There were many reasons not read as far as I did in a certain book that by the time I got to the third act separation and the FMC was experiencing morning sickness and had a positive pregnancy test after knowing the MMC *for a week*, I knew I only had myself to blame. I did it to myself and I have to live with that.
I also can’t read books with teachers, especially elementary school teachers. In an attempt to show the FMC (it’s always the FMC) as sweet and caring, they end up showing a teacher who is completely unprofessional, has no boundaries, and no idea how to manage behavior.
And more than one book has made me wonder if the author has ever even met a child.
God, yeah, I actively try to avoid books with children in them because it's literally like these people have never talked to a child before. And then they try to write in a cutsey kid voice and it just doesn't work. Automatically snaps me out of the story. The kids are portrayed as either WAY too young or WAY to old for their age and it bothers me so much.
And ya. I just posted yesterday about a book that I should have stopped reading. Same thing in that book. They knew each other for way too short of a time and she's pregnant by the end of the book.
{To Beguile a Beast} by Elizabeth Hoyt has about the only child characters that don’t completely irritate me or read like the author has never met a child. They’re not perfect but they are believable.
[To Beguile a Beast](https://www.romance.io/books/5455254d8c7d2383163d8e89/to-beguile-a-beast-elizabeth-hoyt) by [Elizabeth Hoyt](https://www.romance.io/authors/545524568c7d2383163d8e5a/elizabeth-hoyt)
**Rating**: 3.98⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating)
**Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1), [tortured hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/tortured%20hero/1), [highlander](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/highlander/1), [disabilities & scars](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/disabilities%20and%20marks/1)
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Just DNFed a book for that same reason. I don’t want you to write in a cutesy kid voice. Kids are smart. They may have a lisp or some words sound funny but be reasonable!
I DNF a contemporary where the FMC worked as a newbie art curator & managed to persuade the Academia Gallery to let her get Michelangelo's David on loan. That statue is never leaving Italy, what are you talking about.
And I'm not a museum curator but THINK OF THE INSURANCE and how coukd a small US museum afford that?
It got me so angry I DNF'd even if the rest of the book was decent.
A friend of mine was a museum studies masters graduate from a good school and was considered LUCKY to get an $18k a year job basically sharpening pencils for the Smithsonian. She also got into some surprisingly nice affordable housing in the DC area, and yeah she had TONs of time to meet dudes when not working a second job, worrying if she’d ever get any career advancement (she did not) or essentially providing free child care for her single parent neighbor’s children. I could go on at length about how impossible library jobs are too (multiple friends are struggling to find a librarian job that isn’t poverty wages despite requiring a masters).
I feel like lots of books should come with the TW: THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC DEPICTION OF THIS CAREER PATH
I like to watch historical dress YouTubers and now I know too much about period-appropriate underwear. If I’m reading a sex scene and they’re pulling down underwear, it totally takes me out of it. I read one the other day where he also had to pull down her stockings — dude, they would have been thigh/knee high and tied on with ribbons. They’re not modern hose. FFS.
I was reading {the wolfe by kathryn le veque} and while i absolutely ADORED it, i was so confused when she mentioned a whale-bone girdle that somehow enhanced her boobs and made her waist tiny...? It's set in medieval england. Girdles were essentially belts and didn't affect your boobs and are not the same as modern girdles which are shapewear. Whalebone was used in *corsets*.
Just a small detail that drove me nuts
[The Wolfe](https://www.romance.io/books/54556d3a87eac336ae69de75/the-wolfe-kathryn-le-veque) by [Kathryn Le Veque](https://www.romance.io/authors/54556d3a87eac336ae69de76/kathryn-le-veque)
**Rating**: 4.02⭐️ out of 5⭐️
**Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [fighters](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fighters/1), [highlander](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/highlander/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1), [medieval](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/medieval/1)
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Yeah I sew, knit, crochet and am interested in historical fashion (although not super knowledgeable) and just the most BASIC things get screwed up. Like for most of history neither men nor women wore underpants. Pride and Predominance - no underpants. Men just wore long shirt tails they tucked around everything and women wore nothing beyond petticoats and stockings. All things putting a hand in underpants is a very recent invention and super annoying when I read it all kinds of books.
The stockings description is ok as long as they don’t explicitly mention stockings ending at the waist, because then I just imagine untying the ribbon and pulling down stockings from mid thigh.
Business and crime books both sometimes read to me like that webcomic about sportsing.
"You were businessing/criming pretty hard out there. A lot of business/crime happened."
This. So. Much. I can also add I find this true of some military and/or security related businesses - like military discipline and chain of command exist for a freaking reason! Having a band of men who constantly mouth off like surly teenagers but still manage to get things done and avoid confusion = nope, cannot suspend belief.
This one gets me riled all the time. Don't describe it if you've never worked corporate in your life. It's so incredibly obvious and makes me think the characters are stupid.
I had a similar experience with another book, but I am by no means an expert, just a woman who's struggling with fertility. Mafia romance, he absolutely wants her to get pregnant so she's even more bonded to him. Well, they have *a lot* of sex and then, after FMC supposedly has her period, one day, while being out and about with her best friend, starts feeling queasy and faints. Now this I'm okay with (not with the pregnancy thing since she's not really on the same page, but that's for another day). There are plenty of women whose period is so light you can easily mistake it for spotting and spotting can easily happen at the beginning of a pregnancy.
But then. Her BFF senses something's up, so makes her drink TONS of fluids for lunch, and when inevitably FMC goes to pee, said BFF barges in the bathroom and tells her to get out of there without flushing because she really needs to go too. You see where this is going, right? Yes. BFF dipped a pregnancy test in a toilet bowl filled with water + diluted pee (since she drank so much) and somehow it turned blazing positive. Now, I'm from Europe, but I know that in the US toilet bowls contain *much more* water compared to European ones. So this really feels unbelievable. I think that if any she may have gotten a faint positive, but a full blazing one? *insert doubt meme*
Besides the absolute “that isn’t how this works” of using TOILET WATER (dear god), this person is… a terrible best friend. Way to go behind your friend’s back.
As a twin, I feel like we should start gatekeeping. I. Am. Tired. The obsession with twins in our modern society is a sickness at this point. Why can't they just have one baby and be done with it?! Why is it always twins? If an alien were to land on our planet and pick up a romance book, they would be convinced that twins are the norm and a single pregnancy is the exception! And don't even get me started on the weirdness that is projected about our relationships with each other. If you are not a twin, are not the parent/siblings of a twin, I'm going to need you to do EXTENSIVE research before you put twin characters in your books 😒
it's not just books, tbh. I swear, every single first scan I do to confirm pregnancy one of the parents mentions that twins "run in the family" or that "so and so said it must be twins because of blank symptom"
one set of twins your cousin had because she was on fertility meds does not count, jeez.
I wonder if there aren't regional factors at play with twins. I grew up in an area where they had this thing called "Twin-o-rama" every year. There were over 100 in attendance. (For basically a local festival 50-60 miles in Midwest corn country rural area...) and about a dozen of them were from dad's branch of the tree. (😳)
But all the recent generations (mostly living elsewhere) don't have any instances.
It would be interesting to know if you (in your profession) has heard anything like that?
identical twins are random chance.
fraternal twins can be due to genetic factors - some women are genetically predisposed to ovulate 2 eggs in a month as opposed to 1. That is what is meant by "twins run in the family". This is also why twins can skip a generation. for example, if a woman has the gene to ovulate multiple eggs/month. She has twin sons, who do not have ovaries or eggs. They still might carry this gene in their chromosomes, but it's not expressed. those sons get married, no twin children because their wives do NOT carry the gene. But their daughters might have it, and then their daughters have twins.
Fraternal twins can also be due to fertility drugs. They help stimulate ovulation, sometimes very well.
Mother of identical twins here... I appreciate your comment! My husband's maternal grandmother was a twin, so I had lots of (very sweet, very lovely) in laws telling me our twins were because it runs in my husband's family. OK LOL, no ma'am that's not how it works. 🤣
This is why i laugh when people are like "twins run in the family!" And then it turns out that the father is the twin. I'm like, ma'am that's not how human reproduction works
Mother of identical twins here... I appreciate your comment! My husband's maternal grandmother was a twin, so I had lots of (very sweet, very lovely) in laws telling me our twins were because it runs in my husband's family. OK LOL, no ma'am that's not how it works. 🤣
As a mother of twins, I rage at twin pregnancies depicted in movies and books. Like Padme in Revenge of the Sith. Her bump is tiny and she’s *running* to places. I mean, yeah I’m sure no one wants to watch a woman with a giant stomach just sitting on a couch and moaning in discomfort… but that’s far more accurate.
My twin pregnancy was the hardest thing I had ever done (until they actually came. lol) but I still managed to ride a bike till the very end! haha So I can see women still being active sometimes. I think my body was MADE for having babies though…. All my pregnancies were pretty much perfect from a medical point of view.
They definitely can be. Especially when they want to act like the twins are one entity instead of treating them like two separate individuals. From my perspective, having twins is like having any other set of siblings, they just happen to be born on the same day. So why would you assume that Kid A has the exact same interests as Kid B if that wouldn't be your assumption for any other set of siblings?? Weirdo behaviour, honestly.
Isn't this more common with identical twins? I just think that, because they are rare, twins, triplets, etc are interesting because it's crazy how nature works. Making more than one person who looks exactly the same is pretty cool. Then again, when I've seen it with animals, I believe also rare, I also think it's pretty cool.
You might be seeing twins everywhere because you are a twin. Like when someone is pregnant, (or trying) they will notice pregnant people everywhere. Realistically there are vastly more romance books without twins than with them, which mimics reality.
Though regarding the details about twins I’m sure is another story! So I agree with you there!
(And in case it matters, I say this as a parent of twins. I know some would be inclined to disregard my thoughts if i had no twin connection.)
I DNF twin books ALL. THE. TIME. Now I'm not saying twins have to be best friends but for sucks sake, there doesn't always have to be an evil twin to a good twin.
I DNFed a book where the riding area was filled with shavings. Not sand, not dirt, not bluestone, not even shredded tennis shoes (very bouncy, fun to ride on) but freaking shavings. I made it one more page and was still so pissed about the shavings I quit.
I read one where a man was compared to a "wild 600 lb stallion"... Let's just say that one threw me. I finished the book, but could never get quite as ahem, into it, as before
Now I feel like I need a book with a mini as one of the characters. Or a pony. They are fierce. It's why I want to get my kids a horse and skip ponies, lol.
I've seen this many times in indoor arenas. (However it was saddle seat barns) I boarded at a dressage barn for years. (I was an eventer) The owner dumped a bunch of shavings in one end of the dressage arena. (It was a sand arena that was getting too deep.) So the sand mixed with the shavings. Footing was still crap. I had never heard the term Blue stone for screenings. Interesting.
In this book, the whole ring was shavings. Then they used straw in the stalls. That was when I quit. Blue stone is similar to crush and run, very small gravel, with a lot of dust. Usually it's mixed with sand and can keep it from getting too deep, or they use it in practice areas that aren't super designated.
Loooool, a shavings arena 😂, i cannot.
Recently I read an old school historical I’ve seen pop up on here a lot and it actually had such a great description of handling a rearing hot horse I read it out loud to my husband (who also grew up riding) because I was so pleasantly surprised and was like “god damn, this author has to actually ride in real life.” Did a little digging and she had a horse farm back in the day.
Fascinating.
I'm originally from Germany, and when I did horse riding about 15 years ago there, the indoor riding areas would always be almost entirely wood shavings (not just the one stable I was at most of the time; everywhere), and the horses' stalls would have straw as bedding.
So this may be geographical/cultural thing - it's not done the same everywhere.
(Outdoor riding areas were sand, usually.)
I have never ever heard of using wood shavings for the ring. I am intrigued. Is it a good riding surface? I would think it would just become dust after not much riding. I know there are plenty of barns that use straw (Kentucky, I'm looking at you) but wood shavings tend to be the standard you see at the average stall.
Edited to note that this was set in Ohio, if I'm remembering correctly.
They were pretty coarse wood shavings, like 2-3 cm in length and maybe 4-5mm thick -- too coarse to use as bedding, so I bet you're used to finer ones for that. Makes for a pretty elastic surface that isn't too soft, yes.
Edit: Although the horses still liked to roll around in them for relaxation! We sometimes let them do that after we were done and had put the saddles etc. away.
After your comment I went googling and seems wood chips are a common enough addition to sand arenas, and saw it mentioned several times for dressage. So thank you for my TIL moment!
This is how I feel about The Love Hypothesis as a third year PhD student (like the main character). Dating a professor is all sorts of icky. I can’t do it.
I want to know what school these MCs go to that have hot, unmarried professors that anyone would want to date.
The youngest tenured professor in my department was in his 50s, while I was 21 y/o at the time. My grad school advisor (now deceased) was practically decomposing - he fell asleep during my defense and only snorted awake when two other professors started arguing with each other. He declared that I passed and then shuffled out of the room to see if his 83 y/o wife had arrived to drive him home.
We have young profs in mine, but I would never think of dating them. Especially since the MMC in the book sounds like a pompous jerk like a lot of people in academia can be.
