Painful books

Have you ever read a book that was positively painful? And I don't mean, ouch this books gave a paper cut, painful. I mean a cringing painfulness, where you want to burn the book you're reading but at the same time you're dying to know what happens next.

It's like you're screaming at the character (usually the protaganist) "DON'T DO THIS, YOU IDIOT!" but of course, they can't hear you. Then they do something particularly stupid and you don't want to read anymore, but there's that burning desire to find out how they are going to get out of the nice little hole they've dug.

It feels like everything's been set up so you can feel this way, so that you can think of a dozen other choices for the character to make, that avoid the one thing that makes the book interesting. But why would you? Why would an author choose to have their charaters enjoy an easy life? What kind of book would that make? If you want an interesting novel you should make your characters jump through rings of fire. I think so, anyway.

But that's all for I'll say for now. Tata.