In the mystery, the main character is a caterer. I actually read #s 12,13, & 14 before I realized that there were a whole bunch of them. Now I’m reading the earlier ones. I believe, and I could be wrong, that in the later ones, the recipes are at the ends of the chapters. In these earlier ones though, they are right in the middle of the chapter at the time that the character makes them. Now, I love a good recipe, and I like the idea of including them (I had the same idea for a book I wrote about a cook myself), but why in the world would the author think that having them smack in the middle of a chapter is a good idea?
On to illustrations with clever labels. This is becoming a bit trendy in YA. I’ve run across it before, and I’ll see it again. It doesn’t bug me that much, and I doubt it bothers teens at all, but really…when do I examine the illustration and read the clever bits? If I look at at the drawing as soon as I turn the page, then I might read a note on it that spoils what’s going on further down the page. If I wait and read the whole page, I might be past the bit that the drawing pertains to (yes, this happened to me both ways).
The footnotes are the ones that really got to me though. Not only are they superfluous, but they aren’t all that clever. The book shall go unnamed (and I’ve seen this footnote thing before, so you may or may not be able to figure it out), but the author had a huge seller and so I’m thinking that the editor said, “Well, okay…because you’re XXX, I guess it’s okay.” when really, it’s NOT! The way I saw it while trying to read the book was I had two choices, ignore the footnotes (impossible, by the way) in hopes that I didn’t miss anything important, or stop and read them (usually right in the middle of a sentence) and be totally taken out of the book. Neither worked, so I quit reading.
I honestly think that when these authors finished their final edits and went back to read it one more time, they simply read the novel part and skipped over the recipes, illustrations, and footnotes, so they didn’t even notice how distracting they were. If I were their editor, I would tell them, “When you read your book, I want you to stop and read the recipes, clever notes, and footnotes aloud.” I bet they would’ve cut them, or at least reorganized them. On the plus side, I know that I will never do this kind of thing! That’s why reading is as important as writing.
P.S. I’m not saying that other people shouldn’t do this, just that it annoys me so much that I don’t want to do it!
Subscribe to my blog