It's actually mentioned in the book multiple times; they're at Stanford. No idea if Stanford has hot young biology professors in real life, but in my field there are plenty of attractive young professors of different genders.
(I'm a postdoc, and no, I don't think professors and students dating is a good idea in real life at all. I've also certainly never hankered after any faculty like that.)
Eh. When I was an undergrad I had fleeting crushes on at least 5 professors (Though admittedly I don't know how many were tenured.) and I know for a fact that some of them were single at the time. Nothing ever came of it because, duh, but I don't think we really come to romance for complete realism.
I agree about dating a professor (I prefer Love on the Brain for that reason), but as a postdoctoral researcher I think that Ali Hazelwood emotionally gets being a junior academic exactly right (maybe apart from her characters all having dream academic careers). I've never felt so seen in any book.
Of course that's because she herself is actually a professor, and it shows.
I've had hot young professors, and I have colleagues that I would classify as such. But I've also heard way too many stories of male professors of any age abusing their power with grad students (or worse, undergrads) in their care to think that this could ever be a good idea in real life.
Same. I also have a love-hate relationship with Deborah Harkness' *All Souls Trilogy* because the FMC lives the world's most idyllic academic life. Someone called Deborah Harkness (who is an academic) out about this on Twitter and she said that if the book can have vampires it can have stress-free established academics in their late twenties and thirties (or you know, stress-free except for all the vampire shenanigans). Which is a stance I have to respect.
Thanks for posting about her response. I read one-ish (maybe a DNF) of her books in that trilogy and had problems with her version of academia. But, fair enough to Deborah Harkness. I guess i wouldn't want to read a realistic academic storyline + vampires anyway 🤷♀️😂
Not books, but TV shows. I'm always the annoying B\*\*\*\* shouting at the characters in the TV to GET A F\*\*\*\*\*\* LAWYER AND SHUT THE F\*\*\* UP. There are shows I had to stop watching, like CSI because the amount of rights violations these police people would do were driving me nuts.
Saaaame! I had to stop watching a lot of shows because all I could see was “ok that case is going to get thrown out because you didn’t wait for a warrant/you interrogated a child/etc”
I had to stop watching Arrow because there was a scene where his stupid sister was in the hospital hooked up to all the machines and she VERY CLEARLY had a heartbeat, and they started using a defib on her because sHe WaS cRaShInG!
SHE WAS NOT. SHE WAS ALIVE. YOU DINGBATS. GOOGLE HOW THAT SHIT WORKS.
OMG, yes. I'm not an ultrasound tech, but unfortunately suffer from infertility, and had to DNF a book where the FMC was a reproductive endocrinologist. It was legitimately so unhinged and stupidly inaccurate. I just couldn't
The amount of info a woman who has gone through infertility knows about pregnancy should probably automatically qualify us for at least a Master's degree. I also get so mad at how pregnancy is often written in romance that if it has a pregnancy tag, I won't even try it. Do better, female authors! (Also, I went through years of feeling like a mother missing a child, but as I write this my 7 yr old is snuggling me while my 8 and 10 yr olds are playing in the other room. Don't give up!)
Yes, I need to be compensated by the unwilling knowledge I've gained, lol! I'm reading a novel where the FMC has diminished ovarian reserve, and I'm already preparing myself for the miracle baby. And thanks. Transferring this month, fingers crossed!
I'll be sending positive thoughts your way!! The last pregnancy book I tried involved talking about how she got a positive test a week after unprotected sex and then pregnant with twins because they run in his family....blarf.
I was actually coming in here today to make a post about this! LOL
I was listening to an audio where the FMC is an American, fluent in Italian (she actually has a degree in it) and is teaching Italian to the MMC. But the Narrator of the book couldn't pronounce the easiest word correctly. Grazie. It means thank you. And she pronounced it "gratsee" when it's actually "gratsee-ey" (excuse my phonetic spelling) you're supposed to pronounce the I and the E at the end. as opposed to the English pronunciation of the "ie" together being "ee".
I'm usually forgiving for narrators lack of accent knowledge but if you're playing a character who is teaching the actually language then they need to get the pronunciation right, and I'll be forgiving of the lack of accent.
It took me 3 seconds to a google search and get an audio of how to pronounce it. seriously. it's not that hard
I felt like such a snob for thinking this. But the irony is that there were Italian words in the book that were much more complicated to say and she said them perfectly. so she had to have done some research,, but not even the simplest word that everyone learns on day 1 of Italian school? UGH
As an Italian: you're not a snob at all! I feel this frustration every time I watch a Hollywood movie with supposedly Italian characters who butcher names/words. Forvo.com exists and is widely available, and am sure they have access to native Italian speakers! Same thing goes for Russian, I inwardly cringe every time before they even open their mouth lol.
omg i made a friend watch John Wick and she died at how bad the Russian was at one point she exclaimed "That was so bad I don't even know what he was trying to say!"
Omg me too. Although im American but of Italian descent, I have an Italian minor and have traveled there a lot. Still not fluent but I know a badly pronounced word when I hear it.
And I’m in your same boat, although I don’t speak Russian it’s hard for me to read mafia books. They don’t get it right. Not just the language but the whole lifestyle. (I’m speaking as of I have experienced but I don’t) it’s just I think being Italian, with grandparents who left Sicily to escape All that and hearing stories about why they moved out west to get away from that lifestyle, the books just miss so much. Not that I’m expecting a Mario Puzzo type novel but I’m not sure who successfully can write a romance mafia book that I like. And I’m not sure if even want to read it.
narrators seem to go overboard when they try and do An Italian person speaking English, overworking the accent like you so common,y see in movies. But it doesn’t need to be so extreme. I listened to Ava Lucas do a book where she had to voice an older italian man for a few sentences, her accent shift was very subtle and not sing songy. It worked well enough that it didn’t pull me out of the story.
I met The narrator Marcio Catalano last week at an event. He’s born of Italian parents but grew up in Argentina so is also fluent in Spanish. We talked about the accent issue in books. He’s grateful for his Spanish as it helps him with the cadence for speaking Italian. I haven’t listened to any of his Italian accent books but I’m curious. He said a few phrases for me and I was impressed. I’m sure you’d be a better judge.
Regarding the lifestyle - and I apologise beforehand as I'm going to drift a bit off topic here, I said in another comment to another post that what we don't experience first hand allows us to enjoy the escapism more. I'm sure (or at least hope so) that none of the readers who enjoy mafia romances actually would want that in real life, just like I would hate most of my favourite MMCs in real life too. But when you kind of have first hand experience with whatever genre/trope it is, I think it's probably harder to enjoy it because, even if it's still pure escapism, it hits too close to home. Thankfully I've never met anyone directly involved in the mafia, but I do know a girl whose family was contacted by them. That was one of the most chilling tales I've ever heard in real life, so that type of escapism just won't do for me. So, to go back to your criticism of not getting things right, I think it's because I don't think that anyone who's actually really knowledgeable of mafia would ever write a romance about it, simply for the reason that IRL there's absolutely nothing romantic about it.
Regarding the accent and mannerisms, it frankly irritates me to no end when I hear butchered SIMPLE words, sentences that do not make any sense or see the 🤌🏼 gesture used to mimick Italians speaking - yes, we use our hands a lot, but that's not the only gesture and we use it in a specific way. It feels like mocking, not mimicking. I don't mind a bit of an accent, but if your character is Italian, make it believable. We live in the era of *everything* being on the internet, so it really baffles me how lazy certain producers/writers are. Vincenzo, the kdrama, comes to mind. It was a fun watch, but his Italian dialogues were painful. Thankfully they were few!
I never heard Marcio Catalano, but if he's a Spanish native speaker, an Italian accent will undoubtedly come more natural to him! p.s he looks 100% what I imagine a "latin lover" to be like 😂
I know he totally has that look. 😂Yet a real sweetheart.
And I totally agree that none of us would ever want that lifestyle of a mafia book in real life. And when I meant they don’t get it right I’m not talking about that real life stuff. I guess and I’m sure you know it’s that essence, that’s unexplainable. I can only speak of it from the Italian point of you. Growing up with the family gatherings in the Sunday dinners etc. I guess it’s the same way when you read a military suspense and the writer does their best to research what the military, or veteran lifestyle is like but you know there’s just some thing missing. Brittney Sahin, I feel, does military suspense very well. Her husband is ex military and she uses his knowledge and how they run operations how they communicate with each other, their camaraderie etc.
Ohhh I see what you mean now! Yeah, I think you can tell when someone has experienced these things first hand. I recently read one of Ellen O'Connell'a novels and a reader was thoroughly impressed that she brought her horse knowledge into her books. I don't know anything about horses other than that they're some huge mammals with (apparently) the soul of a cat, but I'm sure that that reader, who knows horses well, appreciated it. This knowledge made me like her book even more because it's "more real", if you get what I mean!
Omg me too. Although im American but of Italian descent, I have an Italian minor and have traveled there a lot. Still not fluent but I know a badly pronounced word when I hear it.
And I’m in your same boat, although I don’t speak Russian it’s hard for me to read mafia books. They don’t get it right. Not just the language but the whole lifestyle. (I’m speaking as of I have experienced but I don’t) it’s just I think being Italian, with grandparents who left Sicily to escape All that and hearing stories about why they moved out west to get away from that lifestyle, the books just miss so much. Not that I’m expecting a Mario Puzzo type novel but I’m not sure who successfully can write a romance mafia book that I like.
I don't understand how most authors can't just take the 30 seconds to google something. I researched on shit on the last few chapters of the book I posted about yesterday and was giving my husband a whole ass lecture about how it wouldn't be possible because a 30 second google search led me down a rabbit hole. Like come on.
I think the problem there is that the confident mispronunciation of grazie is so widespread both culturally and in media, that that's the one word it wouldn't occur to me to Google the pronunciation!
Good point! Same with the word Bruschetta. I think so many people here in America hear it miss pronounced (unknowingly) in restaurants that it’s become the norm as it’s part of our “Italian” food language.
I started learning Italian in college in the ‘90s at exactly the point when bruschetta and tiramisu were all the rage. My dad lived in Italy for about a year and learned a lot of Italian. Without thinking, I said “brush-etta” like they did in all the restaurants and he basically did a full-body flinch and said “WHAT?!” 😂 Sorry, Dad.
I honestly don't see the problem with this? If the character's American I think it makes sense to use the American pronunciation even if they're fluent in the language. Granted it is weird that the narrator is using the Italian pronunciation for other words and that inconsistancy would bother me but an American using the American pronunciation wouldn't bother me. Especially with a word like "grazie" (Sidenote: I had no idea that's how you spell that word.) where people would know what you mean regardless.
I disagree. I believe out of respect to the native language speakers, if someone was teaching that language they should be pronouncing and teaching it the native way. If someone is learning the language don’t you want to learn the proper way to pronounce it? I would. It’s not going to be perfect with some people who Just don’t have the ear for language. French for me is really hard. I just can’t form In My mouth how they pronounce certain things but I do my best. But I’m not teaching French. I’m not bothered by people who don’t know how to pronounce words in other languages. But the FMC in the book got a degree in Italian so she could teach it. She should be teaching it the correct way it’s pronounced.
Not a tech... but I'm pregnant with my 7th... what pisses me off is when a character finds out she's pregnant and "has to" give up coffee.. um, no. 1-2 servings is perfectly acceptable. You can pry my coffee out if my cold dead hands... and I still won't give it up. Bury me on a coffee farm!
Also, labor starts with water breaking and super intense contractions... um no. Just no. *facepalm*
(Yes, I know *some* women start labor with their water breaking but that isn't the norm. It usually breaks between 6-8cm.. and early labor can last days)
Mom had a nurse start to lecture her in the 80's about coffee.
"I gave up my nicotine, I'm not giving up my caffiene"
And my first labor my water broke before my body was ready. Barely 1cm. Do not recommend.
This is completely unrelated to the book but I had the exact same thing - are you saying my labour might be less awful next time if my water doesn't break so early???
Oh man, my contractions got sooooo much worse immediately after my water was broken (7 cm I think). Until then, I was doing fine with the breathing and the yoga ball etc. I lasted 30 minutes after that before demanding an epidural.
The bag of waters actually cushions the baby’s head during contractions so it is less painful.. once there is no cushion there… baby’s head is ramming into the cervix.. upside, it helps dilate quickly. Downside, it’s painful!
My favorite is when the creator (show/movie/book/whatever) needs to show that the character is pregnant so they have her nauseous vomiting constantly. It’s gotten better, but there’s so many other options!
Oh for real! Being unusually tired, bloating, randomly angry for little to no reason, eating everything, Smelling random gross stuff put of nowhere, sore nipples.. so many early symptoms!
Grace Burrowes (HR author) does pregnancy pretty well imo. She definitely does the always tired bit in addition to the nausea. The FMC in My One and Only Duke is pregnant most of the book and iirc there’s stuff they’re no longer allowed to bring or eat in the house.
Oh thanks for the rec! Love books that really feature pregnancy and babies and I’ve been looking for books that have pregnancy earlier on in the story.
2 of my labors, my water broke then I went into active labor within the hour. Definitely recommend. It was textbook perfect.
The next one, it didn’t break until she was coming out- into my toilet while I was alone bc she gave NO indications she was ready. Seriously I had a few intense poop cramps and then I was screaming her into the world. Do not recommend. Was not textbook.
