The Ultimate Wall Banger
No, I’m not talking about getting banged against the wall (oh, but wouldn’t that be fun?!) I’m talking about a book that just pisses you off, frustrates you, horrifies you, annoys you, pushes every dang button in your body to make you just want to toss it against the wall.
We’ve all read them. But I’m curious, what makes a book a wall banger for you? Or heck, we can even get more specific. In your mind, what is the biggest wall banger book you’ve ever read. I have two.
The first one, I blame myself. The author completely said up front the book would NOT have a happy ending and it was not a love story. But I (being in high school) thought surely he just meant they wouldn’t get married or something. I never thought he’d slit the heroine’s throat. 
So all of you who tell me you love the movie Last of the Mohicans? Read the book. The movie will lose a bit of the happy love fuzzies.
The second one, I just have to wonder what the author and the editor who bought it were smoking. I have no clue what it was even called, or who wrote it. But I’ll never forget my reaction. The whole book is depressing–the entire time, and I kept waiting for the shiny happy ending for our alcoholic hero who loses his wife, and job, and almost solved a crime…but then dies before he can tell everyone. Yes, the hero (and the book is in his POV) dies.
Let me tell you what I did with that book. 
I chucked it at the wall. I stomped on it. I ripped out the pages and then burned them. Tossed them in the fireplace, lit a match, and burned the entire fricking book. 
To this day I’m STILL pissed about those hours of my life I’ll never get back that I spent reading that piece of ass book.
So what was your ultimate wall banger? And what caused it?
Oh yeah, Happy St. Patrick’s day! Drink a green beer for me!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Hmmm I can’t think of any specific ones. The thing I don’t like is when the story is just completely unbelievable. Or the characters do something that is just so against their personality. Or when the heroine or even the hero is too stupid to live.
I seem to handle it better in movies but in a book? Not so much.
By the way, I always seem to write a “getting banged against a wall” scene in my books. Instead of a bed hump
we need a wall hump.
Hahahahahahahaha
March 17th, 2008 at 4:05 am
I don’t have any wall bangers. But there have been a couple that have come close. James Patterson’s 1st To Die comes to mind. He killed the hero!!! But then he’s James and I forgive him. Just!
I’ll be mad for you Shelli, I would be totally pissed if I’d read something like that.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:41 am
I don’t think I’ve ever been that angry with a book before. There have been books that I didn’t enjoy and stopped reading mid-way through, but I’ve never been disappointed enough to hurt the book
I guess I’ve been lucky.
Happy St. Paddy’s Day to you!
March 17th, 2008 at 9:23 am
As much as I love books, Shelli, sometimes the movie version is SO much better. English major alert — Did you know James Fenimore Cooper has an entire series of books devoted to Nathaniel’s character? Yes, that’s right, don’t read ‘em! Stick with Daniel Day-Lewis and the inaccuracies that are the movie.
Flip-flopping POVs drive me crazy. What’s especially irritating is when the hero and heroine both speak in the same sentence/paragraph. I picked up a book by a bestselling author set in New Orleans and didn’t make it out of the first chapter because of the damn POVs. Sold it to a used bookstore.
March 17th, 2008 at 9:31 am
*googles wall-banging smiley*
Ok seriously, I read one a few years back. I paid hardcover price for it. The heroine was a FUCKING MARTYR and the BIG MISUNDERSTANDING was just that–a misunderstanding. I didn’t finish it. I was mad. I wanted to burn it.
The second was a recent book that got rave reviews. I actually DID send it back to Amazon because reading it was like slogging through mud (filled with razor blades)–it was vague and unfocused and frontloaded with the most TEDIOUS backstory EVAH…and did I mention unfocused? I was SO FUCKING MAD I couldn’t see straight (and no it wasn’t a romance and yes it had TONS of great reviews)
March 17th, 2008 at 10:41 am
I have several. The first, I totally don’t remember the name of the book, but I will never touch that author again. The hero was this misogynistic jerk who would accost the heroine and get her all horned up and then call her a slut for tempting him.
I hated that book so much, I left it on the floor in my living room for six months and played kick ball with it against the wall every time I walked into the room.
The other one, I’ve been very vocal about… The hero drugs the heroine, rapes her, gets her pregnant, MARRIES her, (all while she’s roofied up), lies to her, kidnaps her… all so he can steal her amniotic fluid to cure his dad who has a virus only she can cure.
Oh, and at the end, she’s like, well, i love you, so it’s okay.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Ok, first, Grammar Geek, I have to ask -
???
Second - clearly there aren’t enough wall-humps in my books.
