I’m very much a person who judges books by their covers (ironic for an author to say that, no?) but even so I still give them a chance for a few chapters before putting them down. I’ve managed to find some gems, and a lot of… not gems. Recently I’ve been reading a novel (that I have since dropped) and it made me think that while having comedic characters is fine, having them halt the plot entirely is just the worst.
Sometimes I do wonder what’s in the author’s mind when they just have a character spout out gags and one-liners that just bogs down the pace they had established. What would have been an initially harmless character becomes irritating and unpleasant. It’s a shame that these kinds of things can turn me off from what might be an amazing story, but I don’t like tolerating such things since it feels like a blemish on an otherwise spotless story.
Verdant Plateau 