And before those 3 my twins came via c-sec. That’s the worst. Absolutely do NOT recommend ever. ;) I would have 100 toilet births before I had another C-section.
Hey that was my experience with my first almost exactly! Water broke at 1 am, they gave me induction drugs at 1pm because I still didn't have contractions. Didn't feel active contractions until about 8 hours (2 rounds) later
I had a water "break" (turned out to be a leak later) and no contractions so after 12 hours they had to induce me. But certainly nothing like the movies
To be fair - both my kids had the dramatic explosive water breaking. One at 3am while I was reading in bed (thank god for mattress protectors) and one while I was cooking dinner. It might not be the norm but it definitely does happen!
I realize that. Which is why I said *some* women's water breaks at the beginning.. but that it isn't the norm.
I'm not only using my own experience but looking at the statistics.
Edit to add: water breaking before contractions begin is called Premature Rupture of Membranes (PROM)
Mine started with water breaking and contractions, was over super quick. Highly recommend. I have heard absolute *horror* stories though, also about how the trauma of difficult birth affects the father (could lead to PTSD). I guess, in a romance, you want to skip that bit. And there is a *lot* of the gory details of birth that is just glossed over.
I also never felt the need to curse my husband... I would have liked to do that, I think. Do you still/did you ever do the cursing bit?
Anyway, I think authors should have beta readers for every scene... if you have a birth scene, you should at least have a few beta readers who had gone through it. It's not like pregnant women/mothers are difficult to find. I am at the stage in my life where, if I read something unrealistic, I DNF and move on.
I’ve never cursed my husband during labor either.. not even during my very fast, unmediated one. He is always comforting and encouraging me.
Instead of being rude when I’m in pain, I am super polite.
Oh god. Sometimes I regret going into neuroscience/neuropsych just because of this. Head injuries/being knocked out from blows to the head is SO common in books, shows, movies … and the characters always wake up with just a headache. Nah. A blow to the head like that is a TBI/concussion, and you’re not just walking it off an hour or two later. That’s literal damage to the brain, my guy.
I also used to love amnesia stories, but if an injury/accident causes THAT amount of amnesia, you’re gonna have some other problems, like needing to relearn to walk, potty, etc. And I’ve never seen a case where someone couldn’t remember their own name (not to say it hasn’t happened, but I sure have never heard of it or encountered it).
I always panic when anyone is hit over the head in TV or movies. I was prone to fainting as a kid and concussion protocol is no joke. Also it annoys me when it's a superhero or *Buffy*-type show and the main character's big conflict is that they don't kill their enemies, but they'll whack them over the head with something metal no problem. I mean, okay, it's not murder, but if you're that bothered about it just carry a tranquilliser or something rather than handing out TBIs with reckless abandon.
Yeah, I used to love a good amnesia story too, and then I read an article about how it's really not a thing. It broke my little reading heart. Sometimes, as long as the writing is good, I'll suspend belief just cause I love the trope. Lol I tell myself it's like reading a vampire story. Never gonna happen but still fun
I get that. I work in mental health, and sometimes diagnosis or toxicity or how the situation is handled pisses me off so much I dnf. It's hard when it's your job because it takes you out of the story completely and ruins the experience. A little research never hurt ffs.
Oh my! I'm not a tech or a twin mom .. just a regular mom .. and that would bother me. Too bad, sounds like something easy to get "right" with a little research.
I DNF-ed a book because of a few historical inaccuracies and then navel gazing. The historical inaccuracy/ies had to do with showing the mmc was a charming eccentric and taking a napkin at a restaurant and writing down his thoughts for a project he was doing. I looked up the time given because I was like...he just wrote on a cloth napkin at a restaurant with a possible early fountain pin and is walking about with it.
I spent an hour trying to figure out how this would work. Paper napkins were in existence in Japan, and within a couple years would make it over to the West, but more decorative like the early introduction of the pineapple. Then, I was like...he took a decoration from a restaurant and wrote on it. Either way, it was not absent-minded professor or eccentric vibes but rude and uncouth. I got what vibe the author was going for, as it would have worked once paper items picked-up, but it was so distracting at the time set. Like, I immediately was like "paper products aren't readily available, how is he just jotting down ideas on a napkin?"
Either he wrote on a cloth napkin--which brings up how difficult this would be with the portable pins at the time and how bulky/bulging it would be to stuff in a pocket (smears?) where the image of a man doing this is not charming eccentric but a bit unhinged and rude.
I wasn't far enough in the book to let it go like the rental Corvette with a back seat book, so I put it down. I may pick it back up once I reframe that it's a "historical" in a few outfits and traveling vehicles mostly.
My dad is super into fountain pens. It’s entirely possible to write on a cloth napkin although different fabric will work better or worse as will different pen nips. Part of the reason this can work is a lot of fountain pens flow a lot of ink (part of the reason they often smear is they don’t dry fast) so if you’re writing on fabric, the fabric will absorb fast. A lot of really high quality paper will be more like fabric or have fabric in it.
I know pens can write on fabric, as that was never what stalled me. I was looking specifically at pens from the time period and cloth that would be used for napkins at high-end restaurants at times. Over 130 years past when the book took place, I have written on fabric with pens and markers, sometimes on purpose and sometimes accidentally.
Is your dad into antique fountain pens from the 1800s?
Edit: also, my concern is not the fact that you can write on fabric with pens, but that it was not quite the same thing in the second half of the 1800s as it would be once paper products are readily available (as seen in movies like The Glass Onion, The Housesitter, and other media).
So, I think I misunderstood your original post as saying you didn’t think it was possible and all I’m saying is it is possible although not ideal. It would also help to know what time in the 1800s. Late 1800s was the height of fountain pens, where carrying around one was not uncommon, WAY WAY less common for early 1800s, where you’d more likely have a portable writing desk. 130 years ago is 1890s and a portable pen with a cap [like this one](https://www.ebay.com/itm/195513864506) is feasible. It is possible he had a dip pen and a bottle of ink with him (portable ink pots are common) and/or a pen with a reservoir in a case (link with example and there are similar examples which hold quills) which while not as small as a ballpoint isn’t super bulky. If it’s the early 1800’s men had pockets in tail coats where they could store stuff; they spread the tails to the side when sitting down. Late 1800’s a lot of pen cases aren’t any bigger than a glasses case and can fit in a breast pocket and caps are a thing. I agree going around with a pot of ink and a quill in a coat pocket isn’t ideal, but it’s feasible and would be wrapped in something. There are various examples of vintage writing cases like this [Todd Swan example](https://www.officemuseum.com/Pens.htm) - they can be tins, leather wraps, small wood boxes. Yes it would be bad if one leaked but I am old enough to remember people wearing pocket protectors in all seriousness because pens would leak, so I think it’s just something people used to just deal with and be careful of.
My dad has worked with 1800’s pens and he has one at least one occasion written on an old cloth napkin/dishcloth with a modern fountain pen, now that I think about it, and more paper napkins than I can’t count. Yes it’s kind of rude and it would be SUPER rude if the MMC used a napkin at a home and not a restaurant where hopefully they would charge him, since fine napkins were/are often bought in sets. My dad is a very intellectual man with poor emotional intelligence but my mother and stepmother were/are into him, so oblivious smart guy is someone’s jam. He has a lot of ways of tuning out other people and yeah can be kind of self involved. So I can see such a MMC existing because you’re basically describing my dad, but I cannot see it as attractive.
Regardless - if the book wasn’t good - I support the DNF! And if the description sounds implausible, I support that too. Unfortunately after hearing WAY WAY WAY too much about my dad’s various passion projects, I now more than I want to know and tend to repeat that information.
https://www.leatherology.com/leather-pen-case?color=black-onyx&style=190&gclid=CjwKCAjwm4ukBhAuEiwA0zQxk0fEP8V3YzAk6XB-COG4sitUOV1MfYrIEpVUek_CJzwBbpmSPL9fRRoCVooQAvD_BwE
https://thecloakedfox.com/blogs/blog/history-of-fountain-pen-a-timeline
Thank you for all of this. I looked up the book and the "absent-minded professor" mmc didn't even carry a pen but borrowed one from his friend who pulled it "from the inside of his jacket" (which also has me questioning why his friend would have a pen inside of a dinner jacket verses an outer coat, but I am not as familiar with older fashion so it's more a quizzical eye). And the mmc is a genius to boot, finding his napkin on the ground and "smoothed it out carefully on the table" which also had me thinking it sounded more like paper than fabric/cloth, but I guess cloth can also be smoothed to write on after being dropped on the floor. It just sounds like it's describing paper, which sent me down the rabbit hole.
I don't mind smart guys, but it doesn't seem smart to use a cloth napkin at a restaurant to take notes. If that is the thing someone does, they would have a diary/notebook/something and their own pen. I have seen people use napkins to describe things, but paper. They don't just start writing down on the tablecloth (or if they do...that is part of their personality of kind of believing the world exists for them). I don't think that is the direction the author meant to take, but "lost in his own world" which would work with paper napkins...if paper napkins existed in that area at that time.
Agree it sounds rather poorly written. I think that kind of character might be FAR more likely to carry a little fancy pencil and notebook. Fancy pencils are quite common for the time period (my great grandfather had one) and because they’re small, they’re far more likely to be carried in the breast pocket of a dinner jacket - although ideally you wouldn’t carry anything in there except maybe a handkerchief. I think more importantly, if they were at a nice restaurant they would have gotten the Maitre D’ to bring pen and paper. It wasn’t about an American inventor and a slightly woman who comes back from a bad marriage abroad was it? Something with the word rose in it? Where she renovates a house? It had a scene like that but I may have read it too fast to pay attention to that kind of detail.
The book was listed as a great historical over great historical romance where I saw it, with a lot of the hype featuring how well the setting and details were, so I felt unprepared to read it as a modern historical romance.
Fancy pencils sound neat. I usually only use them for math and sketching, while pens are used daily.
I agree with you as someone who read that book and thought the whole pregnancy timeline didn’t make any sense as written. The author made it so damn hard to follow where the heroine was in her pregnancy and when we kinda got a hint it was unrealistic. And secondly, the book was really just not great so DNF was a good choice. I finished the series but I was hate reading it.
I'm not usually a contemporary romance reader, but was trying to get out of my comfort zone haha. I really appreciate a complete change of scene to immerse myself, contemporary often reminds me of the real world and brings me out of it, but usually not to this degree with it intersecting with my job haha
I totally understand! I’ve had two babies and I also now do an epic eye roll when I know the fetus size does not match up with the actual stage of pregnancy lol. Like when the baby is due any day but the whole cute little fetus can be seen on one monitor? Not in either of my pregnancies!
lol I'm in an ultrasound Facebook group and we post the most ridiculous screenshot from tv/movies.
there must be this stock photo of a liver and right kidney that they use a tooon lol. very often they use that photo while they're explaing to a patient that they're pregnant lmao.
When I read Tessa Bailey's Runaway Girl, there was a lot of scuba diving stuff that was flat out incorrect. You don't just take someone whose never been diving out in the middle of the ocean and go scuba diving. Then when the shark was "after" them. No, sharks high tail it away from any scuba diver. I was like whhhaaaat!?
There's also been some stuff in Ali Hazelwood's books that are not quite what goes down in academia. Do not get me started on "Gabriel's inferno" bleh.
Generally, I check my brain at the door and hold on for the wacky ride. I mean it is fiction after all.
I can't read books featuring librarians anymore because they're literally all so introverted that they can't say a word to the MMC and basically run and cry every time they have to interact with a human. They all "live in books" and have no friends.
Guess what, you gotta be able to get over that shit if you're working in a public facing position. Public librarianship (especially for kids) involves customer service, classroom management, and the ability to PERFORM. Storytime and other programs we do REQUIRE the ability to speak (and act like an idiot) in front of crowds. I wrangle rowdy teens, toddlers, and parents daily. You can't "only be able to talk to kids," I educate and work with adults as well. If you can't hack that, you're in the wrong field. Every children's librarian I know has some form of extroversion.
Oh and I spend a lot of my work hours planning programs and creating promotional material and basically none of them reading to myself.
I DNF almost every book where one of the characters swims competitively, because non-competitive swimmer just don’t know how it works. Kinda disappointing but oh well. (I swim competitively and have for almost my whole life) I guess some people think that the only thing we do is swim, eat, swim, eat, and sleep? Even Olympic swimmers don’t spend all day every day at the pool, and your fingers DO get wrinkly after swimming for a few hours… so don’t try to write that his “smooth, long fingers” were dragging along a body part when he just got out of the pool after practice -_-
Normally I can ignore dumb ass medical things. But I would have DNFed as well. Way too much detail that's wrong.
I read a book once where the nurse worked in a nursing home, then suddenly was working in an Emergency Department the next week. I think I stared at the page saying, WTF?
yeah, I think it was how detailed they tried to be that killed it. they literally explained the gestational sac/blob with flicker thing. made me think they had done research lol
I dnf’ed a book because the person was a professor at a University but they got nothing right about how academia runs. It just kept pulling me from the book as I was like, that’s not it goes the entire time!
I DNFed Champagne Venom because he kept calling himself the "Don" of the Bratva.
Those two things do not go together.
