What makes you dump a book?

[Mabinogia]

Oh, I know it's not that big a deal. It just rubbed me wrong given all the other ways in which he seems to treat her as a child. It's set in the past few years. Their meeting was really contrived, so through the first book I though "ok, so this guy is preying on her, possibly part of the conspiracy, getting close to her to make her think she's going nuts" but apparently they are together through the whole series so I think it's all supposed to be cute but I never cared for unbalanced relationships. Oddly, I'm fine with it in a consensually sexual aspect but not in daily life. The books weren't quite good enough to make up for it. If the story is really good I can overlook something like that, and I did through the first book and even read the second but I gave up and passed on the third.

I'm one of those rare readers who has no problem dropping a book. In this day of the internet it is easy enough to find out how the mystery ended. Viva la internet. It has saved me countless hours of reading bad books or watching bad movies.

[Danny Franks]

When I start to feel like I'm being preached to by the author. I just gave up on Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers, because it almost immediately felt like a lecture on tolerance of trans/LGBT/neutral lifestyles rather than an actual story that I was interested in reading. I have no problem with any of the messages the author was trying to get across, I'm just not interested in being 'educated' on why there should be things like gender neutral pronouns when I'm trying to read a novel.

It didn't help that the story was dull, either.

[AuntiePam]

Danny, I had the same problem with a book with a Native American character.  I've forgotten the title and author, but the author seemed to think that readers didn't know anything about mistreatment of Native Americans.  The book was full of preaching about man's inhumanity to man. 

I think if a reader chooses a book that speaks to social issues, the author should realize that the reader is interested in that subject and will already have enough background that they don't need lessons. 

[GaT]

I can remember dumping a book without finishing it only one time in my life, but it was so long ago, I can't even remember what it was. I think the author's first name was Lawrence, but that's all I remember. That said, I kind of just dumped 2 books. I buy most of my books online from Barnes & Noble, & I usually wait until I get a 20% coupon to do it. At the end of the year they always send out a ton of coupons, so sometimes I have a coupon with nothing to buy. For some reason last year I decided to get the Ruby Red trilogy by Kerstin Gier. I've read YA books before & enjoyed them, but after I read Ruby Red, which is the first book, I just couldn't convince myself to read Sapphire Blue or Emerald Green, the other two books. It wasn't that the book was bad, but the heroine is the most simplistic version of a 16 years old girl there is, she's got a best friend, she's never been kissed, & of course she's got a family secret. This is a very young YA book, & after skimming a couple of pages in the second book, I decided to put them on my "books to get rid of pile". 

[Ceindreadh]

I read about 3 or 4 of the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella before giving up on them, for the simple reason that every book seemed to be retreading the same plot over and over again.

Shopaholic starts off in loads of debt, digs herself deeper and then through luck or people bailing her out gets back on her feet again financially...until the next book

I got so frustrated with the last one I read that I actually physically threw it against the wall. 

(I do actually like her writing though, and I've enjoyed most of her non-Shopaholic books)

[Athena]

On 2016-09-03 at 4:59 PM, Ceindreadh said:

I read about 3 or 4 of the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella before giving up on them, for the simple reason that every book seemed to be retreading the same plot over and over again.

 

  Hide contents

Shopaholic starts off in loads of debt, digs herself deeper and then through luck or people bailing her out gets back on her feet again financially...until the next book

 

I got so frustrated with the last one I read that I actually physically threw it against the wall. 

(I do actually like her writing though, and I've enjoyed most of her non-Shopaholic books)

I'm like you. I like Kinsella's writing. She has a way with dialogue and on the whole, her characters are fun and even sometimes relatable. I recently read the latest Shopaholic book with Becky going to Las Vegas. I've read most of the books in the series, but I have skipped the last couple. I decided to see how the series was going. This recent one was not exactly like the aforementioned formula. Kinsella has made some effort for Becky to show character development. I think it has worked. The books are not great literature and they are still as easy to read as ever.

[Black Knight]

On September 3, 2016 at 1:59 PM, Ceindreadh said:

I read about 3 or 4 of the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella before giving up on them, for the simple reason that every book seemed to be retreading the same plot over and over again.

