously light and Jim is his dark foil.  They are two sides of the same coin.

Chapter 2

This chapter sees both boys heading over to the library for their weekly visit.  As they're about to go in, Jim hears music in the distance.  Will doesn't, so they head into the library.  We get a really beautiful description of how the library is really a portal to other places, and we also get an introduction to the fact that Will's Dad is a librarian.  Will feels so far removed from him, and feels like his Dad is a sad, ancient figure.  He actually makes this comparison,

     "Dad winked at Will.  Will winked back.  They stood now, a boy with corn-colored hair and a

       man with moon-white hair, a boy with a summer-apple, a man with a winter-apple face.  Dad,

       Dad, thought Will, why, why, he looks...like me in a smashed mirror!"

Will's Dad jokes around with Jim about "Heck" not being a place, but Hell being under "A" for Alighieri.  Then he makes some remarks about Jim getting the "black hat" books and Will getting the "white hat" ones.  Jim asks what he means and Will's Dad answers evasively that he decided what color to wear long ago.  He sends both of them on their way, Jim with dinosaurs and Will with Jules Verne, and Jim says he's going to watch for the lightning.  Will tells him it will come by morning.

Thoughts:  It's interesting to see Will's Dad draw comparisons between Will and Jim, just like the salesman did (albeit more vaguely).  He pretty much hints that Jim is teetering on evil and Will is on the flipside of things, the good side.  Probably the first actual full description that really explains the terms "white hat" and "black hat" without lots of detail, but zero confusion.  The examples he draws tells you what each one means.

Chapter 3

This chapter is just a few pages and centers around Charles Halloway, Will's Dad, and his insights/feelings about the two boys.  We get to see inside his head and realize that he wants nothing more than to be able to run with Will and Jim again, but knows he can't.  Near the end of the chapter he thinks he will "someday catch up" with them.  He thinks over the differences between Will and Jim.  He realizes that Jim is always waiting for the next blow from life to come at him and is always dodging it, never asking why because he already knows.  Will is the type who stops and asks "Why?" each time he's hit and has to bandage things up.  It ends with Charles in the bar, getting a drink and trying to hear things long past.

Thoughts:  I had forgotten that Bradbury gives us the insights of Will's Dad, as well as both the boys.  I liked getting the adult perspective directly following the third person that followed the boys.  It was cool to see the different contrasts he made between the boys and his wistful feelings toward his own youth.  My favorite line though was this:

     "Jim, Will, he thought, strangers.  Go on.  I'll catch up, some day...."

Also, this one, '"Have a drink?"  "I don't need it," said Halloway.  "But someone inside me does."  "Who?"  The boy I once was, thought Halloway, who runs like the leaves down the sidewalk autumn nights."

Chapters 4 & 5

Everyone in town is hurrying indoors, because they can feel the storm coming.  But Jim and Will catch Mr. Crosetti, the barber, crying outside his shop.  He smells licorice & cotton candy on the air and it's made him realize that he hasn't really stopped to think or smell the air in the 30 years since he was a boy.  The three make the connection that only circuses and carnivals sell cotton candy.  Will has him leave the barber pole going, comforted that it will be running through the night.  Both boys hurry home.  Meanwhile, Charles Halloway is leaving the saloon and sees a man in a dark suit across the street, whistling a tune.  He's putting up posters for a show, "Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show - Fantoccinni, Marionette Circus and Your Plain Meadow Carnival.  Arriving Immediately."  The man has put one of these posters in a abandoned storefront, along with a block of ice and a caveat that the most beautiful woman in the world is in there.  He stands there staring at the block of ice and the woman in it, transfixed by the cold, even while wanting to draw away from it.

Thoughts:  The smell of cotton candy and licorice are foreshadowing for a carnival coming to town, which is later confirmed by the man putting up the posters.  The differing reactions of Mr. Crosetti, who is visibly unsettled and Charles, who is unable to give the reaction he wants by following his instincts, and is stuck standing there letting something happen to him.  Also the whole "Most Beautiful Woman in the World" stuck in a block of ice thing doesn't exactly bode well for the intent of the circus - and the fact that they're arriving amidst a storm.

Next Assigment:  Chapters 6-13, Pages 28-57

Please feel free to open up a discussion in the comments, I'd love to talk about this one with you guys! :)  Until next time, have a Happy October!