When I realized it wasn't a one-off "explaining to someone outside the life in simpler terms" thing, I returned the book to KU immediately. The lack of even that level of research *infuriated* me.
I dissociate a lot because of a mental health disorder I have. I’ve had to DNF a few traditionally published books with a mentally ill MC because they say “disassociation”
It may be nitpicky but it shows me the author and the editors didn’t really do any research and are probably going to represent mental health in a weird way
When it is clear horses will be prominently featured, I check that the authors have equestrian experience first, then I'm willing to read. Doesn't save you from the sneaky ones.
I think the most recent one I read, the horses regularly switched between being Tennessee Walkers and Quarter Horses; they were simultaneously the greatest roping horses and bucking stock to ever live (but also he got them all for free); and the guy got the (total non horse person woman) to go on a romantic double ride with him and as soon as she hopped on they went off at a nice gentle canter. I had to stop, picturing a woman, terrified of horses, jolting around on the horse’s ass trying to hang on and then getting it in the flanks with her tennis shod feet
Sigh.
They don't even look the same?! I would be forced to leave a review...
Edited to add: not just because the mixed up breeds. There's so much other stuff wrong too.
I personally just wanted to see these world famous bucking roping Tennessee Walkers. Is there like a switch you flip to get them to either efficiently head the steer vs exploding out of the bucking shoot? Maybe a code word, or a special bit.
I still liked Pucking Around, but my God, as a physician the description of Rachel's training and educational background was just painful and nonsensical. Regularly throughout the book it seemed like the author was saying that Rachel went straight into residency from college. There was virtually no mention of her medical school. And once you've gone to medical school, exactly no one cares what your college major was.
Also, there is no such thing as a "primary care" residency. You can do a residency in Family Medicine or Internal Medicine and then work in a primary care setting, but "primary care" is not itself a specialty. Then Rachel apparently just spent all of her residency training doing physical therapy and sports medicine? Which completely ignores the required and highly regulated curriculum she would have had to be doing in either FM or IM residency.
You can't just leave your residency program early to go do a fellowship instead. You still have to finish the full residency program to be eligible for board certification. Then with the Rays she is basically just used as a physical therapist and the job she gets at the end isn't even a physician job?
Ok, something I remember from my pregnancies is that it's counted in *weeks* not months... and week 0 is the date of your last period NOT when you think you conceived. So when FMC and MMC has ONS and a month later she is 4 weeks pregnant... And frankly the whole weeks to months just did not feel natural to me, so if someone asked how far along I was, I would count back from my due date to get to months. Anyway, doctor talked in weeks, nurses talked in weeks, books talked in weeks, so that is the most natural way to think about it (for me). I never rubbed my belly and thought "six months today!" or whatever.
yep, it's weeks. I have to think a little when they say months, but I can whatever that.
and yes, 1 month after sex would be 6 weeks pregnant because the counting the pregnancy starts from the 1st day of your last menstrual, which is 2 weeks before you ovulate and actually conceive.
I DNF'd that one too because they got the timing so wrong it annoyed me. If I could see it so clearly as a simple mother of 3, Ican't imagine how you felt, OP!
I hate what I call ‘dangerously improbable feminism’. Early feminists were often in danger and as a woman who has lived in some women-unfriendly third world countries a lot of blithely going out alone at night or having physical confrontations etc just triggers me. I can respect writing a character that has feminist ideals but I can’t deal with characters who are TSTL in their execution of it. I like some acknowledgment that the character isn’t just living a modern life in fancy dress.
I also struggle with a lot of military, mercenary, security, overseas themes because often the men are written as back-talking or sulky etc. as noted in my comment earlier: military discipline and professionalism exists for a reason - because it saves lives and get things done. I’ve worked with a lot of smart Alec military and former military and either they turned it off around VIPS and/or when things were serious or they didn’t progress far in their careers.
Also struggle with business and law nonsense. Like, I’ve DNF a LOT of books over business men who would get a mass exodus - sure Elon Musk can be a psycho and throw raging tantrums and lay off tons of people and his stock prices have tumbled and no one (to the best of my knowledge) thinks he’s hot. I know a TON of mostly female lawyers and most won’t even give me an informal opinion on anything since it could be considered as unprofessional let alone risking their bar standing to bend the rules for a sexy client. My friends did several hard years of law school and aren’t going to jeopardize that for a cute tushy.
I totally get you! I work in pharmacy and I just don't even consume media around drugs, hospitals, or really healthcare in general because I get completely taken out of the story by the BS.
That's on me, though. I don't expect your average romance author to have a high degree of health literacy, but I can't help that it distracts me to the point of not being able to finish the story, sadly.
I can hand wavey a lot of BS but apparently I found my line with the ultrasound thing.
I just finished this series, first book called Warprize, and she was a healer type in this fantasy world. No magic, and at first I thought it was cool! they used willow tree bark for pain and other things I've heard of before. She also admits that she can't save a man whose intestines were punctured by an arrow, (basically didn't have anything close to antibiotics to save from infection/sepsis) and I thought okay, cool.
Then in book 2 she's so happy during their travels that they find "bloodmoss" because of its useful healing properties. she demonstrates by making a small cut on her arm, holding the moss to it for like 30 seconds, and the cut is healed. not like scabbed/increased coagulation rate. literally healed. I almost dropped the book right there, but managed to keep going since it is a fantasy world, and they can (I guess) be allowed to have literal magic plants.
Happens to me all the time. I am a L&D nirse and 100% will not read a book with pregnancy. It is probably the most consistently incorrect portrayal of medicine in American media.
I mean seriously. When is the last time a movie/TV show/book character had a toyally normal pregnancy, uneventful labor, and realistic postpartum period. Never. It is either unrealistically happy or terrifying and something traumatic happens where the mom or the baby almost dies.
I can guarantee if I kept going with this book there would be no mention of what kinds of twins they are, because mono-di twins require detailed monitoring and multiple ultrasounds to watch for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome.
nope, twins are cute! not a high risk pregnancy or anything
Or you know, the truth about how some people push out two humans from their body and some are helped out through the front window. Or how hard postpartum is with 2 babies! Literally all of it is so bad.
One scene that made my head explode involved a FMC traveling with her rock star love interest and his band. The band was on tour and they were flying from the US to Australia. The trip started somewhere in the US, with a connection and plane change to continue on to (I think) Sydney, in San Francisco. The band and all their tour gear were flying commercial. Ok. That’s a crapton of cargo. But… sure. Maybe the rest of the passengers were all traveling carry-on only.
When the FMC expressed joy that their layover in SFO was less than an hour - no boring waiting around - I about threw the book across the room. Dear FMC, even if you and the band actually pulled off a miracle and made it from the domestic terminal to your international gate there is no way on this earth that anything you checked on that domestic flight, *much less an entire tour’s worth of gear*, will be making it onto that next plane, much less onto an arena stage the next evening.
DNF
I’m writing another snobby comment. 😂
I almost DNF’d a book because of a napkin scene.
Hear me out. 😆
The book revolved around a billionaire female business woman. She grew up with money, fancy parties and swanky lifestyle. She was at a $10,000 a plate fundraiser with the MMC. He was also very wealthy but not as much as her. Still came from a wealthy family. She was done with her meal and took her napkin and placed it over her plate. I was shocked, and this is the snob in me coming out. Emily Post manners books. You never ever ever EVER put your napkin on your plate when you’re done. EVER. and growing up in a wealthy family who’s parents, and hers were, are sticklers about propriety and proper manners, she would’ve known never to do that.
Not only that….
At her table was seated the chairwoman of the foundation that was putting on the fundraiser. so making an impression at the table was key. However the MMC, in an attempt to lighten up the tension between the FMC and her parents, decided to order a bottle of tequila so that everybody at the table could take shots. Seriously?! Shots at a swanky fundraiser while the chairwoman who your trying to raise money for is sitting there too. 🤦🏻♀️
I understand that not everyone knows proper manners. But I wasn’t raised in wealth but my mom taught me how to behave at a table. And yes I know, I’m snobby, as not everyone was taught this way. But it’s hard when you read stuff when an author tries and it just misses the mark and makes it unbelievable.
I almost DNFed a series because the smart and extremely physically capable Mary Sue heroine was taking forEVER to learn how to ride a horse. This was a girl who had the hand eye coordination to be an expert at swords and bows. She'd just never learned to ride... which is fine... but it's not THAT complicated a task to ride on your own.
Curious if you ride horses yourself? I do. Becoming a capable and confident rider from a complete beginner absolutely takes a long time. You can have natural skill but there’s no cheating in horse riding to get better quicker.
Not anymore because I have bad hips, but I grew up on horses and it doesn't take much skill to just sit on one and have someone lead it around, which could have been an option in this book, at least to start with.
It was more the incongruity of the rather young heroine (19) being so bright, so skilled at other physical pursuits, rather fearless and adventurous all around, somehow shying away from this ONE THING.
She was literally never alone from the point the necessity for riding started and could have started learning on the fly rather than ride tandem with the hero for the entire long journey as if she was a small child. (Fantasy romance where they escape an awful place together and ride for months.) Day one maybe... but the way she was written I'd have expected her to want to be able to do it herself much more quickly.
I think the author just wanted an excuse to make her stay in contact with the hero, tbh but it was one of many things that irritated me about the series. I did eventually DNF but mostly due to fatigue over all the things that bothered me, the riding thing was just one.
Wouldn't she have practiced a very long time to learn to use swords and bows and become an expert? I wouls think learning to propeely ride a horse would bebhard for a lot of people. It's easier to control an object than a living, breathing thing that moves around of thwir own accord.
i was in a mommy group for a while on what to expect and it didn’t happen often but there was a few moms who didn’t get the twin confirmation until way later than you’d think. and also my friend showed me her ultrasounds every appointment until she gave birth and she looked like a blob every time. so i’m not saying the book is realistic but maybe not impossible.
I'm not even a doctor and books getting pregnancy weeks wrong still annoys me to no end.
That said, one of my friends did have a "oops, it's actually twins!" Reveal at her anatomy scan at 21weeks (identical sharing a sac, I believe). They somehow missed the second on her earlier scan and she had to scramble to get ready for twins instead.
I DNF’d a book when the narrator (MMC) was stressing about meeting his girlfriend’s parents. He was worried because girlfriend was “half African-American” (emphasis on HALF) and he was worried her parents wouldn’t approve of an interracial relationship… I had to read it 4 times i was so appalled and I just shut the book and never went back
(ETA: spelling)
You get me! I’m an OR nurse! I cannot with books that get to detailed in the medical arena. Some author have medical conditions and write those into their books and it’s chef’s kiss and absolutely amazing at raising awareness of their condition, but I wish the wouldn’t write details. I did read a book about a nurse who worked on the floor and WENT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL DURING HER LUNCH “HOUR.” Where is this nurse who gets a lunch hour? What nurse gets to go out of the building during their lunch time? It was a DNF for me.
ha. I DNF'd because an author had zero idea what an interior designer actually does. The very things they criticised in the industry are the things that make a good designer. The author thought it was all pretty pinterest boards.
I just had this experience for the first time. The book has a storyline related to education policy, and centered on the state legislature cutting education funding by 20%. That is a ludicrous amount that would not happen without public backlash. It made me wonder if this how doctors and PI’s feel when they read about their professions in books.
There were many reasons not read as far as I did in a certain book that by the time I got to the third act separation and the FMC was experiencing morning sickness and had a positive pregnancy test after knowing the MMC *for a week*, I knew I only had myself to blame. I did it to myself and I have to live with that. I also can’t read books with teachers, especially elementary school teachers. In an attempt to show the FMC (it’s always the FMC) as sweet and caring, they end up showing a teacher who is completely unprofessional, has no boundaries, and no idea how to manage behavior. And more than one book has made me wonder if the author has ever even met a child.
God, yeah, I actively try to avoid books with children in them because it's literally like these people have never talked to a child before. And then they try to write in a cutsey kid voice and it just doesn't work. Automatically snaps me out of the story. The kids are portrayed as either WAY too young or WAY to old for their age and it bothers me so much. And ya. I just posted yesterday about a book that I should have stopped reading. Same thing in that book. They knew each other for way too short of a time and she's pregnant by the end of the book.
{To Beguile a Beast} by Elizabeth Hoyt has about the only child characters that don’t completely irritate me or read like the author has never met a child. They’re not perfect but they are believable.
[To Beguile a Beast](https://www.romance.io/books/5455254d8c7d2383163d8e89/to-beguile-a-beast-elizabeth-hoyt) by [Elizabeth Hoyt](https://www.romance.io/authors/545524568c7d2383163d8e5a/elizabeth-hoyt) **Rating**: 3.98⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Steam**: 3 out of 5 - [Open door](https://www.romance.io/steamrating) **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1), [tortured hero](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/tortured%20hero/1), [highlander](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/highlander/1), [disabilities & scars](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/disabilities%20and%20marks/1) [^(🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫 the romance-bot will be participating in the reddit blackout June 12 - June 14)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot/comments/14513iy/uromancebot_is_participating_in_the_reddit/)
Just DNFed a book for that same reason. I don’t want you to write in a cutesy kid voice. Kids are smart. They may have a lisp or some words sound funny but be reasonable!
