Alphabet Of Likes & Dislikes

This challenge was created by https://beetleypete.com/ and adapted by http://themisathena.info/ . I first saw it on the blog of the master of words known as Bookstooge https://bookstooge.com/ . I figured I'd join in for fun, better late than never. The idea is to share a like you have and a dislike you have for each letter of the alphabet. You can do both A's in one post or do a post for each like and each dislike, whatever suits.

Today's post is all about C.

LIKE-Castles
Castles! I love them! When I go on day trips around Scotland, I love to go and visit castles or ruins of them. I've been many times to Doune Castle (below) where the pilot for Game of Thrones was filmed years later and where Monty Python filmed The Holy Grail. I've been to Edinburgh and Stirling a few times inside and out. Up north I was on a bus trip near Skye and we stopped in for an hour at Eilean Donan Castle which is stunning to photograph and was used in the Bond films.

When I was in the Lake District on holiday, I was venturing into Lancashire and Yorkshire to visit as many as I could. In Wensleydale North Yorkshire: Bolton Castle (below) which features Mary Queen of Scots bedroom and was a location for the film Elizabeth (1998) with Cate Blanchett, and Middleham Castle is where Richard III grew up. Skipton Castle also in North Yorkshire is a great place to spend a day. We spent hours going round every part of it. Lancaster Castle in Lancashire was also a good place to visit.   

In Cape Town I was at the totally different Castle of Good Hope (below) a 17th century bastion fort. I was sitting in the courtyard, chilling out in the shade and reading a book. Lovely place in the city centre to just watch the world go by. It's different from every other one I've been to.

But if I could just magic myself to any castle in the world, right at the top of my list would be the infamous Castle Bran in Romania (below). I have a pile of postcards from here and would love to visit a real Transylvanian castle! It is said to possibly have minor links to Vlad the Impaler and claims to be the inspiration for Dracula, but who really knows? I think it looks sinister though!

DISLIKE-Crap Endings

We've all had it, haven't we. The book sucks us right in with some good characters that we're rooting for, solid writing, dramatic plot, maybe some tension or a bit of a scare. We're moving into the final chapters of the book, hoping that what we want to happen will happen, questions flooding through our minds like 'who is the killer', 'is there a HEA?', 'will my favourite couple get together?', 'will this character finally get revenge?' 'will the police get there in time?'and so on. It's driving us mad, we just can't wait to turn the next page to find out and then...

 

Suddenly the book goes mental or just suddenly says The End and we feel so totally cheated, pissed off, let down and raging mad. What the hell kind of an ending was THAT? There are of course several different types of crap endings that I've personally encountered in my reading and all of them put me into a rage.

 

1) It just suddenly ends

Oi, Author Person! Where's the rest of the bloody story? Did you just get bored with it and wander off to watch Love Island??? Did you just forget you hadn't finished it and published it? I didn't read a couple of hundred pages of a book I bought just to turn the last page and find IT JUST ENDS with no proper finish! 

2) It is open ended

It's like the author is standing there smugly beside your chair going 'so how did YOU think it ended?' or 'what do you think just happened?' How the bloody hell should I know! You wrote the damn thing! At least have the decency to tell us what happened instead of asking us to do it for you! I paid you for a book, meaning start, middle and ending!

3) The dog dies for no bloody reason

Oh yes, the faithful hound saves everyone's collective assi, is the only survivor with any kind of brain and then you author scum just decide 'hey wouldn't it be cool to just have the dog get infected by zombies and die for no good reason!' NO IT ISN'T COOL, it's SICK! Seriously what is wrong with you? A dog is for life, not just book one!

4) Some weird crap takes over

The hero saves the town from property developers and aliens from the planet Zog appear and kill him, leaving you going 'huh?, WHY?' Or maybe the whole thing has been a bad dream, bad acid trip, hallucination? I've just read 300 pages and now you're telling me that none of it happened? It's a tense whodunnit and the killer is a guy never once mentioned? NO!!!!!

5) Loose ends are not tied up

I have so many questions! How did the hero lose his memory? What is the deep dark secret she's hidden? Why did this bad stuff just happen? How did he escape? Who wrote that secret letter? Who is the killer? Wait. What the frick do you mean, you're not going to tell me? You put all these threads in the story and won't resolve them? How twisted are you!

 

6) It's just all WRONG!

It's been a good book but then it just all falls apart at the end. Maybe the writing got bad or the plot becomes badly written or hard to understand, or the MC turns into a pure asshat. Whatever it is, it just sours the whole story for you and you end up feeling frustrated and annoyed for wasting two days on this book.