Third - this might be an unpopular opinion, but my most recent wallbanger was Rachel Vincent’s “Stray.” I hated the hero, loved the guy who didn’t get the girl but totally deserved her more, and completely disbelieved that the heroine could seriously love this asshat who tried to control her life at every turn. For an asskicking cat chick, she had some serious female role model failings.
March 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I wipe the Wall Bangers from my memory, usually.
I do recall ‘Salem’s Lot’ by Stephen King.
The scene that made me throw the book was when the heroine went into the house that was the master vampire’s lair. Her preparation? She pulled a picket off a picket fence.
When you do that sort of thing you go with a squad of Recon Force Marines armed with white phosphorous grenades and flamethrowers.
I don’t think I’ve read King since.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
Well at the risk of being lynched, I had to seriously resist the urge to throw Lover Unbound at the wall. At least 4 or 5 times. Only the fact that it was my mum’s copy and i’d have to pay for a new one stopped me. I finished it and i’m willing to admit i wish i hadn’t. SPOILER I mean having the heroine die and then be bought back by the scribe Virgin (who happens to be the Hero’s mum - how handy) as a ghost who only the hero can touch? Seriously
!!! END SPOILER
I’m really contemplating ignoring the rest of the series, unless someone i know can tell me she doesn’t play Deus Ex Machina with the plot in the next one after it comes out. Then i might read it.
March 17th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
Karen, I’ve never written a wall hump…or gahd, maybe I have and just forgot. I DID just write a bent over the couch hump though. That was hot.
Rachel, hmm James. I think I read one or two of his things, but I’ve never been a huge fan.
Ava, you’re lucky!
Jana, I totally didn’t know that! That’s really interesting. Flip flopping can irk me a bit too.
Amie, I didn’t know you can send back to Amazon! Wow!
Laurie, OMG! Which book is THAT? What a horror story!
Rob, Stephen King scares me! I can’t read him. I try! But even his book on writing scared me!
Ayla, hmm, not sure I would’ve handled that well either!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
I’ve mentioned my favorite wall banger before - don’t remember the title or the author, but the hero meets the heroine at a party, sleeps with her, then calls her a slut for tempting him, then she finds out he’s her new boss, whereby he threatens to fire her. He calls her a slut for being nice to clients of the company BUT he goes out and picks up medicine when her daughter is ill so it’s all okay and she loves him and marries him in the end.
Another one - hero and heroine are married. She’s on her way to tell him she’s preggers, but his cousin says she sold a secret to the company fortune and so he kicks her out. Finds out years later she had the baby, he finds her and threatens to take her son away from her unless she lives with him as his wife. Of course she’s still desperately in love with him so she agrees. They live happily ever after.
Another one, heroine is a SUPERMODEL! She’s shallow, dopey and self-absorbed. She tricks the hero into getting her pregnant then pouts every time he does something she doesn’t like, but she’s so beautiful he forgives her. Happily ever after.
Aaaaaaaaghh!!
March 17th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Oh, no. The last time a commented on a thread like this one, a personal friend of the author saw it and chewed me out. And I didn’t even mention the author’s name nor the title of the book. She just guessed which one I was talking about, so I won’t get into specific details this time. There have been several that I put down without finishing, but I never threw one against the wall. I threw them in the box to take to the UBS.
March 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
misogynistic jerk who would accost the heroine and get her all horned up and then call her a slut for tempting him.
I hated that book so much, I left it on the floor in my living room for six months and played kick ball with it against the wall every time I walked into the room.
LMAO soudns like Diana Palmer. You should totally check out Editrix’s blog posts on her. I’m LMFAO at you kicking it!
March 17th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
she’s like, well, i love you, so it’s okay.
HOLY SHIT! someone was hitting the crack pipe!
March 17th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
Emily….Stray is in my TBR Pile *sigh*
Ava….I never finsihed the first book. The huge=ass macho heroes don’t work for me.
Shelly you bet your ASS you can!!!!! Of course I didn’t tell them i was sending it back because it was either that or burn it and dance naked in my back yard around the bonfire
Ya’ll totally need to go to amazon…never mind I can’t even post the title here but it totally makes me wanna scream. ya’ll email me. There’s even an excerpt.
March 17th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
March 17th, 2008 at 3:50 pm
I hate stupid heroines. I know it’s obvious, but I really hate them.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:03 pm
4 BLONDES by Candace Bushnell. I’m only saying the title because, well, she’s too big of a name for her to care one iota what I think, and also, I know that a lot of people agree with me on this one.
Seriously, I hated these characters. EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM. Seriously. Hated them.
Yes, I get that that point of the book was to show flawed characters, blah blah blah. I get it. But if you’re gonna give me flawed characters, at least give me SOMETHING I can hold onto that makes me kinda like SOMETHING about them. Nothing. There was abolutely NOTHING likeable about any of those characters.
