I had to drop the Homunculus Tears novel (subtitle: Alchemy for the Brokenhearted) halfway through. It’s just so painfully overloaded with both forced sentimentality and forced fanservice. Basically nothing redeeming about it.
Something else I ended up dropping was the eleventh Kuitsume Youhei novel, which features the protagonists acting like complete idiots. They’ve experienced mind control before! Why are they so baffled about the people in this village not acting normally? When the animal companion is the smartest person in your party something has gone very, very wrong.