The Classics Club

     So, I don't know if I'm the only one who feels like they slack off on reading the classics (especially now that I'm not in school anymore).  But when I saw this on the blog of someone who visited my blog, I thought to myself that it must be fate.  The challenge behind this book club, The Classics Club, is to come up with a list of "classic" novels, novellas, short story collections, etc. (published within the last 25 years) with at least 50 titles, if not more, and read them all within the next five years.  We set our own pace, choose our own titles and do it for the fun time we'll have! :)  So who's with me everyone?  I should finish this list by October 1st, 2018 at the latest and will link each blog post about the titles on here back to this post.  Here's my list of 100 books (no certain order):

Fiction



Adams, Richard "Watership Down"
Alcott, Louisa May "Hospital Sketches"
Angelou, Maya "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings"
Austen, Jane "Lady Susan" "Sanditon" "The Watsons" (grouped together, all shorter works)
Barrie, J.M. "Peter Pan"
Beagle, Peter S. "The Last Unicorn"
Bradbury, Ray "The Illustrated Man"
Bronte, Anne "Agnes Grey"
Bronte, Anne "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall"
Bronte, Charlotte "Shirley"
Burgess, Anthony "A Clockwork Orange"
Burroughs, Edgar Rice "Tarzan of the Apes"
Burroughs, Edgar Rice "A Princess of Mars" "The Gods of Mars"
Cather, Willa "O! Pioneers"
Chopin, Kate "The Awakening"
Collins, Wilkie "The Woman in White"
Collodi, Carlo "The Adventures of Pinocchio"
Cooper, James Fenimore "The Deerslayer"
Crane, Stephen "Red Badge of Courage"
Defoe, Daniel "Robinson Crusoe"
Dickens, Charles "Little Dorrit"
Dickens, Charles "The Old Curiosity Shop"
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan "The Hound of the Baskervilles"
Dreiser, Theodore "An American Tragedy"
Dumas, Alexandre "The Three Musketeers"
Eliot, George "Daniel Deronda"
Eliot George "The Mill on the Floss"
Fitzgerald, F. Scott "Tender Is The Night"
Forster, E.M. "A Passage to India"
Gaskell, Elizabeth "North and South"
Gaskell, Elizabeth "Wives and Daughters"
Gibbons, Stella "Cold Comfort Farm"
Grahame, Kenneth "The Wind in the Willows"
Hansberry, Lorraine "A Raisin In the Sun"
Hardy, Thomas "Return of the Native"
Hardy, Thomas "Tess of the D'Urbervilles"
Heller, Joseph "Catch-22"
Hellman, Lillian "Little Foxes"
Hesse, Hermann "Siddhartha"
Hinton, S.E. "Rumble Fish"
Hugo, Victor "The Hunchback of Notre Dame"
Huxley, Aldous "Island"
Irving, Washington "Histories, Tales and Sketches"
James, Henry "Turn of the Screw"
Kerouac, Jack "On the Road"
Kesey, Ken "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"
Kipling, Rudyard "The Jungle Books"
Leroux, Gaston "The Phantom of the Opera"
Lofting, Hugh "The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle"
London, Jack "White Fang"
MacDonald, George "The Princess and the Goblin"
Mansfield, Katherine "The Garden Party and Other Stories"
Maugham, W. Somerset "The Razor's Edge"
Miller, Arthur "All My Sons"
Nesbit, E. "The Enchanted Castle"
O'Brien, Robert C. "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH"
Orczy, Baroness "The Scarlet Pimpernel"
Plath, Sylvia "The Bell Jar"
Poe, Edgar Allan "Collected Stories and Poems"
Porter, Eleanor H. "Pollyanna" (DONE)
Porter, Gene Stratton "Freckles"
Pyle, Howard "The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood"
Radcliffe, Anne "The Mysteries of Udolpho"
Rawls, Wilson "Where the Red Fern Grows"
Scott, Sir Walter "Lady of the Lake"
Sewell, Anna "Black Beauty"
Shakespeare, William "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Shakespeare, William "Merchant of Venice"
Shakespeare, William "Much Ado About Nothing"
Shakespeare, William "The Taming of the Shrew"
Sinclair, Upton "The Jungle"
Smith, Betty "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn"
Steinbeck, John "The Grapes of Wrath"
Sterne, Laurence "Tristam Shandy"
Stevenson, Robert Louis "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
Stevenson, Robert Louis "The Island of Dr. Moreau"
Stoker, Bram "Dracula"
Stoppard, Tom "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead"
Thoreau, Henry David "Walden"
Travers, P.L. "Mary Poppins" (DONE)
Twain, Mark "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
Verne, Jules "Journey to the Center of the Earth"
Walker, Alice "The Color Purple"
Watson, Winifred "Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day"
Waugh, Evelyn "Brideshead Revisted"
Wells, H.G. "The War of the Worlds"
Wharton, Edith "The Buccaneers"
Wilde, Oscar "The Picture of Dorian Gray"
Wilder, Thornton "Our Town"
Woolf, Virginia "Mrs. Dalloway"
Wyss, Johan David "The Swiss Family Robinson"
Zindel, Paul "The Pigman"

