So after posting on my own thread, I realized that I enjoy reading books where the characters or the plot line makes me angry or groan. Books like Vernon God Little and The Line of Beauty. Do you guys tend to enjoy books that infuriate you - do you tend to finish them? Most importantly, what books have you made at either the characters or the plot?

For me, I think it depends on the kind of anger it provokes. Some books are certainly meant to be provocative. And being provocative, which usually has a purpose, is different than getting angry because, say, all the female characters in a book set in the future are working in clerical roles (oh no! the 70s is the future!).

The first book I thought of when I thought 'provocative' was Rape: A Love Story. The story is disturbing and provokes anger but does so, imo, to shake up the reader a bit and make him/her more open, more pliable. The second book I thought of was Orbital Decay by Allen Steele, which, if I remember correctly, is set on a space station in the future (which strangely resembled the 70s) and the women were in the lower jobs. I stopped there and didn't finish the book.

So you get angry at the situations. I guess I get angry at the actions - I can feel myself wanting to lecture them - dont do it - dont think that - and sometimes I am not even sure this is what the author is trying to accomplish.

Quite a few books have that moment when I scream at the characters, "Don't do that!" I don't know if that qualifies as making me angry. Well, if the author doesn't pull it off well, that can make me angry - or at least annoyed.

Now, that is interesting. I was listening to one of the Guardian podcasts, a 'bookclub' with Kate Grenville around The Secret River and one of the commentators was saying how she knew from the beginning of the book that something bad was going to happen. She wanted to tell the character, "stop!" ...etc. And Kate Grenville said that she thought readers really want something bad to happen. . .

ponders... still pondering...

The weird thing is that if what we want to happen happens, we're kind of disappointed in how soft the book is... perhaps I shouldn't presume to speak for anyone else...

What's weird is how extreme that thing is in The Secret River. I didn't want it to happen, but it was a jarring experience, and it made the book...

Am I sick?

My brain's starting to hurt...

What's weird is that I've read The Secret River and can't remember anything bad or extreme happening at all. My shocking memory just gets worse and worse!

I get angry at characters who I feel are whinging about nothing. OK, so there is a touch of inverse snobbery in this. I got angry about the marital problems of the upper classes in A Handful of Dust and was practically shouting at the arrogance/annoyingness of the man in Intimacy. Who cares about their little problems in their cosy, comfortable worlds??!! GRRRRRR.

That said, I think my attitudes have matured/mellowed since I read both of these so maybe I should revisit them.

The books that make me angry have less to do with the actions (or inactions) of the protagonists, and much more to do with the writing. I get angry with books where the writing seems lazy or where the research sticks out like a Sierra Club bumper sticker on an SUV. Or when authors add controversial issues in a way that makes it feel exploitative. Or when the book feels less like an authentic experience than like someone with an MFA writing degree in a NY loft apartment imagining the experience.

Yeah, I tend to get angrier with bad writing and formulaic writing. I literally threw The Dante Club into a rest stop trash can.

On the other hand, one book that I hated but nevertheless finished that made me extremely angry was The House of Sand and Fog. In this case, it was the main character, Kathy, who needed a good hard bitch-slap. I can't stand a whiney, helpless woman who thinks the world owes her something and that she's a 'special case' when she doesn't follow the rules.

I can't stand a whiney, helpless woman who thinks the world owes her something and that she's a 'special case' when she doesn't follow the rules

BRAVA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*claps hands*

I tend to think that the author is doing a good job if he or she creates a character whom I keep wanting to throttle. I'm more likely to toss a book if the characters are bland and I would yawn if they were all wiped out on the next page.

8,9 - I totally agree about bad writing. My friends often mention the Da Vinci Code just to watch my face turn purple with rage. I read it maybe 5 years ago for book club and it still makes my blood boil!

Bad writing? The Bridges of Madison County, anyone?

Cariola,

Are you trying to make my blood boil? Double, double toil with bounty / Fire please burn bridges in Madison County. Okay I know it doesn't scan, but you get the message. In the fiction category, the books that anger me are those that contain gratuitous violence, sex, bread- baking, etc. Nongratuitous sex and bread-making? Send it on ;-)

I am much more likely to develop a bad case of blood boils over poorly researched nonfiction. Whenever, I pick up a book in which the author makes sloppy generalizations, presents poorly researched material, or simply goes over the same ground that has been traveled ad nauseum, I start throwing things. Beloved dives under the couch. The Welsh terrorists head for nearest closet. Guests duck, cover, and scream.

Even in fiction, (not SF or fantasy) when the author gets facts wrong, I hate that. My suspension of disbelief comes crashing down.

>14 Urania, just for you: La Cucina: A Novel of Rapture by Lily Prior. Gratuitous violence and formulaic, gratuitous sex scenes, most of them taking place while cooking (and I'm sure there's breadbaking, or at least pasta rollling in there somewhere). It was the most obviously manipulative book I've ever read.

Oh, and another one that made me angry was Blindspot, mainly because it started off so well and had two such engaging narrators. But 2/3 of the way through, it degraded into gratuitous sex scenes. It creeped me out that this novel was co-written and that the authors noted in an interview that their process consistent of frantically emailing chapters and episodes to one another. It was as if they were trying to play "Can you top this?" with the sex scenes.

Oh, yes! The book that seeks to manipulate your emotions (Those Who Save Us, and Snow Falling on Cedars (oh, the poignant upside-down stamp!)). Books that invoke strong emotions, but honestly, are among my favorites (The Dress Lodger, On Green Dolphin Street, anything by de Berenieres...) but the author that goes for cheap emotional thrills ensures that her book will never rest on my shelves!

The Bible makes me pretty angry. All those stupid rules, and schizophrenic voices speaking out of thickets, and absurd and useless diets...

I also get angry with the way it has been used to justify two thousand years of torturing and killing.

I taught a course on modern (20th century) novels recently. Toward the end we read Ian McEwan's Atonement. This was just before the movie came out, so the students were mostly pretty interested at first... but I was truly surprised by how strongly some of them hated the ending. A few came to class honestly pissed, feeling like somebody'd played a trick on them and ruined the whole story. And most couldn't decide who they blamed more, McEwan or Briony.

#15 - . . . when the author gets facts wrong, I hate that. My suspension of disbelief comes crashing down.
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Oh, yeah, I'm all over that. Both the book and the author give up all credibility. I hated The Da Vinci Code for exactly this reason.

the bell curve - lost a friend over that book.

there are slews of books that would make me angry iff i tried to read them - but i don't.

#18: novels that manipulate rather than evoke emotional response - esp. because, on a gut level, i'm v. easily jerked around, despite recognizing what the author's doing. Though i get more irritated w/ myself for wittingly let such manipulativeness work its wiles. (erich segal(?) love story anyone? - a 5 barf book, i KNEW that as i read it ~ 1970(?) and STILL allowed it to generate tears. blech.)

Books by PJ O'Rouke; the odd smarmy essay by george will that i come across inadvertantly.

Books featuring professors of non-existent academic disciplines as heroes - "symbology" - could have been a semiotician, an art historian, anthropologist, comp. lit etc. but no, had to invent a bogus new agey faux field.