I quit Maria V. Snyder's "Study" series for the same reason. I was disappointed because I loved the first book, Poison Study, but as the series went on it was increasingly obvious how episodic the books were, with every episode following the same arc of the heroine diving headlong into danger and then getting herself out of it again. There's only so long I can stick with a character who creates their own problems over and over and over again...

My pet peeve is probably excessively whiny characters, if it's not being done for humor. The protagonist of James Dashner's Maze Runner trilogy is the perfect example. I somehow finished the series, grinding my teeth through the third book, only because I was hoping/expecting a certain twist that would have salvaged some of the things I disliked and gotten the protagonist to stop whining for five seconds. The twist didn't happen, and I swore I'd never read Dashner again.

I also have trouble when a book is not what I thought it was going to be - not bad, just not what I thought. I've taken to not reading the descriptions on the book flaps because I find they are so often misleading...or they go too far in the other direction and give away a major twist. I can't imagine how annoyed I would've been if I'd actually read the description for Neal Stephenson's seveneves (which I loved), which gives away something that around two-thirds of the book is spent leading up to.

[CouchPotatoLady8]

When a character's inner monologue goes on and on and on and on. Also, when an author uses too many "big words" in just one page to prove that he/she majored in literature or something. -__-

Like, this is supposed to be an erotica, not a Jane Austen novel. 

[topanga]

This is more of a peeve, but I hate the fact that more often than not, when a novel starts describing a beautiful female character, that description will include her pale skin and light blue, almost translucent eyes. And I'm not mad just because I don't have pale skin or light eyes. But you don't have to have pale skin or light eyes to be beautiful, do you?

Or if the woman is beautiful and also happens to be a woman of color, her skin and looks are usually described as exotic. WTF???

[Mystery]

Bad writing. I gave up on one mystery in the first chapter, but I wanted to give up on it after I read the dedication: "My father died halfway through writing this book." I felt like such a jerk for being picky about her grief, but she had other mistakes that soon drove me away. (Eta he did not write the book. She meant, when she was halfway through..." etc.

Edited October 1, 2016 by Mystery
Clarification

[aradia22]

I have a lot of reasons. Sometimes I start something (usually a classic) and I'm enjoying it, but I can't find the time for it and then it feels weird trying to pick it up again but I don't want to start from the beginning. Examples: Sense and Sensibility, Madame Bovary

Sometimes the prose is tough to get through for one reason or another. Sometimes a translation is a little tough or the flow is just incompatible with the voice in my head. Examples: Swann's Way, The Sun Also Rises

As for modern books, I like romances for a lot of reasons. If I'm in a rush and I have other books in my queue but I want something light, sometimes I'll get a romance from the library on my kindle and read around to get to the good parts (there's a lot of filler). After I've read around, sometimes it's hard to go back to the beginning and read it straight through. Sometimes I'm tempted to do so but I know the book isn't that great already so I'm not that motivated to read it through just to add it to my list of completed books.

Sometimes books are just really long or some kind of anthology or collection of essays and it's just difficult to read in even a few sittings. Those are difficult to ever really get through because you're not compelled to move forward because there's no connective tissue.

[AuntiePam]

I just dumped Home: A Post-Apocalypse novel by Tom Abrahams.  Thank heaven it was a Kindle freebie.  I didn't make it past the first few pages.  The author described his weapons, ammo, and the effects therefrom in glorious detail.  This is the first in a trilogy and I can't imagine anyone other than a gun nut wanting to read any farther.  Some of the Amazon reviews panned it for religiosity and preaching, as well as the overkill on the weapons info.  

[tenativelyyours]

The unreliable narrator.  Thanks to Gone Girl of course and more recently, the success of The Girl on the Train, this is the new form for "thriller".  The problem is that as soon as the trick is apparent if not revealed, it also shows huge narrative holes in simply good story telling (a reviewer pointed out shortly after Gone Girl how an unreliable narrator is actually a cheap device and rather lazy and dumbed down compared to crafting a plot that allows twists to occur naturally). 

More and more of these types of books are getting deals and almost all simply rely too much on not being a sound narrative.  The one about the Hen Party, something about House in the woods or something like that is the latest I hear people raving about and I found so incredibly implausible and contrived it was not funny.  So now the first hint of that I drop the book.  I want a book to be clever not a "trick". 