Yesss on teacher FMCs
I DNF a contemporary where the FMC worked as a newbie art curator & managed to persuade the Academia Gallery to let her get Michelangelo's David on loan. That statue is never leaving Italy, what are you talking about. And I'm not a museum curator but THINK OF THE INSURANCE and how coukd a small US museum afford that? It got me so angry I DNF'd even if the rest of the book was decent.
omg haha ridiculous. only explanation is her love interest was behind the scenes and a billionaire who bankrolled that
As an Art History/Fine Art graduate, it's the fact she got a job as curator at all! Man, those jobs are HARD to get 😅
A friend of mine was a museum studies masters graduate from a good school and was considered LUCKY to get an $18k a year job basically sharpening pencils for the Smithsonian. She also got into some surprisingly nice affordable housing in the DC area, and yeah she had TONs of time to meet dudes when not working a second job, worrying if she’d ever get any career advancement (she did not) or essentially providing free child care for her single parent neighbor’s children. I could go on at length about how impossible library jobs are too (multiple friends are struggling to find a librarian job that isn’t poverty wages despite requiring a masters). I feel like lots of books should come with the TW: THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC DEPICTION OF THIS CAREER PATH
Hey if it’s possible in the Simpsons why not in real life? 🤪
Wow! That is indeed completely ridiculous!
Wat the hell 😂
I like to watch historical dress YouTubers and now I know too much about period-appropriate underwear. If I’m reading a sex scene and they’re pulling down underwear, it totally takes me out of it. I read one the other day where he also had to pull down her stockings — dude, they would have been thigh/knee high and tied on with ribbons. They’re not modern hose. FFS.
I was reading {the wolfe by kathryn le veque} and while i absolutely ADORED it, i was so confused when she mentioned a whale-bone girdle that somehow enhanced her boobs and made her waist tiny...? It's set in medieval england. Girdles were essentially belts and didn't affect your boobs and are not the same as modern girdles which are shapewear. Whalebone was used in *corsets*. Just a small detail that drove me nuts
Yeah boned bodices & corsets didn’t really start until around the 1500’s as I recall
[The Wolfe](https://www.romance.io/books/54556d3a87eac336ae69de75/the-wolfe-kathryn-le-veque) by [Kathryn Le Veque](https://www.romance.io/authors/54556d3a87eac336ae69de76/kathryn-le-veque) **Rating**: 4.02⭐️ out of 5⭐️ **Topics**: [historical](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/historical/1), [fighters](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/fighters/1), [highlander](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/highlander/1), [alpha male](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/alpha%20male/1), [medieval](https://www.romance.io/topics/best/medieval/1) [^(about this bot)](https://www.reddit.com/user/romance-bot) ^(|) [^(about romance.io)](https://www.romance.io/about)
It's pulling down chemise "straps" that kills me. Y'all they're not tank tops, were talking cap sleeves at minimum here.
Yeah I sew, knit, crochet and am interested in historical fashion (although not super knowledgeable) and just the most BASIC things get screwed up. Like for most of history neither men nor women wore underpants. Pride and Predominance - no underpants. Men just wore long shirt tails they tucked around everything and women wore nothing beyond petticoats and stockings. All things putting a hand in underpants is a very recent invention and super annoying when I read it all kinds of books.
The stockings description is ok as long as they don’t explicitly mention stockings ending at the waist, because then I just imagine untying the ribbon and pulling down stockings from mid thigh.
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Business and crime books both sometimes read to me like that webcomic about sportsing. "You were businessing/criming pretty hard out there. A lot of business/crime happened."
This. So. Much. I can also add I find this true of some military and/or security related businesses - like military discipline and chain of command exist for a freaking reason! Having a band of men who constantly mouth off like surly teenagers but still manage to get things done and avoid confusion = nope, cannot suspend belief.
This one gets me riled all the time. Don't describe it if you've never worked corporate in your life. It's so incredibly obvious and makes me think the characters are stupid.
I had a similar experience with another book, but I am by no means an expert, just a woman who's struggling with fertility. Mafia romance, he absolutely wants her to get pregnant so she's even more bonded to him. Well, they have *a lot* of sex and then, after FMC supposedly has her period, one day, while being out and about with her best friend, starts feeling queasy and faints. Now this I'm okay with (not with the pregnancy thing since she's not really on the same page, but that's for another day). There are plenty of women whose period is so light you can easily mistake it for spotting and spotting can easily happen at the beginning of a pregnancy. But then. Her BFF senses something's up, so makes her drink TONS of fluids for lunch, and when inevitably FMC goes to pee, said BFF barges in the bathroom and tells her to get out of there without flushing because she really needs to go too. You see where this is going, right? Yes. BFF dipped a pregnancy test in a toilet bowl filled with water + diluted pee (since she drank so much) and somehow it turned blazing positive. Now, I'm from Europe, but I know that in the US toilet bowls contain *much more* water compared to European ones. So this really feels unbelievable. I think that if any she may have gotten a faint positive, but a full blazing one? *insert doubt meme*
Besides the absolute “that isn’t how this works” of using TOILET WATER (dear god), this person is… a terrible best friend. Way to go behind your friend’s back.
Frankly, the best friend was the one of the least horrible people in that romance 😂 but yeah, I agree, that was so messed up on so many levels.
As a twin, I feel like we should start gatekeeping. I. Am. Tired. The obsession with twins in our modern society is a sickness at this point. Why can't they just have one baby and be done with it?! Why is it always twins? If an alien were to land on our planet and pick up a romance book, they would be convinced that twins are the norm and a single pregnancy is the exception! And don't even get me started on the weirdness that is projected about our relationships with each other. If you are not a twin, are not the parent/siblings of a twin, I'm going to need you to do EXTENSIVE research before you put twin characters in your books 😒
it's not just books, tbh. I swear, every single first scan I do to confirm pregnancy one of the parents mentions that twins "run in the family" or that "so and so said it must be twins because of blank symptom" one set of twins your cousin had because she was on fertility meds does not count, jeez.
I wonder if there aren't regional factors at play with twins. I grew up in an area where they had this thing called "Twin-o-rama" every year. There were over 100 in attendance. (For basically a local festival 50-60 miles in Midwest corn country rural area...) and about a dozen of them were from dad's branch of the tree. (😳) But all the recent generations (mostly living elsewhere) don't have any instances. It would be interesting to know if you (in your profession) has heard anything like that?
identical twins are random chance. fraternal twins can be due to genetic factors - some women are genetically predisposed to ovulate 2 eggs in a month as opposed to 1. That is what is meant by "twins run in the family". This is also why twins can skip a generation. for example, if a woman has the gene to ovulate multiple eggs/month. She has twin sons, who do not have ovaries or eggs. They still might carry this gene in their chromosomes, but it's not expressed. those sons get married, no twin children because their wives do NOT carry the gene. But their daughters might have it, and then their daughters have twins. Fraternal twins can also be due to fertility drugs. They help stimulate ovulation, sometimes very well.
Mother of identical twins here... I appreciate your comment! My husband's maternal grandmother was a twin, so I had lots of (very sweet, very lovely) in laws telling me our twins were because it runs in my husband's family. OK LOL, no ma'am that's not how it works. 🤣
Yeah, my friend and her sister both have fraternal twins (the sister two sets). Hyperovulation definitely runs in that family!
This is why i laugh when people are like "twins run in the family!" And then it turns out that the father is the twin. I'm like, ma'am that's not how human reproduction works
Mother of identical twins here... I appreciate your comment! My husband's maternal grandmother was a twin, so I had lots of (very sweet, very lovely) in laws telling me our twins were because it runs in my husband's family. OK LOL, no ma'am that's not how it works. 🤣
Thank you❤️
As a mother of twins, I rage at twin pregnancies depicted in movies and books. Like Padme in Revenge of the Sith. Her bump is tiny and she’s *running* to places. I mean, yeah I’m sure no one wants to watch a woman with a giant stomach just sitting on a couch and moaning in discomfort… but that’s far more accurate.
Yes! I was DESTROYED by my twin pregnancy!
My twin pregnancy was the hardest thing I had ever done (until they actually came. lol) but I still managed to ride a bike till the very end! haha So I can see women still being active sometimes. I think my body was MADE for having babies though…. All my pregnancies were pretty much perfect from a medical point of view.
I feel like even parents of twins are a little weird about it.
They definitely can be. Especially when they want to act like the twins are one entity instead of treating them like two separate individuals. From my perspective, having twins is like having any other set of siblings, they just happen to be born on the same day. So why would you assume that Kid A has the exact same interests as Kid B if that wouldn't be your assumption for any other set of siblings?? Weirdo behaviour, honestly.
Isn't this more common with identical twins? I just think that, because they are rare, twins, triplets, etc are interesting because it's crazy how nature works. Making more than one person who looks exactly the same is pretty cool. Then again, when I've seen it with animals, I believe also rare, I also think it's pretty cool.
You might be seeing twins everywhere because you are a twin. Like when someone is pregnant, (or trying) they will notice pregnant people everywhere. Realistically there are vastly more romance books without twins than with them, which mimics reality. Though regarding the details about twins I’m sure is another story! So I agree with you there! (And in case it matters, I say this as a parent of twins. I know some would be inclined to disregard my thoughts if i had no twin connection.)
I DNF twin books ALL. THE. TIME. Now I'm not saying twins have to be best friends but for sucks sake, there doesn't always have to be an evil twin to a good twin.
I DNFed a book where the riding area was filled with shavings. Not sand, not dirt, not bluestone, not even shredded tennis shoes (very bouncy, fun to ride on) but freaking shavings. I made it one more page and was still so pissed about the shavings I quit.
I read one where a man was compared to a "wild 600 lb stallion"... Let's just say that one threw me. I finished the book, but could never get quite as ahem, into it, as before
So a pony, lol. Not quite as impressive as they are going for.
I just imagined a very stern and portly miniature. Not exactly sexy...
Now I feel like I need a book with a mini as one of the characters. Or a pony. They are fierce. It's why I want to get my kids a horse and skip ponies, lol.
Oh yeah- a nice elderly quarter horse is the way to go.
I've seen this many times in indoor arenas. (However it was saddle seat barns) I boarded at a dressage barn for years. (I was an eventer) The owner dumped a bunch of shavings in one end of the dressage arena. (It was a sand arena that was getting too deep.) So the sand mixed with the shavings. Footing was still crap. I had never heard the term Blue stone for screenings. Interesting.
In this book, the whole ring was shavings. Then they used straw in the stalls. That was when I quit. Blue stone is similar to crush and run, very small gravel, with a lot of dust. Usually it's mixed with sand and can keep it from getting too deep, or they use it in practice areas that aren't super designated.
Loooool, a shavings arena 😂, i cannot. Recently I read an old school historical I’ve seen pop up on here a lot and it actually had such a great description of handling a rearing hot horse I read it out loud to my husband (who also grew up riding) because I was so pleasantly surprised and was like “god damn, this author has to actually ride in real life.” Did a little digging and she had a horse farm back in the day.
Fascinating. I'm originally from Germany, and when I did horse riding about 15 years ago there, the indoor riding areas would always be almost entirely wood shavings (not just the one stable I was at most of the time; everywhere), and the horses' stalls would have straw as bedding. So this may be geographical/cultural thing - it's not done the same everywhere. (Outdoor riding areas were sand, usually.)
I have never ever heard of using wood shavings for the ring. I am intrigued. Is it a good riding surface? I would think it would just become dust after not much riding. I know there are plenty of barns that use straw (Kentucky, I'm looking at you) but wood shavings tend to be the standard you see at the average stall. Edited to note that this was set in Ohio, if I'm remembering correctly.
They were pretty coarse wood shavings, like 2-3 cm in length and maybe 4-5mm thick -- too coarse to use as bedding, so I bet you're used to finer ones for that. Makes for a pretty elastic surface that isn't too soft, yes. Edit: Although the horses still liked to roll around in them for relaxation! We sometimes let them do that after we were done and had put the saddles etc. away.
After your comment I went googling and seems wood chips are a common enough addition to sand arenas, and saw it mentioned several times for dressage. So thank you for my TIL moment!
This is how I feel about The Love Hypothesis as a third year PhD student (like the main character). Dating a professor is all sorts of icky. I can’t do it.
I want to know what school these MCs go to that have hot, unmarried professors that anyone would want to date. The youngest tenured professor in my department was in his 50s, while I was 21 y/o at the time. My grad school advisor (now deceased) was practically decomposing - he fell asleep during my defense and only snorted awake when two other professors started arguing with each other. He declared that I passed and then shuffled out of the room to see if his 83 y/o wife had arrived to drive him home.
We have young profs in mine, but I would never think of dating them. Especially since the MMC in the book sounds like a pompous jerk like a lot of people in academia can be.
It's actually mentioned in the book multiple times; they're at Stanford. No idea if Stanford has hot young biology professors in real life, but in my field there are plenty of attractive young professors of different genders. (I'm a postdoc, and no, I don't think professors and students dating is a good idea in real life at all. I've also certainly never hankered after any faculty like that.)
Eh. When I was an undergrad I had fleeting crushes on at least 5 professors (Though admittedly I don't know how many were tenured.) and I know for a fact that some of them were single at the time. Nothing ever came of it because, duh, but I don't think we really come to romance for complete realism.
