I’ve felt like my blog is starting to be overrun by book reviews and there is less to do with random book banter than I would like. So I plan to rectify this with introducing some more regular segments. In this one, I want to look at thinks that I find in books that either annoy or don’t sit right with me. Everyone has pet peeves with literature, it can be topics that have been overdone, cliches or just the way people seem to write. So I wanted to go though some of my literary bête noires as a therapeutical way to vent and maybe generate some interesting conversations in the comments.

The first literary gripe I want to look at has to do with villains. If you are writing a book and the villains are Russians, Chinese, or Middle Eastern then you have pretty much lost me already. There are other countries that annoy me to a lesser extent. But it’s not really the country that is the problem, all the writer is doing is generalising the people by making it sound like that the entire nation is full of villains; that is just plain lazy.

Alright it’s understandable if you are setting it in a war but when writing a thriller how about mixing it up a bit try something original, that’s all I’m asking. This formulaic approach to villains are one of my biggest problems with action or thriller novels. As soon as you enter into overdone territory with villains you’ve lost me.

There are more elements I find annoying with villains in literature but I mainly wanted to focus on nationality for this one. Please let me know your thoughts on villain nationality or villains in general and if you have any other insights on the topic that I’ve missed.