[Schweedie]

The first person present tense, with rare exceptions. It's just - it's not the way for me to experience a story. When I first listened to The Hunger Games (I audiobook a lot) I actually gave it up about an hour in because of that. I did end up going back and finishing the whole trilogy because the world-building was enough to draw me in, but I despised that choice the whole way through and as much as I enjoy the story, I can't make myself re-read the books. There's something so frustrating and limiting to me about the FPPT - I'm not hugely fond of the first person in general, but the present tense is the make-or-break part of it. I've seen the argument that it creates a sense of immediacy for the reader, but it doesn't work on me at all.

[Danny Franks]

19 hours ago, tenativelyyours said:

The unreliable narrator.  Thanks to Gone Girl of course and more recently, the success of The Girl on the Train, this is the new form for "thriller".  The problem is that as soon as the trick is apparent if not revealed, it also shows huge narrative holes in simply good story telling (a reviewer pointed out shortly after Gone Girl how an unreliable narrator is actually a cheap device and rather lazy and dumbed down compared to crafting a plot that allows twists to occur naturally). 

I can enjoy unreliable narrators if they are not used to hoodwink the reader, which seems to be what you're saying The Girl on the Train does. I like being able to read a story and realise that what the narrator is seeing, or telling you, is perhaps not quite what is happening. At least, you're not getting the full picture.

Robin Hobb's Farseer Trilogy, and the follow up, Tawny Man, were great examples of how a narrator can be unreliable because what he is seeing and remembering is skewed. There are events and character motivations that are only hinted at, and the reader is left to make their own mind up, because the narrator either didn't witness them, didn't understand them, or didn't want to talk about them. But the reader is not deliberately being misled. It's an interesting way of involving the reader.

10 hours ago, Schweedie said:

The first person present tense, with rare exceptions. It's just - it's not the way for me to experience a story. When I first listened to The Hunger Games (I audiobook a lot) I actually gave it up about an hour in because of that. I did end up going back and finishing the whole trilogy because the world-building was enough to draw me in, but I despised that choice the whole way through and as much as I enjoy the story, I can't make myself re-read the books. There's something so frustrating and limiting to me about the FPPT - I'm not hugely fond of the first person in general, but the present tense is the make-or-break part of it. I've seen the argument that it creates a sense of immediacy for the reader, but it doesn't work on me at all.

I really don't like present tense stories. I find them far colder and harder to connect to than past tense. There's just something about the way the present tense works that makes it harder to find an emotional hook. There are probably people who have thought about it far more academically, and psychologically, but that's how it always feels to me. I think that the Red Rising trilogy is the first time I've really been able to connect to first person, present tense storytelling.

Past tense just feels so much more natural. It's a story being told, and stories are naturally things that have already happened.

[Melgaypet]

I also distinguish between unreliable narrators - those who deliberately mislead the reader and those where there's room for the reader to form a different impression. The first is highly irritating to me and, yes, seems like a lazy trick. The only book where I've seen it done well is The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. But I think that's an unusual case, the narrator never lies, just...leaves certain things out.

The second doesn't bother me at all.

Also not a fan of first-person present tense, but I don't think I've ever dumped a book because of it. What makes me dump a book is usually boredom, or the realization that I hate all the characters. That's what happened with Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. I was halfway through like the fourth of fifth book when I thought, "ugh, these people are all awful," and I was done.

[BookWoman56]

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is one of my favorite books, precisely because as Melgaypet noted, the narrator doesn't lie but omits certain things, and then points out to the reader those places in the narrative where the reader should have noted the omissions. I dislike most unreliable narrators or books where there are multiple narrators (two or three is workable, but don't expect me to do the work to keep five or six POVs straight).