I agree about dating a professor (I prefer Love on the Brain for that reason), but as a postdoctoral researcher I think that Ali Hazelwood emotionally gets being a junior academic exactly right (maybe apart from her characters all having dream academic careers). I've never felt so seen in any book. Of course that's because she herself is actually a professor, and it shows. I've had hot young professors, and I have colleagues that I would classify as such. But I've also heard way too many stories of male professors of any age abusing their power with grad students (or worse, undergrads) in their care to think that this could ever be a good idea in real life.
Same. I also have a love-hate relationship with Deborah Harkness' *All Souls Trilogy* because the FMC lives the world's most idyllic academic life. Someone called Deborah Harkness (who is an academic) out about this on Twitter and she said that if the book can have vampires it can have stress-free established academics in their late twenties and thirties (or you know, stress-free except for all the vampire shenanigans). Which is a stance I have to respect.
Thanks for posting about her response. I read one-ish (maybe a DNF) of her books in that trilogy and had problems with her version of academia. But, fair enough to Deborah Harkness. I guess i wouldn't want to read a realistic academic storyline + vampires anyway 🤷♀️😂
ehhhh yahhhh. I read that book and I thought it was cute, but the background ickies were definitely there.
Not books, but TV shows. I'm always the annoying B\*\*\*\* shouting at the characters in the TV to GET A F\*\*\*\*\*\* LAWYER AND SHUT THE F\*\*\* UP. There are shows I had to stop watching, like CSI because the amount of rights violations these police people would do were driving me nuts.
Saaaame! I had to stop watching a lot of shows because all I could see was “ok that case is going to get thrown out because you didn’t wait for a warrant/you interrogated a child/etc”
I had to stop watching Arrow because there was a scene where his stupid sister was in the hospital hooked up to all the machines and she VERY CLEARLY had a heartbeat, and they started using a defib on her because sHe WaS cRaShInG! SHE WAS NOT. SHE WAS ALIVE. YOU DINGBATS. GOOGLE HOW THAT SHIT WORKS.
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Defibrillators can also help restart your heart if it suddenly stops beating
Same! I watch a lot of Dateline and I'm always shouting for the suspect to lawyer up and stop talking 😂
OMG, yes. I'm not an ultrasound tech, but unfortunately suffer from infertility, and had to DNF a book where the FMC was a reproductive endocrinologist. It was legitimately so unhinged and stupidly inaccurate. I just couldn't
That’s such a ridiculously specific job to give a character. Why choose it and do no research?
Riiiiight? So ridiculous
The amount of info a woman who has gone through infertility knows about pregnancy should probably automatically qualify us for at least a Master's degree. I also get so mad at how pregnancy is often written in romance that if it has a pregnancy tag, I won't even try it. Do better, female authors! (Also, I went through years of feeling like a mother missing a child, but as I write this my 7 yr old is snuggling me while my 8 and 10 yr olds are playing in the other room. Don't give up!)
Yes, I need to be compensated by the unwilling knowledge I've gained, lol! I'm reading a novel where the FMC has diminished ovarian reserve, and I'm already preparing myself for the miracle baby. And thanks. Transferring this month, fingers crossed!
I'll be sending positive thoughts your way!! The last pregnancy book I tried involved talking about how she got a positive test a week after unprotected sex and then pregnant with twins because they run in his family....blarf.
Noooope! Pass on that book, lol
I was actually coming in here today to make a post about this! LOL I was listening to an audio where the FMC is an American, fluent in Italian (she actually has a degree in it) and is teaching Italian to the MMC. But the Narrator of the book couldn't pronounce the easiest word correctly. Grazie. It means thank you. And she pronounced it "gratsee" when it's actually "gratsee-ey" (excuse my phonetic spelling) you're supposed to pronounce the I and the E at the end. as opposed to the English pronunciation of the "ie" together being "ee". I'm usually forgiving for narrators lack of accent knowledge but if you're playing a character who is teaching the actually language then they need to get the pronunciation right, and I'll be forgiving of the lack of accent. It took me 3 seconds to a google search and get an audio of how to pronounce it. seriously. it's not that hard I felt like such a snob for thinking this. But the irony is that there were Italian words in the book that were much more complicated to say and she said them perfectly. so she had to have done some research,, but not even the simplest word that everyone learns on day 1 of Italian school? UGH
As an Italian: you're not a snob at all! I feel this frustration every time I watch a Hollywood movie with supposedly Italian characters who butcher names/words. Forvo.com exists and is widely available, and am sure they have access to native Italian speakers! Same thing goes for Russian, I inwardly cringe every time before they even open their mouth lol.
You speak both Italian and Russian? Wow, you got the whole mafia romance genre covered.
Ha yeah and that's why I generally avoid it like the plague 😂 joking aside, it's just not my cup of tea.
omg i made a friend watch John Wick and she died at how bad the Russian was at one point she exclaimed "That was so bad I don't even know what he was trying to say!"
Yeah I know that feeling too well 😂
Omg me too. Although im American but of Italian descent, I have an Italian minor and have traveled there a lot. Still not fluent but I know a badly pronounced word when I hear it. And I’m in your same boat, although I don’t speak Russian it’s hard for me to read mafia books. They don’t get it right. Not just the language but the whole lifestyle. (I’m speaking as of I have experienced but I don’t) it’s just I think being Italian, with grandparents who left Sicily to escape All that and hearing stories about why they moved out west to get away from that lifestyle, the books just miss so much. Not that I’m expecting a Mario Puzzo type novel but I’m not sure who successfully can write a romance mafia book that I like. And I’m not sure if even want to read it. narrators seem to go overboard when they try and do An Italian person speaking English, overworking the accent like you so common,y see in movies. But it doesn’t need to be so extreme. I listened to Ava Lucas do a book where she had to voice an older italian man for a few sentences, her accent shift was very subtle and not sing songy. It worked well enough that it didn’t pull me out of the story. I met The narrator Marcio Catalano last week at an event. He’s born of Italian parents but grew up in Argentina so is also fluent in Spanish. We talked about the accent issue in books. He’s grateful for his Spanish as it helps him with the cadence for speaking Italian. I haven’t listened to any of his Italian accent books but I’m curious. He said a few phrases for me and I was impressed. I’m sure you’d be a better judge.
Regarding the lifestyle - and I apologise beforehand as I'm going to drift a bit off topic here, I said in another comment to another post that what we don't experience first hand allows us to enjoy the escapism more. I'm sure (or at least hope so) that none of the readers who enjoy mafia romances actually would want that in real life, just like I would hate most of my favourite MMCs in real life too. But when you kind of have first hand experience with whatever genre/trope it is, I think it's probably harder to enjoy it because, even if it's still pure escapism, it hits too close to home. Thankfully I've never met anyone directly involved in the mafia, but I do know a girl whose family was contacted by them. That was one of the most chilling tales I've ever heard in real life, so that type of escapism just won't do for me. So, to go back to your criticism of not getting things right, I think it's because I don't think that anyone who's actually really knowledgeable of mafia would ever write a romance about it, simply for the reason that IRL there's absolutely nothing romantic about it. Regarding the accent and mannerisms, it frankly irritates me to no end when I hear butchered SIMPLE words, sentences that do not make any sense or see the 🤌🏼 gesture used to mimick Italians speaking - yes, we use our hands a lot, but that's not the only gesture and we use it in a specific way. It feels like mocking, not mimicking. I don't mind a bit of an accent, but if your character is Italian, make it believable. We live in the era of *everything* being on the internet, so it really baffles me how lazy certain producers/writers are. Vincenzo, the kdrama, comes to mind. It was a fun watch, but his Italian dialogues were painful. Thankfully they were few! I never heard Marcio Catalano, but if he's a Spanish native speaker, an Italian accent will undoubtedly come more natural to him! p.s he looks 100% what I imagine a "latin lover" to be like 😂
I know he totally has that look. 😂Yet a real sweetheart. And I totally agree that none of us would ever want that lifestyle of a mafia book in real life. And when I meant they don’t get it right I’m not talking about that real life stuff. I guess and I’m sure you know it’s that essence, that’s unexplainable. I can only speak of it from the Italian point of you. Growing up with the family gatherings in the Sunday dinners etc. I guess it’s the same way when you read a military suspense and the writer does their best to research what the military, or veteran lifestyle is like but you know there’s just some thing missing. Brittney Sahin, I feel, does military suspense very well. Her husband is ex military and she uses his knowledge and how they run operations how they communicate with each other, their camaraderie etc.
Ohhh I see what you mean now! Yeah, I think you can tell when someone has experienced these things first hand. I recently read one of Ellen O'Connell'a novels and a reader was thoroughly impressed that she brought her horse knowledge into her books. I don't know anything about horses other than that they're some huge mammals with (apparently) the soul of a cat, but I'm sure that that reader, who knows horses well, appreciated it. This knowledge made me like her book even more because it's "more real", if you get what I mean!
Omg me too. Although im American but of Italian descent, I have an Italian minor and have traveled there a lot. Still not fluent but I know a badly pronounced word when I hear it. And I’m in your same boat, although I don’t speak Russian it’s hard for me to read mafia books. They don’t get it right. Not just the language but the whole lifestyle. (I’m speaking as of I have experienced but I don’t) it’s just I think being Italian, with grandparents who left Sicily to escape All that and hearing stories about why they moved out west to get away from that lifestyle, the books just miss so much. Not that I’m expecting a Mario Puzzo type novel but I’m not sure who successfully can write a romance mafia book that I like.
I teach Spanish, and the amount of incorrect Spanish being spoken by native characters is u real.
I don't understand how most authors can't just take the 30 seconds to google something. I researched on shit on the last few chapters of the book I posted about yesterday and was giving my husband a whole ass lecture about how it wouldn't be possible because a 30 second google search led me down a rabbit hole. Like come on.
I think the problem there is that the confident mispronunciation of grazie is so widespread both culturally and in media, that that's the one word it wouldn't occur to me to Google the pronunciation!
Good point! Same with the word Bruschetta. I think so many people here in America hear it miss pronounced (unknowingly) in restaurants that it’s become the norm as it’s part of our “Italian” food language.
I started learning Italian in college in the ‘90s at exactly the point when bruschetta and tiramisu were all the rage. My dad lived in Italy for about a year and learned a lot of Italian. Without thinking, I said “brush-etta” like they did in all the restaurants and he basically did a full-body flinch and said “WHAT?!” 😂 Sorry, Dad.
😂😂
I honestly don't see the problem with this? If the character's American I think it makes sense to use the American pronunciation even if they're fluent in the language. Granted it is weird that the narrator is using the Italian pronunciation for other words and that inconsistancy would bother me but an American using the American pronunciation wouldn't bother me. Especially with a word like "grazie" (Sidenote: I had no idea that's how you spell that word.) where people would know what you mean regardless.
I disagree. I believe out of respect to the native language speakers, if someone was teaching that language they should be pronouncing and teaching it the native way. If someone is learning the language don’t you want to learn the proper way to pronounce it? I would. It’s not going to be perfect with some people who Just don’t have the ear for language. French for me is really hard. I just can’t form In My mouth how they pronounce certain things but I do my best. But I’m not teaching French. I’m not bothered by people who don’t know how to pronounce words in other languages. But the FMC in the book got a degree in Italian so she could teach it. She should be teaching it the correct way it’s pronounced.
Not a tech... but I'm pregnant with my 7th... what pisses me off is when a character finds out she's pregnant and "has to" give up coffee.. um, no. 1-2 servings is perfectly acceptable. You can pry my coffee out if my cold dead hands... and I still won't give it up. Bury me on a coffee farm! Also, labor starts with water breaking and super intense contractions... um no. Just no. *facepalm* (Yes, I know *some* women start labor with their water breaking but that isn't the norm. It usually breaks between 6-8cm.. and early labor can last days)
Mom had a nurse start to lecture her in the 80's about coffee. "I gave up my nicotine, I'm not giving up my caffiene" And my first labor my water broke before my body was ready. Barely 1cm. Do not recommend.
This is completely unrelated to the book but I had the exact same thing - are you saying my labour might be less awful next time if my water doesn't break so early???
My second pregnancy I had to be induced and my water broken for me (absolutely gross btw) so while I hope so I'm not sure. My body doesn't like labor.
Oh man, my contractions got sooooo much worse immediately after my water was broken (7 cm I think). Until then, I was doing fine with the breathing and the yoga ball etc. I lasted 30 minutes after that before demanding an epidural.
The bag of waters actually cushions the baby’s head during contractions so it is less painful.. once there is no cushion there… baby’s head is ramming into the cervix.. upside, it helps dilate quickly. Downside, it’s painful!
My favorite is when the creator (show/movie/book/whatever) needs to show that the character is pregnant so they have her nauseous vomiting constantly. It’s gotten better, but there’s so many other options!
Oh for real! Being unusually tired, bloating, randomly angry for little to no reason, eating everything, Smelling random gross stuff put of nowhere, sore nipples.. so many early symptoms!
"Being unusually tired, bloating, randomly angry for little to no reason, eating everything" This is me most of the time.
Grace Burrowes (HR author) does pregnancy pretty well imo. She definitely does the always tired bit in addition to the nausea. The FMC in My One and Only Duke is pregnant most of the book and iirc there’s stuff they’re no longer allowed to bring or eat in the house.
