The Literary Blog Hop is hosted by The Blue Bookcase. This week's question is:
What is one of your literary pet peeves? Is there something that writers do that really sets your teeth on edge? Be specific, and give examples if you can.
Bad sex.
Yup, bad sex.
I don't consider myself a prude, I have nothing against sex in novels and if it adds to character and plot development then by all means, write away! But what I cannot stand are sex scenes that are stupidly long, tacky, gross, dumb or overly graphic.
So many authors seem to miss the mark when it comes to writing sex scenes.
Examples:
Australian author of The Slap, Christos Tsiolkas was recently nominated for the Bad Sex in Literature award. I can understand why. Using the "F" word or the "C" word in a sex scene is tacky, in my opinion. I guess if you are trying to show the sex is tasteless and senseless then it could work (and it this case it really was) but I just found it to be bad.
I recently read, The Atlantis Code by Charles Brokaw. The main character in this book was a university professor who seemed to be a cross between Robert Langdon, Indiana Jones and Fabio. In once scene, a much-younger-than-him-woman throws herself at him and they get all hot and heavy in the bathtub. He treats her like he is *ahem* stuffing a turkey.
Although I really love the Sookie Stackhouse series I did struggle with Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. That is a whole book of bad sex! I guess when you bed a vampire it's bound to get rough. I only kept reading the series because I had bought a seven book boxed set, and I am glad I did because once you get past the bad sex, it's quite a fun series.
So there you have it...
I really think that it takes a certain talent to pull off a sex scene in a novel... books that allude to or describe briefly, tend to work better in my opinion.
Have you come across any really bad sex scenes in novels that make you want to gag/throw the book away/laugh out loud?