I have been dumping more books than I used to, and I think it's mostly because of being able to download free books from Amazon and also using the Amazon Kindle Unlimited plan. I'm reading a lot of authors that I wouldn't if I had to pay directly for one of their books, which is good, but it also means that if I run across the occasional dud, I don't feel bad for deleting one that was free or returning one of the Kindle Unlimited books before I finish it. I will dump books because of extremely bad grammar and/or writing style, or for relying on stereotypes rather than actual character development. Another recent addition to the list of reasons I will dump a book is shoehorning a romance/token sex scene into a murder mystery that doesn't need a romance/token sex scene. I have no problem with sex scenes in general, provided they are written reasonably well, but in murder mysteries it seems to be either (1) potential kidnap/murder victim hooks up with the local law enforcement officer who's supposed to be protecting her, and it's instant passion/best sex ever, or (2) the main character is divorced/separated from his/her spouse and because of their shared danger, they realize they should never have divorced/separated.  And my feeling on that is that by and large, getting into a relationship with someone whose job is to protect you from a killer is a bad idea, and generally when two people have divorced or separated, there were excellent reasons for that divorce or separation, and a few days of danger doosn't resolve whatever underlying problems there were. While I do appreciate the filters Amazon has for what you are looking for in a genre or sub-genre, I wish there were a way to specify that you want a mystery but one without romance.

[Archery]

On ‎12‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 6:52 PM, tenativelyyours said:

The unreliable narrator.  Thanks to Gone Girl of course and more recently, the success of The Girl on the Train, this is the new form for "thriller".  The problem is that as soon as the trick is apparent if not revealed, it also shows huge narrative holes in simply good story telling (a reviewer pointed out shortly after Gone Girl how an unreliable narrator is actually a cheap device and rather lazy and dumbed down compared to crafting a plot that allows twists to occur naturally). 

 

Still Alice, which is about the protagonist dealing with early onset Alzheimer's is an example of the unreliable narrator that is terrific.  The device is used to keep you, the reader, off balance by ever so gradually making it unclear whether what is being described is reality.  It's unsettling and beautifully done. 

[MaggieG]

Whenever characters make stupid decisions. I read a book recently for a book club, if it wasn't for the book club I probably wouldn't have finished it. The main character just made no sense. The tipping point was that she was in a café and she ordered a pastry but then she thought about how much she hated pastries... The good thing was pretty much everyone at the book club hated it lol

And this is just me, but if I can't connect with the characters, then I can't finish.

On ‎12‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 6:52 PM, tenativelyyours said:

More and more of these types of books are getting deals and almost all simply rely too much on not being a sound narrative.  The one about the Hen Party, something about House in the woods or something like that is the latest I hear people raving about and I found so incredibly implausible and contrived it was not funny.  So now the first hint of that I drop the book.  I want a book to be clever not a "trick". 

I normally don't mind those types of books, it just depends on if the story grabs me. I'm a little curious now about this one. Do you know the title or author?

[auntlada]

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware, @MaggieG. I think I mostly liked it, although I was leaning toward the solution pretty early and was frustrated that the characters didn't see what I saw. (Of course, it's easier for me reading it than for them in the middle of it.) I read it some time ago, though, and have read quite a few books since so I don't remember exactly how I felt.

[AuntiePam]

Just dumped Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay.   Some weird word choices made me stumble -- such as describing a park as "200 acres large".  I kept reading, telling myself to focus on the story, not the grammar.  But when Tremblay started a sentence with "Her and Sam", that was too much. 

Are there no proofreaders anymore? 

[bubbls]

1. Fiction written in the first person. Can't stand it. 

2. Sex scenes. I don't want gratuitious sex intruding into an interesting story (obviously I'm not talking about bodice rippers or erotica). Even one with a romantic aspect. I love Linda Howard's books, but the sex turns me off. It's also ridiculously inaccurate. Yeah, all women have orgasms from kissing. Rolling my eyes. I'm exaggerating but not much. 

3. Animal abuse, even factionalized.

4. Too much description. Just tell me it's a city sidewalk on a sunny spring day with a breeze. I've got a good imagination. I don't need a chapter of details. I love books on tape, but I quickly realized with an audiobook you.must.suffer.all.the.details I'd normally skim  

[Calvada]

I've become much more likely to dump a book as I've gotten older, as I am much more aware of how precious time is and am less likely to waste it on a mediocre book.

I love mysteries, so if I get to about page 100 and realized I don't care who killed the victim, I'll give it up.  Mysteries lend themselves to series, and I've found that some start to sound all the same, which means I've dumped some authors when I realize that book #15 is indistinguishable from book #14 which was the same as book #13. 

Also, I get most of my books from the library (our greatest national resource IMO - I love libraries!), and if a previous borrower has been a heavy smoker, I can't read the first page, can't even stand to hold the book in my hands.  Several times I've returned a book and asked that a different copy be reserved for me.  That's the great thing about interlibrary loan; I'm not limited to the books in my local library. 