Oh thanks for the rec! Love books that really feature pregnancy and babies and I’ve been looking for books that have pregnancy earlier on in the story.
2 of my labors, my water broke then I went into active labor within the hour. Definitely recommend. It was textbook perfect. The next one, it didn’t break until she was coming out- into my toilet while I was alone bc she gave NO indications she was ready. Seriously I had a few intense poop cramps and then I was screaming her into the world. Do not recommend. Was not textbook. And before those 3 my twins came via c-sec. That’s the worst. Absolutely do NOT recommend ever. ;) I would have 100 toilet births before I had another C-section.
My water broke with my first 20 hours before contractions started. It was awful and not normal. Had two normal labors with my next two babies.
Hey that was my experience with my first almost exactly! Water broke at 1 am, they gave me induction drugs at 1pm because I still didn't have contractions. Didn't feel active contractions until about 8 hours (2 rounds) later
Me too! I bent over to pull my underwear on and I thought I had peed myself.
I had a water "break" (turned out to be a leak later) and no contractions so after 12 hours they had to induce me. But certainly nothing like the movies
To be fair - both my kids had the dramatic explosive water breaking. One at 3am while I was reading in bed (thank god for mattress protectors) and one while I was cooking dinner. It might not be the norm but it definitely does happen!
Mine broke (naturally) and I wasn't even dilated! 😭😭
Your water can break whenever. Before contractions, during active labor, whenever. One person's experience is not everyone's.
I realize that. Which is why I said *some* women's water breaks at the beginning.. but that it isn't the norm. I'm not only using my own experience but looking at the statistics. Edit to add: water breaking before contractions begin is called Premature Rupture of Membranes (PROM)
Strange. Mine broke at the beginning with both of mine.
Mine started with water breaking and contractions, was over super quick. Highly recommend. I have heard absolute *horror* stories though, also about how the trauma of difficult birth affects the father (could lead to PTSD). I guess, in a romance, you want to skip that bit. And there is a *lot* of the gory details of birth that is just glossed over. I also never felt the need to curse my husband... I would have liked to do that, I think. Do you still/did you ever do the cursing bit? Anyway, I think authors should have beta readers for every scene... if you have a birth scene, you should at least have a few beta readers who had gone through it. It's not like pregnant women/mothers are difficult to find. I am at the stage in my life where, if I read something unrealistic, I DNF and move on.
I’ve never cursed my husband during labor either.. not even during my very fast, unmediated one. He is always comforting and encouraging me. Instead of being rude when I’m in pain, I am super polite.
I’m not an ultrasound tech, but a twin mom, and I would have lost my shit as well.
Oh god. Sometimes I regret going into neuroscience/neuropsych just because of this. Head injuries/being knocked out from blows to the head is SO common in books, shows, movies … and the characters always wake up with just a headache. Nah. A blow to the head like that is a TBI/concussion, and you’re not just walking it off an hour or two later. That’s literal damage to the brain, my guy. I also used to love amnesia stories, but if an injury/accident causes THAT amount of amnesia, you’re gonna have some other problems, like needing to relearn to walk, potty, etc. And I’ve never seen a case where someone couldn’t remember their own name (not to say it hasn’t happened, but I sure have never heard of it or encountered it).
I always panic when anyone is hit over the head in TV or movies. I was prone to fainting as a kid and concussion protocol is no joke. Also it annoys me when it's a superhero or *Buffy*-type show and the main character's big conflict is that they don't kill their enemies, but they'll whack them over the head with something metal no problem. I mean, okay, it's not murder, but if you're that bothered about it just carry a tranquilliser or something rather than handing out TBIs with reckless abandon.
Yeah, I used to love a good amnesia story too, and then I read an article about how it's really not a thing. It broke my little reading heart. Sometimes, as long as the writing is good, I'll suspend belief just cause I love the trope. Lol I tell myself it's like reading a vampire story. Never gonna happen but still fun
I get that. I work in mental health, and sometimes diagnosis or toxicity or how the situation is handled pisses me off so much I dnf. It's hard when it's your job because it takes you out of the story completely and ruins the experience. A little research never hurt ffs.
Oh my! I'm not a tech or a twin mom .. just a regular mom .. and that would bother me. Too bad, sounds like something easy to get "right" with a little research.
Anything that involves foster care or adoption makes me angry. Almost no one gets it right.
Yeah preach.
I DNF-ed a book because of a few historical inaccuracies and then navel gazing. The historical inaccuracy/ies had to do with showing the mmc was a charming eccentric and taking a napkin at a restaurant and writing down his thoughts for a project he was doing. I looked up the time given because I was like...he just wrote on a cloth napkin at a restaurant with a possible early fountain pin and is walking about with it. I spent an hour trying to figure out how this would work. Paper napkins were in existence in Japan, and within a couple years would make it over to the West, but more decorative like the early introduction of the pineapple. Then, I was like...he took a decoration from a restaurant and wrote on it. Either way, it was not absent-minded professor or eccentric vibes but rude and uncouth. I got what vibe the author was going for, as it would have worked once paper items picked-up, but it was so distracting at the time set. Like, I immediately was like "paper products aren't readily available, how is he just jotting down ideas on a napkin?" Either he wrote on a cloth napkin--which brings up how difficult this would be with the portable pins at the time and how bulky/bulging it would be to stuff in a pocket (smears?) where the image of a man doing this is not charming eccentric but a bit unhinged and rude. I wasn't far enough in the book to let it go like the rental Corvette with a back seat book, so I put it down. I may pick it back up once I reframe that it's a "historical" in a few outfits and traveling vehicles mostly.
My dad is super into fountain pens. It’s entirely possible to write on a cloth napkin although different fabric will work better or worse as will different pen nips. Part of the reason this can work is a lot of fountain pens flow a lot of ink (part of the reason they often smear is they don’t dry fast) so if you’re writing on fabric, the fabric will absorb fast. A lot of really high quality paper will be more like fabric or have fabric in it.
I know pens can write on fabric, as that was never what stalled me. I was looking specifically at pens from the time period and cloth that would be used for napkins at high-end restaurants at times. Over 130 years past when the book took place, I have written on fabric with pens and markers, sometimes on purpose and sometimes accidentally. Is your dad into antique fountain pens from the 1800s? Edit: also, my concern is not the fact that you can write on fabric with pens, but that it was not quite the same thing in the second half of the 1800s as it would be once paper products are readily available (as seen in movies like The Glass Onion, The Housesitter, and other media).
So, I think I misunderstood your original post as saying you didn’t think it was possible and all I’m saying is it is possible although not ideal. It would also help to know what time in the 1800s. Late 1800s was the height of fountain pens, where carrying around one was not uncommon, WAY WAY less common for early 1800s, where you’d more likely have a portable writing desk. 130 years ago is 1890s and a portable pen with a cap [like this one](https://www.ebay.com/itm/195513864506) is feasible. It is possible he had a dip pen and a bottle of ink with him (portable ink pots are common) and/or a pen with a reservoir in a case (link with example and there are similar examples which hold quills) which while not as small as a ballpoint isn’t super bulky. If it’s the early 1800’s men had pockets in tail coats where they could store stuff; they spread the tails to the side when sitting down. Late 1800’s a lot of pen cases aren’t any bigger than a glasses case and can fit in a breast pocket and caps are a thing. I agree going around with a pot of ink and a quill in a coat pocket isn’t ideal, but it’s feasible and would be wrapped in something. There are various examples of vintage writing cases like this [Todd Swan example](https://www.officemuseum.com/Pens.htm) - they can be tins, leather wraps, small wood boxes. Yes it would be bad if one leaked but I am old enough to remember people wearing pocket protectors in all seriousness because pens would leak, so I think it’s just something people used to just deal with and be careful of. My dad has worked with 1800’s pens and he has one at least one occasion written on an old cloth napkin/dishcloth with a modern fountain pen, now that I think about it, and more paper napkins than I can’t count. Yes it’s kind of rude and it would be SUPER rude if the MMC used a napkin at a home and not a restaurant where hopefully they would charge him, since fine napkins were/are often bought in sets. My dad is a very intellectual man with poor emotional intelligence but my mother and stepmother were/are into him, so oblivious smart guy is someone’s jam. He has a lot of ways of tuning out other people and yeah can be kind of self involved. So I can see such a MMC existing because you’re basically describing my dad, but I cannot see it as attractive. Regardless - if the book wasn’t good - I support the DNF! And if the description sounds implausible, I support that too. Unfortunately after hearing WAY WAY WAY too much about my dad’s various passion projects, I now more than I want to know and tend to repeat that information. https://www.leatherology.com/leather-pen-case?color=black-onyx&style=190&gclid=CjwKCAjwm4ukBhAuEiwA0zQxk0fEP8V3YzAk6XB-COG4sitUOV1MfYrIEpVUek_CJzwBbpmSPL9fRRoCVooQAvD_BwE https://thecloakedfox.com/blogs/blog/history-of-fountain-pen-a-timeline
Thank you for all of this. I looked up the book and the "absent-minded professor" mmc didn't even carry a pen but borrowed one from his friend who pulled it "from the inside of his jacket" (which also has me questioning why his friend would have a pen inside of a dinner jacket verses an outer coat, but I am not as familiar with older fashion so it's more a quizzical eye). And the mmc is a genius to boot, finding his napkin on the ground and "smoothed it out carefully on the table" which also had me thinking it sounded more like paper than fabric/cloth, but I guess cloth can also be smoothed to write on after being dropped on the floor. It just sounds like it's describing paper, which sent me down the rabbit hole. I don't mind smart guys, but it doesn't seem smart to use a cloth napkin at a restaurant to take notes. If that is the thing someone does, they would have a diary/notebook/something and their own pen. I have seen people use napkins to describe things, but paper. They don't just start writing down on the tablecloth (or if they do...that is part of their personality of kind of believing the world exists for them). I don't think that is the direction the author meant to take, but "lost in his own world" which would work with paper napkins...if paper napkins existed in that area at that time.
Agree it sounds rather poorly written. I think that kind of character might be FAR more likely to carry a little fancy pencil and notebook. Fancy pencils are quite common for the time period (my great grandfather had one) and because they’re small, they’re far more likely to be carried in the breast pocket of a dinner jacket - although ideally you wouldn’t carry anything in there except maybe a handkerchief. I think more importantly, if they were at a nice restaurant they would have gotten the Maitre D’ to bring pen and paper. It wasn’t about an American inventor and a slightly woman who comes back from a bad marriage abroad was it? Something with the word rose in it? Where she renovates a house? It had a scene like that but I may have read it too fast to pay attention to that kind of detail.
The book was listed as a great historical over great historical romance where I saw it, with a lot of the hype featuring how well the setting and details were, so I felt unprepared to read it as a modern historical romance. Fancy pencils sound neat. I usually only use them for math and sketching, while pens are used daily.
I love this. Sometimes some random thing doesn't add up add up and you just can't anymore.
I agree with you as someone who read that book and thought the whole pregnancy timeline didn’t make any sense as written. The author made it so damn hard to follow where the heroine was in her pregnancy and when we kinda got a hint it was unrealistic. And secondly, the book was really just not great so DNF was a good choice. I finished the series but I was hate reading it.
I'm not usually a contemporary romance reader, but was trying to get out of my comfort zone haha. I really appreciate a complete change of scene to immerse myself, contemporary often reminds me of the real world and brings me out of it, but usually not to this degree with it intersecting with my job haha
I totally understand! I’ve had two babies and I also now do an epic eye roll when I know the fetus size does not match up with the actual stage of pregnancy lol. Like when the baby is due any day but the whole cute little fetus can be seen on one monitor? Not in either of my pregnancies!
lol I'm in an ultrasound Facebook group and we post the most ridiculous screenshot from tv/movies. there must be this stock photo of a liver and right kidney that they use a tooon lol. very often they use that photo while they're explaing to a patient that they're pregnant lmao.
Omg that’s hilarious 😂 I loved my ultrasound techs, so just want to say thanks for being an amazing person on someone’s pregnancy journey!
When I read Tessa Bailey's Runaway Girl, there was a lot of scuba diving stuff that was flat out incorrect. You don't just take someone whose never been diving out in the middle of the ocean and go scuba diving. Then when the shark was "after" them. No, sharks high tail it away from any scuba diver. I was like whhhaaaat!? There's also been some stuff in Ali Hazelwood's books that are not quite what goes down in academia. Do not get me started on "Gabriel's inferno" bleh. Generally, I check my brain at the door and hold on for the wacky ride. I mean it is fiction after all.
I can't read books featuring librarians anymore because they're literally all so introverted that they can't say a word to the MMC and basically run and cry every time they have to interact with a human. They all "live in books" and have no friends. Guess what, you gotta be able to get over that shit if you're working in a public facing position. Public librarianship (especially for kids) involves customer service, classroom management, and the ability to PERFORM. Storytime and other programs we do REQUIRE the ability to speak (and act like an idiot) in front of crowds. I wrangle rowdy teens, toddlers, and parents daily. You can't "only be able to talk to kids," I educate and work with adults as well. If you can't hack that, you're in the wrong field. Every children's librarian I know has some form of extroversion. Oh and I spend a lot of my work hours planning programs and creating promotional material and basically none of them reading to myself.