Non-Fiction

de Quincy, Thomas "Confessions of an English Opium Eater"
Douglass, Frederick "A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass"
Emerson, Ralph Waldo "Self-Reliance and Other Essays"
Franklin, Benjamin "1726 Journal"
Wiesel, Elie "Night"
Paine, Thomas "Common Sense"
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques "On The Social Contract" 
Gilbreth Jr., Frank B. "Cheaper By the Dozen"

Top Ten Tuesday #11 - Top Ten Book Turn Offs

     Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly event hosted by The Broke and The Bookish, which allows bloggers to share lists of some of our favorite (and not-so favorite) things.  This week we’ll be highlighting the top ten book turn offs.  What are the things that stand out when we're reading, and either get it the way of our enjoyment, or make us stop reading altogether?  I know there are definitely some things that annoy the heck out of me and turn me off of the book entirely.  I can't wait to read your lists and see if we have anything in common.   Happy Tuesday and have fun everyone! :)

Top Ten Book Turn Offs

1.  Fake Incest As a Plot Device - This is something that drives me completely up the wall and makes me disgusted with the author.  Really, you couldn't come up with anything else to drive the action in the novel?  They have to be romantic interests and maybe-not-quite-sure siblings on top of that?  Major reason I'm not a big fan of The Mortal Instruments series.  It just makes me want to quit.

2.  Love Triangles - If I see one of these coming and it's the first book in a series (this happens quite a bit nowadays unfortunately) I get really disgruntled.  Give me a book with just ONE love interest for the main character!  Usually if you need a love triangle to prop up your writing, it's inferior and oftentimes complete crap.  There are obvious exceptions though.  Example of these exceptions:  Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me series.

3.  Romance used as a cover for Porn - I have read a lot of paperback romance books in my time.  There are good and bad just like any other subsection of a genre.  The way to tell a good romance, is to find one balancing plot with maybe a couple of tasteful sex scenes (if it has any - some don't and that's even better at times).  Drowning the plot in sex scenes generally tells me you can't write dialogue, plot or get creative, so you resort to smut.  It's usually bad, boring smut too!  Quit wasting my time!

4.  Insta-Love - Characters that have barely met each other and begin spouting declarations of 'soul mates' and true love make me gag.  Please, don't make me gag!  Give your characters some dignity and development, instead of making them act like 11 year old One Direction fangirls!  Respect your readers and put their intelligence above that really low, weak-ass tactic.

5.  Repetitive Language - I am not someone who normally notices this in a book.  If I happen to notice this, your book really is repeating itself an awful lot.  An example of this (not to beat a dead horse, but...) is when I was reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  If I never see the words "inner goddess" on a book page again, it will still be too soon.

6.  The Innocent, Speshul Snowflake, Perfect Virgin Girl - Bella unleashed a whole train of these characters, who are just so pure and sweet that when they talk birds sing.  You know, shit like that.  Not to mention, every guy she ever meets is drawn to her magical ladyparts and is in 'lurve' with her, cause she's just so SPESHUL.  She's also usually never had a boyfriend, is verging on a-sexual until the generally bordering-on-stalker love interest lights her panties on fire, and has never even been kissed.  Yeah, how about NO!!!

7.  Cheaters -  I cannot STAND cheaters.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, there is no excuse for it!  If you want to be with someone that badly, break up with the person you're seeing and pursue it.  Don't be a sleazeball, and hook up when you're spoken for.  It's just nasty and it's got nothin' to do with love.  

8.  Abrupt Endings - I don't necessarily mean cliffhangers.  I mean when the mystery (or main plot, whatever it is) is still unresolved, but in the last 20 pages all the loose ends are tied up in neat bows.  Most of the time when an author does this it's sloppy and really lazy - it reads like it too.  I like my endings a bit more gradual than that.  Just sayin'.  

9.  Twitterspeak in Normal Conversation - Maybe this is just showing my age or something, but this is my newest pet peeve.  I literally just quit a book 67% into it, because I just could not take it anymore.  There were other issues too, but the main character (a fourteen year old girl) thought she and her friend were so cool cause they talked in real life like they did on Twitter.  JUST SHUT THE F*** UP.  Seriously.

10.  Placeholder Characters - As in, I wrote a book because I've always wanted to be a book heroine.  Now look at me, I'm the main character in my own book and the most boring one in the whole thing!  All to live out my own, personal fantasies that NO ONE CARES ABOUT.  Basically just *insert self here.*  If I wanted that, I'd read Choose Your Own Adventure.  I'll pass thanks.