[Mabinogia]

So I just tried to read a book in first person present. The worst!!!! Especially as it was told by 5 different people. The first part was in first person past which was fine, but then it jumped into the past and became FPP. It was god-awful. It was a ghost story so I really wanted to know what was going on so I skimmed through most of it. Got 80% through it in about two hours and just couldn't do it anymore. Thankfully I got it free from amazon. Never going to make that mistake again.

I, too, find as I've gotten older I am much more willing to drop a book. The internet helps. When there is a mystery I want to know the resolution to, but just cannot stomach the terrible writing or unlikeable characters, I can hit the web and see if I can find a spoiler because I do hate not knowing how things end. But yes, life is too short to suffer bad writing.

[auntlada]

What was the book, @Mabinogia?

[Cherry Cola]

I didn't know there was a book section on here.  Woohoo! 

I read Agatha Christie's ' And then there were none.'  The writing was so choppy, I hated to read it.  I skimmed it to get the gist of it.  The thing was, the afterword was written smoothly and I enjoyed it. Weird. 

I also hate too much description of a place or object. I don't care unless it's vital to the story.  Keep it moving! 

[Mabinogia]

14 hours ago, auntlada said:

What was the book, @Mabinogia?

It was called The Haunting of Blackwych Grange. It had promise, a group of researchers go to a haunted house (I'm a sucker for a good ghost story), and I was really into the first section (which dealt with them) but then it went back to the guy who built the house, and a woman who lived in the house and their first person present accounts bothered me to no end given we'd already been in the present. It felt an odd choice.

The plot wasn't all that great by about the halfway mark so I abandoned it. I may go to the end just to see one storyline that I was curious about but it was very, VERY skimmable through the middle bits.

[Schweedie]

On 2017-01-12 at 7:42 PM, Archery said:

Still Alice, which is about the protagonist dealing with early onset Alzheimer's is an example of the unreliable narrator that is terrific.  The device is used to keep you, the reader, off balance by ever so gradually making it unclear whether what is being described is reality.  It's unsettling and beautifully done. 

Oh yes, this. I don't particularly mind the unreliable narrator if I know *why* they're unreliable and there's a good reason for it, and Still Alice is a great example of that. 

[bubbls]

On 1/27/2017 at 0:48 PM, Mabinogia said:

It was called The Haunting of Blackwych Grange. It had promise, a group of researchers go to a haunted house (I'm a sucker for a good ghost story), and I was really into the first section (which dealt with them) but then it went back to the guy who built the house, and a woman who lived in the house and their first person present accounts bothered me to no end given we'd already been in the present. It felt an odd choice.

The plot wasn't all that great by about the halfway mark so I abandoned it. I may go to the end just to see one storyline that I was curious about but it was very, VERY skimmable through the middle bits.

 

What a shame because I'd gobble that storyline up if done well. 

[scarynikki12]

I didn't exactly dump him but I did have a few years where I refused to read any Neil Gaiman.  A recent conversation in the book thread of the American Gods forum reminded me why.  In my experience, he's a dick to fans in real life, unless he's dealing with the people who worship the ground he walks on.  During his tour for Ocean At The End Of The Lane, he was very rude to one of the people working the event, when she asked if he would sign her copy of Neverwhere.  His response was "no, you should have bought a ticket, now leave me alone".  To me, when I asked if he was doing any other promotion besides the tour, he said "of course not, what a stupid question".  My friend, who was right behind me and had just bought the book, said something about how she was looking forward to reading it and his response was "why are you here if you haven't read it?"  Comparing notes with other friends, acquaintances, and the employees of one of the book stores sponsoring the event (a few of us complimented them on how smoothly the event ran and not punching him in the face which prompted the conversation), revealed that he was rude to anyone who didn't obviously worship at his feet (the worshippers, on the other hand, all got hugs, smiles and/or eye contact).  The book store people even said that he was so awful to the event workers that his publisher not only issued them an apology, but did it in such a way that it was clear this wasn't unusual behavior.

After witnessing, experiencing, and learning more about his shitty attitude I stopped reading/re-reading his work.  Last year I started again with the graphic adaptations of Coraline and The Graveyard Book but I'm keeping myself limited to just his work. 

