Grumblings about authors

I am sliding into my 'meaning of life' mode, but to distract me, I've been reading some 'fluff'. Yeah, you know, mindless entertainment to keep one from anything productive. The problem with fluff often is that one has to suspend their sense of reality beyond the vanishing point. One would think with my fantasy leanings this would mean anything is up for grabs. Um, no. I just wonder why authors repeatedly think it is good characterization to tell me that a character is brave or modest or evil and yet the said character never does anything brave, modest or evil. Do we ever believe someone who we just witnessed flirting outrageously when they say- "I'm usually modest, I don't know what overcame me, I don't know why he is flirting back with me- oh my gosh!" I suppose they didn't intend on a character driven story, the plot is suppose to carry me beyond that, but then please don't stick me in the mind of the dullest character you can come up with to watch the events of the story unfold. I know you told me he/she/it was intriguing but since they haven't thought, said or did anything as of yet compelling while the interesting characters are off the page doing something...well, interesting... I think I'll just put the book back on the shelf, thanks. Isn't one of the rules of writing "show don't tell"? (Of course, for those who take it literally, that leaves us with a large percentage of the short stories in literary genre in which I get to read minute but beautiful details about the dresser and the dust motes floating in the air...and, oh wait, turn the page there's got to be more, um hmm, nope, the end. At this point I don't know what to say, I turn back a page, forward, but it is really over. I'm not sure what happened, what the point was. Oops, I was expecting a point? My bad.)