Another thing that’s a wallbanger to me is if there’s coerced sex or so-called “forced seduction” on-screen by someone other than the villain (in other words, a scene between the hero and heroine) and there was nothing in the blurb to suggest that/warn me. I get that some women have rape fantasies. I don’t agree with it, but whatever floats your boat, I guess. But warn me. Just SOMETHING that will give me a warning so I know to stay har away from that book.
As a victim of sexual assault, psychologically, I just can’t read it. It brings me back to the scariest night of my life, and I don’t want to be there. So if your blurb doesn’t suggest that at all and I come across it in your book, it’s a definite wallbanger and I might write you off my to-buy list forever.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:16 pm
Emily it’s OKAY!!! You didn’t really spoil it! and I don’t expect a total HEA in urban fantasy :)
March 17th, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Wallbangers. Wow, those are some quality wallbangers! Sheesh!
I worry one of my upcoming books is a wallbanger, because some readers might think the heroine ends up with the wrong guy! Whoops! Does it help when I promise a sequel for the rejected one?
March 17th, 2008 at 4:24 pm
Jac, I really can’t stand it when the hero calls her a slut. I mean, unless it’s erotic and it’s a type of play. That’s hot. But on your standard romance? Eh, not so much. Double standard stuff.
Lucinda, ah that sucks! Sorry. I didn’t really think about that. But I should’ve. My two books are so far away from the romance industry it didn’t occur to me.
Feisty, stupid is as stupid does. Or what ever the fruck Forest said.
Amanda, never read that book. Hee hee. Yeah if there was a way to warn readers of forced seduction, that’d be cool.
March 17th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
Dawn! Hiya :) You could never write a wallbanger. And it DOES help that the sequel deals with the reject :D
March 17th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
There have been a few. The last one was a couple of years ago, supposed to be this great romance novel…until I read it.
The whole thing was in such jargen and terminology that after the first chapter I just skipped the entire book to the last one and read it. Then of course I tossed it out because, the hero rode off without the heroine and never looked back.
Sorta, I love you, I’ve f***ed you and now I’m going to ride off tothe next dumn broad stupid enough toactually believe my lies!
March 17th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
I’ve been that angry with a book, but I think I repressed… oh wait… now I recall…
Yes, when a very famous author all but completely ripped off all the characters from a popular TV show — I mean, seriously– I railed for days. You could actually do one to one correlations, she basically just changed the names and rerouted a few storylines…just thinking of it… grrr!
Then there are the closed doors. I don’t mind a book with no sex, read lots of those, but a book that PROMISES sex and then closes the door — that is a wall banger (or should have been).
And excessive gore or violence — you can describe a crime without being gratuitous about it. :)
Haven’t been around in a while, but happy to see the place still jumping! :)
Sam
March 17th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Tee-hee, Amie. I didn’t want to say the author name, but uh… ;)
And no, I don’t think I’ve read Editrix’s reviews. Do you have a link?
And I don’t want to offend anyone by posting the other book I talked about, but I’d be happy to tell you if you want to email me.
And, Emily? I liked the author’s voice in Stray, but I thought the heroine was way too whiny for my tastes, she drove me crazy. And the guy who got her totally didn’t deserve her… so you’re not the only one.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
>>Does it help when I promise a sequel for the rejected one?
Absolutely!!!!
Grammar..she hasn’t posted in AGES but it’s HYSTERICAL!!!
http://e-d-trix.livejournal.com/
March 17th, 2008 at 9:37 pm
I’ve had a couple — but one comes to mind. An anthology of 4 novellas, all tied in with this chalice that goes from generation to generation. It was inspirational and I knew that going in so I was okay with that.
But the last novella was set just post-WWII in what would become Israel. And the hero and heroine were both Jewish and survivors of the Holocaust. But they befriended some Christian doctors and nurses and everyone was getting along. It was very lovely — they had them over for Passover, etc. The hero was even very involved in the creation of Israel.
Great story, I thought. Then I turned the page and read the very tiny epilogue. Which basically said that after they thought about it, converting to Christianity was the way to go.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t mind if someone decides to convert — that’s their right. But she had set up these characters as devoutly Jewish, etc. And then betrayed everything they stood for in a couple of paragraphs.
One of the very few books that I truly threw across the room.
Julie
March 17th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
You know I adore Jodi Picoult and I’d never throw one of her books against the wall they are Brilliant until the end BUT then she kind of gives up at the end of her books and I feel like I could pull a better ending out of my butt. My Sister’s Keeper anyone?
March 18th, 2008 at 12:33 am
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