[Haleth]

Well, that is disappointing.

[scarynikki12]

My advice is to read his stuff but don't meet him.

[Blergh]

My advice re Neil Gaiman (and any author one dislikes) : If one dislikes an author as a person but likes their work, wait til the library has copies of said work to read it so one doesn't have one's monies go help contribute to the support of someone one dislikes!

[Katy M]

I hate to not finish a book when I start one, so I don't do it for pet peevey things.  But, I probably won't read something from the same author if they use minimalist punctuation. I'm talking to you Cormac McCarthy.  I read one of the Bones books by Kathy Reichs.  That woman is addicted to similes.  No more for me.  Unless there is some really good characterization reason why it needs to happen, please don't make half your dialogue swear words.  And, please don't make me read 3 page long paragraphs.

[proserpina65]

On ‎05‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 9:43 PM, scarynikki12 said:

I didn't exactly dump him but I did have a few years where I refused to read any Neil Gaiman.  A recent conversation in the book thread of the American Gods forum reminded me why.  In my experience, he's a dick to fans in real life, unless he's dealing with the people who worship the ground he walks on.  During his tour for Ocean At The End Of The Lane, he was very rude to one of the people working the event, when she asked if he would sign her copy of Neverwhere.  His response was "no, you should have bought a ticket, now leave me alone".  To me, when I asked if he was doing any other promotion besides the tour, he said "of course not, what a stupid question".  My friend, who was right behind me and had just bought the book, said something about how she was looking forward to reading it and his response was "why are you here if you haven't read it?"  Comparing notes with other friends, acquaintances, and the employees of one of the book stores sponsoring the event (a few of us complimented them on how smoothly the event ran and not punching him in the face which prompted the conversation), revealed that he was rude to anyone who didn't obviously worship at his feet (the worshippers, on the other hand, all got hugs, smiles and/or eye contact).  The book store people even said that he was so awful to the event workers that his publisher not only issued them an apology, but did it in such a way that it was clear this wasn't unusual behavior.

After witnessing, experiencing, and learning more about his shitty attitude I stopped reading/re-reading his work.  Last year I started again with the graphic adaptations of Coraline and The Graveyard Book but I'm keeping myself limited to just his work. 

I worked in a bookstore for more than a decade, and we tended to judge authors by how they treated the employees who worked their events.  (Brian Jacques was a bit iffy, but the mother/son team who write as Charles Todd were absolute dolls.)  Behavior like you've described would put me off an author permanently, so I admire anyone's ability to separate behavior from writing.

[Hanahope]

8 hours ago, proserpina65 said:

I worked in a bookstore for more than a decade, and we tended to judge authors by how they treated the employees who worked their events.  (Brian Jacques was a bit iffy, but the mother/son team who write as Charles Todd were absolute dolls.)  Behavior like you've described would put me off an author permanently, so I admire anyone's ability to separate behavior from writing.

How does a bookstore get an author to come to speaking/autograph event?  Some authors visit  the bookstores near me frequently, but others show up once (to a good-sized crowd) , but never again.  And other authors only go to bookstores hours away, never in my area (decent sized city).

[proserpina65]

17 hours ago, Hanahope said:

How does a bookstore get an author to come to speaking/autograph event?  Some authors visit  the bookstores near me frequently, but others show up once (to a good-sized crowd) , but never again.  And other authors only go to bookstores hours away, never in my area (decent sized city).

Ours were mostly arranged by our corporate offices, but occasionally an employee had a connection with someone local.  That's how the Charles Todd event happened - a friend of the family worked in our store. 

I worked for the late, much lamented Borders, at a store in Delaware.  Surprisingly, we were pretty much always one of their top ten performing stores (Top 5 after 9-11) despite being in the relative middle of nowhere.  So we got some good authors now and then.  We had Nora Roberts once, but I was on vacation and didn't get to meet her; apparently she was nice.

[Katy M]

2 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I worked for the late, much lamented Borders

I miss Borders.  There was one in the town 20 miles away so I didn't go that often.  Then, the local independent bookstore in town that I liked burned down.  There's another independent book store in town, but I'm always afraid I'll be run out of there.  They are very liberal new-agey, which is fine, just not me, and I feel like everyone is staring at me when I walk in.  Yes, I realize that is probably all in my head.  Then, there are actually 2 used book stores and a book store dedicated entirely to mysteries.  This is in a town of just over 10,000 people.  So, I don't think I can complain, we are clearly above the norm.  And, none of these stores was added after the one burned down. 