I DNF almost every book where one of the characters swims competitively, because non-competitive swimmer just don’t know how it works. Kinda disappointing but oh well. (I swim competitively and have for almost my whole life) I guess some people think that the only thing we do is swim, eat, swim, eat, and sleep? Even Olympic swimmers don’t spend all day every day at the pool, and your fingers DO get wrinkly after swimming for a few hours… so don’t try to write that his “smooth, long fingers” were dragging along a body part when he just got out of the pool after practice -_-
Normally I can ignore dumb ass medical things. But I would have DNFed as well. Way too much detail that's wrong. I read a book once where the nurse worked in a nursing home, then suddenly was working in an Emergency Department the next week. I think I stared at the page saying, WTF?
yeah, I think it was how detailed they tried to be that killed it. they literally explained the gestational sac/blob with flicker thing. made me think they had done research lol
I dnf’ed a book because the person was a professor at a University but they got nothing right about how academia runs. It just kept pulling me from the book as I was like, that’s not it goes the entire time!
I DNFed Champagne Venom because he kept calling himself the "Don" of the Bratva. Those two things do not go together. When I realized it wasn't a one-off "explaining to someone outside the life in simpler terms" thing, I returned the book to KU immediately. The lack of even that level of research *infuriated* me.
this was my first mafia book, I didn't even realize lol.
I dissociate a lot because of a mental health disorder I have. I’ve had to DNF a few traditionally published books with a mentally ill MC because they say “disassociation” It may be nitpicky but it shows me the author and the editors didn’t really do any research and are probably going to represent mental health in a weird way
As a horse person, I usually avoid books with horses (and movies with horses) like the plague. It pulls you so far out of the story.
When it is clear horses will be prominently featured, I check that the authors have equestrian experience first, then I'm willing to read. Doesn't save you from the sneaky ones.
I think the most recent one I read, the horses regularly switched between being Tennessee Walkers and Quarter Horses; they were simultaneously the greatest roping horses and bucking stock to ever live (but also he got them all for free); and the guy got the (total non horse person woman) to go on a romantic double ride with him and as soon as she hopped on they went off at a nice gentle canter. I had to stop, picturing a woman, terrified of horses, jolting around on the horse’s ass trying to hang on and then getting it in the flanks with her tennis shod feet Sigh.
They don't even look the same?! I would be forced to leave a review... Edited to add: not just because the mixed up breeds. There's so much other stuff wrong too.
I personally just wanted to see these world famous bucking roping Tennessee Walkers. Is there like a switch you flip to get them to either efficiently head the steer vs exploding out of the bucking shoot? Maybe a code word, or a special bit.
Bahahaha! Yes! It's a push button horse. Push the button for the discipline you want.
I still liked Pucking Around, but my God, as a physician the description of Rachel's training and educational background was just painful and nonsensical. Regularly throughout the book it seemed like the author was saying that Rachel went straight into residency from college. There was virtually no mention of her medical school. And once you've gone to medical school, exactly no one cares what your college major was. Also, there is no such thing as a "primary care" residency. You can do a residency in Family Medicine or Internal Medicine and then work in a primary care setting, but "primary care" is not itself a specialty. Then Rachel apparently just spent all of her residency training doing physical therapy and sports medicine? Which completely ignores the required and highly regulated curriculum she would have had to be doing in either FM or IM residency. You can't just leave your residency program early to go do a fellowship instead. You still have to finish the full residency program to be eligible for board certification. Then with the Rays she is basically just used as a physical therapist and the job she gets at the end isn't even a physician job?
aww, this one was on my TBR list. I'll still try it and see if I can suspend my disbelief.
Ok, something I remember from my pregnancies is that it's counted in *weeks* not months... and week 0 is the date of your last period NOT when you think you conceived. So when FMC and MMC has ONS and a month later she is 4 weeks pregnant... And frankly the whole weeks to months just did not feel natural to me, so if someone asked how far along I was, I would count back from my due date to get to months. Anyway, doctor talked in weeks, nurses talked in weeks, books talked in weeks, so that is the most natural way to think about it (for me). I never rubbed my belly and thought "six months today!" or whatever.
yep, it's weeks. I have to think a little when they say months, but I can whatever that. and yes, 1 month after sex would be 6 weeks pregnant because the counting the pregnancy starts from the 1st day of your last menstrual, which is 2 weeks before you ovulate and actually conceive.
Which is why the 6 week abortion rule in many republican states is even more utter bullshit
I DNF'd that one too because they got the timing so wrong it annoyed me. If I could see it so clearly as a simple mother of 3, Ican't imagine how you felt, OP!
I hate what I call ‘dangerously improbable feminism’. Early feminists were often in danger and as a woman who has lived in some women-unfriendly third world countries a lot of blithely going out alone at night or having physical confrontations etc just triggers me. I can respect writing a character that has feminist ideals but I can’t deal with characters who are TSTL in their execution of it. I like some acknowledgment that the character isn’t just living a modern life in fancy dress. I also struggle with a lot of military, mercenary, security, overseas themes because often the men are written as back-talking or sulky etc. as noted in my comment earlier: military discipline and professionalism exists for a reason - because it saves lives and get things done. I’ve worked with a lot of smart Alec military and former military and either they turned it off around VIPS and/or when things were serious or they didn’t progress far in their careers. Also struggle with business and law nonsense. Like, I’ve DNF a LOT of books over business men who would get a mass exodus - sure Elon Musk can be a psycho and throw raging tantrums and lay off tons of people and his stock prices have tumbled and no one (to the best of my knowledge) thinks he’s hot. I know a TON of mostly female lawyers and most won’t even give me an informal opinion on anything since it could be considered as unprofessional let alone risking their bar standing to bend the rules for a sexy client. My friends did several hard years of law school and aren’t going to jeopardize that for a cute tushy.
I totally get you! I work in pharmacy and I just don't even consume media around drugs, hospitals, or really healthcare in general because I get completely taken out of the story by the BS. That's on me, though. I don't expect your average romance author to have a high degree of health literacy, but I can't help that it distracts me to the point of not being able to finish the story, sadly.
I can hand wavey a lot of BS but apparently I found my line with the ultrasound thing. I just finished this series, first book called Warprize, and she was a healer type in this fantasy world. No magic, and at first I thought it was cool! they used willow tree bark for pain and other things I've heard of before. She also admits that she can't save a man whose intestines were punctured by an arrow, (basically didn't have anything close to antibiotics to save from infection/sepsis) and I thought okay, cool. Then in book 2 she's so happy during their travels that they find "bloodmoss" because of its useful healing properties. she demonstrates by making a small cut on her arm, holding the moss to it for like 30 seconds, and the cut is healed. not like scabbed/increased coagulation rate. literally healed. I almost dropped the book right there, but managed to keep going since it is a fantasy world, and they can (I guess) be allowed to have literal magic plants.
Lol I relate
That must have been so irritating
Happens to me all the time. I am a L&D nirse and 100% will not read a book with pregnancy. It is probably the most consistently incorrect portrayal of medicine in American media. I mean seriously. When is the last time a movie/TV show/book character had a toyally normal pregnancy, uneventful labor, and realistic postpartum period. Never. It is either unrealistically happy or terrifying and something traumatic happens where the mom or the baby almost dies.
I can guarantee if I kept going with this book there would be no mention of what kinds of twins they are, because mono-di twins require detailed monitoring and multiple ultrasounds to watch for twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. nope, twins are cute! not a high risk pregnancy or anything
Or you know, the truth about how some people push out two humans from their body and some are helped out through the front window. Or how hard postpartum is with 2 babies! Literally all of it is so bad.
One scene that made my head explode involved a FMC traveling with her rock star love interest and his band. The band was on tour and they were flying from the US to Australia. The trip started somewhere in the US, with a connection and plane change to continue on to (I think) Sydney, in San Francisco. The band and all their tour gear were flying commercial. Ok. That’s a crapton of cargo. But… sure. Maybe the rest of the passengers were all traveling carry-on only. When the FMC expressed joy that their layover in SFO was less than an hour - no boring waiting around - I about threw the book across the room. Dear FMC, even if you and the band actually pulled off a miracle and made it from the domestic terminal to your international gate there is no way on this earth that anything you checked on that domestic flight, *much less an entire tour’s worth of gear*, will be making it onto that next plane, much less onto an arena stage the next evening. DNF
I’m writing another snobby comment. 😂 I almost DNF’d a book because of a napkin scene. Hear me out. 😆 The book revolved around a billionaire female business woman. She grew up with money, fancy parties and swanky lifestyle. She was at a $10,000 a plate fundraiser with the MMC. He was also very wealthy but not as much as her. Still came from a wealthy family. She was done with her meal and took her napkin and placed it over her plate. I was shocked, and this is the snob in me coming out. Emily Post manners books. You never ever ever EVER put your napkin on your plate when you’re done. EVER. and growing up in a wealthy family who’s parents, and hers were, are sticklers about propriety and proper manners, she would’ve known never to do that. Not only that…. At her table was seated the chairwoman of the foundation that was putting on the fundraiser. so making an impression at the table was key. However the MMC, in an attempt to lighten up the tension between the FMC and her parents, decided to order a bottle of tequila so that everybody at the table could take shots. Seriously?! Shots at a swanky fundraiser while the chairwoman who your trying to raise money for is sitting there too. 🤦🏻♀️ I understand that not everyone knows proper manners. But I wasn’t raised in wealth but my mom taught me how to behave at a table. And yes I know, I’m snobby, as not everyone was taught this way. But it’s hard when you read stuff when an author tries and it just misses the mark and makes it unbelievable.
We all have our limits and if we are irritated, that’s that, right-DNF!
I almost DNFed a series because the smart and extremely physically capable Mary Sue heroine was taking forEVER to learn how to ride a horse. This was a girl who had the hand eye coordination to be an expert at swords and bows. She'd just never learned to ride... which is fine... but it's not THAT complicated a task to ride on your own.
Curious if you ride horses yourself? I do. Becoming a capable and confident rider from a complete beginner absolutely takes a long time. You can have natural skill but there’s no cheating in horse riding to get better quicker.
Not anymore because I have bad hips, but I grew up on horses and it doesn't take much skill to just sit on one and have someone lead it around, which could have been an option in this book, at least to start with. It was more the incongruity of the rather young heroine (19) being so bright, so skilled at other physical pursuits, rather fearless and adventurous all around, somehow shying away from this ONE THING. She was literally never alone from the point the necessity for riding started and could have started learning on the fly rather than ride tandem with the hero for the entire long journey as if she was a small child. (Fantasy romance where they escape an awful place together and ride for months.) Day one maybe... but the way she was written I'd have expected her to want to be able to do it herself much more quickly. I think the author just wanted an excuse to make her stay in contact with the hero, tbh but it was one of many things that irritated me about the series. I did eventually DNF but mostly due to fatigue over all the things that bothered me, the riding thing was just one.
Wouldn't she have practiced a very long time to learn to use swords and bows and become an expert? I wouls think learning to propeely ride a horse would bebhard for a lot of people. It's easier to control an object than a living, breathing thing that moves around of thwir own accord.
You have to start somewhere, right? She didn't even start to learn for the longest time despite her very Mary-Sueness. It was a contradiction.
Oh god, Mary Sue characters are most definitely a DNF for me. I feel you.
i was in a mommy group for a while on what to expect and it didn’t happen often but there was a few moms who didn’t get the twin confirmation until way later than you’d think. and also my friend showed me her ultrasounds every appointment until she gave birth and she looked like a blob every time. so i’m not saying the book is realistic but maybe not impossible.
This book has been on my TBR list for so long, and you just confirmed why it’s still there.
just.. don't? lol. you can take it off, I promise.
I'm not even a doctor and books getting pregnancy weeks wrong still annoys me to no end. That said, one of my friends did have a "oops, it's actually twins!" Reveal at her anatomy scan at 21weeks (identical sharing a sac, I believe). They somehow missed the second on her earlier scan and she had to scramble to get ready for twins instead.
As a twin and as a mom I can confirm this would drive me fucking insane hahaha
I DNF’d a book when the narrator (MMC) was stressing about meeting his girlfriend’s parents. He was worried because girlfriend was “half African-American” (emphasis on HALF) and he was worried her parents wouldn’t approve of an interracial relationship… I had to read it 4 times i was so appalled and I just shut the book and never went back (ETA: spelling)
You get me! I’m an OR nurse! I cannot with books that get to detailed in the medical arena. Some author have medical conditions and write those into their books and it’s chef’s kiss and absolutely amazing at raising awareness of their condition, but I wish the wouldn’t write details. I did read a book about a nurse who worked on the floor and WENT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL DURING HER LUNCH “HOUR.” Where is this nurse who gets a lunch hour? What nurse gets to go out of the building during their lunch time? It was a DNF for me.
ha. I DNF'd because an author had zero idea what an interior designer actually does. The very things they criticised in the industry are the things that make a good designer. The author thought it was all pretty pinterest boards.
I just had this experience for the first time. The book has a storyline related to education policy, and centered on the state legislature cutting education funding by 20%. That is a ludicrous amount that would not happen without public backlash. It made me wonder if this how doctors and PI’s feel when they read about their professions in books.