I didn't think I was particularly sensitive to epithets...

[ratcreature]

...but this historical m/m romance novel I'm reading (Best Laid Plaids by Ella Stainton) is driving me crazy. Between both of them referring to themselves and each other sometimes by first, sometimes by last name, and also by hair color, body size, age and occasionally nationality in a dizzying, randomized cycle, there are entirely too many things to refer to just two people.

It's really frustrating, because the sex scenes are decent otherwise, the paranormal plot so far is interesting, and the characters likeable, but this makes it nearly unreadable.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Some authors seem to think that writing same-sex relationships is an exercise in pronoun avoidance!

[ratcreature]

Yes, this reached ridiculous levels as if it was a game of lava floor with pronouns. It's actually one of the few times I remember being put off epithets in otherwise competent writing. I'm not stringent about always hating every instance, sometimes they can work for description, and I won't notice, but it's very intrusive here.

It seems to be the author's first novel (unless she wrote under a different pseud before), so it might be inexperience? But you'd that with the first thing you sell you work extra hard, and would ask others, and I can't think how anyone could read this and not tell her to at least tone it down, and also to just stick to one name for a character per pov scene rather than using both first and last name separately.