[Browncoat]

I just quit reading a book because it doesn't have any stopping places -- no chapter breaks, no pauses for breath, just relentless paragraph after paragraph.  With some books, that might be okay, but this one just isn't holding my attention enough to read endlessly without being able to stop (and find my place once I pick it up again).

[partofme]

Well I had decided a few years ago that I was done reading Jodi Picoult but then I decided maybe I would try Small Great Things, and then in the first sentence of like the third chapter a white supremacist character uses the n word.  I'm a white girl and I find that highly offensive.  I know he's a white supremacist but I don't know that I want to be getting the pov of such a character and sympathizing with him because of all the horrible things that have happened to him in his life, so I think I'm done with it.

[ilovethedark]

This is more of a deal breaker than anything, any author that uses the term beta reader on the cover or anywhere in their self-published book I assume is going to be poorly written. I spent way too much time in the world of fanfic, especially fanfic.net in the early 2000's to have patience for that term. I found most beta readers were really shit at their jobs and the little bit of fanfic that comes across my Tumblr feed hasn't changed my opinion. If you want to self publish, cool, use your betas real first name in the dedication page as someone who helped write the book, do not list their handles (herminoeluvsron, angeleyez92, etc). There was a book I almost bought about a Magdalene laundry in 1960's Ireland, I liked the synopsis until I saw the beta reader part, then I noped and put it back on the shelf.

 

Andy Weir, (The Martian), did a really great job of self-publishing, so there is talent there. I know he spent a lot of time researching everything in that book and having it edited, which paid off with a terrific piece of work; which eventually was picked up by a major publisher. However, if the phrase "I'd like to thank my beta" is dropped I assume the author didn't spend any time researching or having a real editor/someone who is not your online friend look over your manuscript. I'd like to add to that you should also list your reaserch (please do research) especially if it's a historical or heavy science based work. I can forgive a lot historical fudging as long as it makes sense or is intentional for dramatic or allegorical purposes. If it's being played straight and Queen Elizabeth goes to fight King Louis XIV I won't touch it no matter how well written the purple prose might be.

[Haleth]

I'm dropping a book I started last week.  I won't name it to avoid spoiling it for anyone else, but it's about a group of people who are together during a particular crisis, with each chapter focusing on one character's backstory.  I read the first two and both characters ended up dead by the end.  If the book continues to ask the reader to become invested in each character, only to have him/her die at the end, this isn't the book for me.  Even if it turns out the rest survive, to start off with the first two dying has turned me off.  Too depressing.

[Vanderboom]

Another pretty peeve to add to the list: label whoring in books. Constant references to brand names only (but not really) works for explicitly shallow characters.  I'm currently reading a cozy mystery, and I hate that I have to keep reading passages like "I slipped the envelope into my Tory Burch tote, which was on the floor next to my Manolo Blahnik mules. Little did he know I was also recording the conversation with the device in the pocket of my Alice & Olivia jacket." (Just a made-up example) Ugh! Had to resurrect this thread to complain.

Edited March 7, 2019 by Vanderboom

[Katy M]

On ‎7‎/‎2‎/‎2017 at 7:42 PM, ilovethedark said:

If it's being played straight and Queen Elizabeth goes to fight King Louis XIV I won't touch it no matter how well written the purple prose might be.

Well, now you've done it.  I have to read a book about a time-travelling Elizabeth I.  However, I've decided I want her to fight Louis XVI instead, because she of his siding with American in the American Revolution and therefore weakening monarchy.

[proserpina65]

The words "Victarion Greyjoy" and "Euron Greyjoy".

Okay, not really, but I do tend to skip those chapters.

[Black Knight]

Heh. For me, it's "Bran." Which is unfortunate because some of the things he sees and learns are kiiiiiiiiiinda important to the overall plot. (I have the same struggle with TVBran. I was so happy for the Bran-free season. I'm rewatching the entire series now and forcing myself to pay attention during the Bran scenes this time around. What a slog.)

