Top Ten Tuesday-What Makes Me Put Down A Book

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together.  http://www.thatartsyreadergirl.com/top-ten-tuesday/

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I'm not interested in the topic this week as I can't think of anything interesting that I neglected to read a book. Nothing at all, because I don't have an exciting life like that. Instead I'll reverse last week and say what makes me avoid or DNF a book in my favourite genres.

1) Slow
I like a book to pretty much get on with the story so it gets on my nerves if I'm 100 pages in and nothing of any note has happened. I don't mind prepper novels that show someone getting their family and home ready for a disaster as there is a point to it but I hate when the book is full of pointless filler material rather than just getting into the story. I get bored and quit if the plot drags along with nothing happening. 

2) Moronic Characters
If there is a cast of whiny brats, morons or drunken drugged up idiots then I won't care what happens to them. I hate obnoxious racists and bigots, steriotype evil small town cop, the asshat show off. It is vital for me to like my MC so I hate bullying violent rapist guy that makes women swoon, junkies and violent criminals/prisoners as heroes, whiny or megabitch females, useless pathetic female who can't do anything without help from a man.

3) Love Triangles I just can't stand any kind of love triangles in my books. If our heroine is having to take all this time to decide who she wants to be with, it tends to dominate the plot. I want to read about the mystery, the quest, the disaster etc instead of pages of whining about who to pick. If there is even a hint of a love triangle in a UF blurb, I won't even look at it. If a book I'm reading starts going into this territory, it's pretty safe to bet I'll DNF. 

4) Relationship Angst
I get really annoyed when the plot goes nowhere because of dumb relationship drama. I despise this 'melting at his very touch and can't resist him even if I want to' stuff in my zombie apocalypse. I hate my YA books to have constant bickering between MCs, constant bitching, instalove, soulmate declarations, and love triangles. I hate urban fantasy where it is more like a paranormal romance, and love hate crap taking away from the plot.

5) Misleading Blurbs
I'm sick of blurbs that say a book is UF and when you read it, it's actually sex filled PNR. I think people should be told if there are love triangles, animal cruelty, sexual abuse and rape, lots of bad language, tons of sex or violence etc so we can choose whether we want to read it or not! Stop having blurbs that don't reflect the actual plot or blurbs that ruin the plot twists! I'm getting really annoyed with blurbs that are useless!

6) No Cohesive Plot
I hate a plot where there is no cohesion or I'm wondering what the feck is happening. I hate a confused plot where I can't work out what is happening, timelines that jump around too much or go from one scene or person to another without clearly telling the reader. Switching POV without clearly telling the reader can also be pretty vannoying in Indie books with bad editing. I like a story that flows and makes sense!

7) Language
I'm not bothered by bad language in books as long as it serves a purpose-a foul mouthed funny character, using it for dramatic purposes to convey an emotion etc. But I really hate it when there are just pages and pages of foul language with no purpose because the author is trying to be clever or is too lazy to write good dialogue. I've read books where a character swears three times in a sentence where he is describing furniture in his kitchen, which is pathetic.

8) Boring
I hate when the writing is just dull and boring and it is one thing that makes me DNF a book. I do like fast paced plots or slower plots that are tense and keep you gripped. I hate it when poor writing takes an exciting event like an EMP and turns it bring. I don't enjoy when authors use too much tell and not enough show or when we have a diary format that tells us everything after the event, which sucks the tension and interest out of the plot.

9) Editing
When I read Indie books I get used to the odd error creeping in here and there, as that appears in my mainstream books as well. I can put up with some mistakes if the story is really good. But if I read a chapter full of spelling and grammar mistakes with half finished sentences that make no sense, the MC changing names every few lines, tons of errors etc, I'll figure the author was too lazy to even give it a quick read through so why should I waste my time reading it?

10) Not My Thing
Sometimes books just don't work out because they just aren't my thing. They sound great but when I start reading it goes in a direction I don't like or the plot evolves in a way that I don't like. Other times I just find the story or the writing style just isn't suited to my tastes as a reader. This happens and it is generally about my tastes rather than there being anything wrong with the book itself.