[blackwing]

11 hours ago, Black Knight said:

Heh. For me, it's "Bran." Which is unfortunate because some of the things he sees and learns are kiiiiiiiiiinda important to the overall plot. (I have the same struggle with TVBran. I was so happy for the Bran-free season. I'm rewatching the entire series now and forcing myself to pay attention during the Bran scenes this time around. What a slog.)

I don't mind book Bran so much but I really despise TV Bran.  Oh he's so pensive and sagacious!  Important things are happening!  Pffffttt.  TV Bran is fast forward material for me.

On 3/7/2019 at 10:11 AM, Vanderboom said:

Another pretty peeve to add to the list: label whoring in books. Constant references to brand names only (but not really) works for explicitly shallow characters.  I'm currently reading a cozy mystery, and I hate that I have to keep reading passages like "I slipped the envelope into my Tory Burch tote, which was on the floor next to my Manolo Blahnik mules. Little did he know I was also recording the conversation with the device in the pocket of my Alice & Olivia jacket." (Just a made-up example) Ugh! Had to resurrect this thread to complain.

Agreed.  This does happen a lot in cozy mysteries.  But I just encountered it in the latest Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt book, "Celtic Empire".  The two heroes encounter the research scientist they rescued from a sinking ship only now she looks so much different all cleaned up and wearing an Ellie Tahari (sp?) business suit.  Yeah right.  Like two dudes would be able to identify that she was wearing an "Ellie Tahari" suit.  It'd be more like "hey, she's in a suit".

[Anduin]

I was reading Fire and Blood, but found I couldn't go on. It's good, it just isn't the book for me. Essentially, I'm not that big of a GRRM fan. I prefer my fiction to be heavy on the adventure, light on the political scheming. ASOIAF is mostly the other way around. If Winds of Winter ever comes out, I'll give that a shot. Until then, I'm not going to bother with any more Martin side projects. He doesn't need the encouragement.

[DearEvette]

There are a few things that will make me DNF ((Did not Finish) a book:

1 - Everything is cliche.  If I can see your next plot development from miles away, if I can predict the dialogue, if I have seen these characters and know what they'll do even before they do it.  Then the book is dead to me.  This is is especially the case if the story is dull or written in a pedestrian way.

2- A good story undermined by terrible writing technique.  There is this one writer who kinda blasted out on the scene in romance novels in a big way years ago, self pubbed.  She was a good storyteller, but ye gods, her craft was ... not great.  It is kinda like in figure skating where they get one score on artistic merit and one on technical.  Her technical was abysmal.  Some of it I could forgive early on because like I said her storytelling was engrossing and it was quirky... at first.  In later books the flaws became writ large.  Listening on audio just magnified everything that was wrong tenfold.  The last book of hers I tried to read I had to ditch, all the tics and writing issues I could hand wave away earlier just couldn't do it anymore.

3- No research.  And I am not talking about dissertation level research here.  I am talking about stuff a simple google search would verify.  I closed one book where the main character refused to go to her doctor to get prenatal care because she didn't want the people in her company to know she was pregnant.  And HR would know exactly what happened during a simple doctor's office visit.  And this was not written in such a way that the character was misinformed, it was written as fact.   I read one book where they had JFK airport in upper Manhattan.  And it was not an alternate history or science fiction.  It was a contemp fiction. Sigh.

[Dandesun]

On 4/3/2019 at 7:09 AM, blackwing said:

I don't mind book Bran so much but I really despise TV Bran.  Oh he's so pensive and sagacious!  Important things are happening!  Pffffttt.  TV Bran is fast forward material for me.

Agreed.  This does happen a lot in cozy mysteries.  But I just encountered it in the latest Clive Cussler Dirk Pitt book, "Celtic Empire".  The two heroes encounter the research scientist they rescued from a sinking ship only now she looks so much different all cleaned up and wearing an Ellie Tahari (sp?) business suit.  Yeah right.  Like two dudes would be able to identify that she was wearing an "Ellie Tahari" suit.  It'd be more like "hey, she's in a suit".

I am a woman person and I wouldn't recognize someone in an Ellie Tahari suit. I didn't even know that was a thing. Isn't it just possible to describe said suit as 'impeccably tailored' or 'clearly a designer label?' 

If I ever read a cozy mystery where someone drinks Kim Crawford wine I am burning that book! Because I am against that wine on principle!!