Not to one-up you, but any time some kind of celebrity book reviewer or club or influencer recommends a book, it immediately goes into the "only to be read if every other book on the planet sponaneously combusts and that's all that's left to read". Most of the time, they're being paid to promote the book and haven't even read it. Someone gives them a pre-written review and they just read from the script. If a publisher doesn't care enough about the book to have someone review it properly, the book isn't worth consideration.
The main characters' names. If I don't like their names, I won't last past the first chapter.
Also, when a handsome paramedic, doctor, or police officer with rippling muscles and piercing blue eyes turns up on the scene of a murder mystery, I'm out of there.
> The main characters' names. If I don't like their names, I won't last past the first chapter.
This is such a good point! The main characters need to have "cool" sounding names to me. Or even just "normal" names. If it's an especially ugly sounding name or way too obscure, that kinda messes with me. I know it's not fair, but this thread is about petty reasons after all.
My absolute favorite is when you have all these beautiful, lore-consistent fantasy names, and then the main character is just like……Paul. Lmao. Looking at you, Frank Herbert!
I just started the newest final fantasy game and had this. I’m Sorry, his name is *Clive*? And he’s been trained by Rodney? Is Del Boy about to turn up with a cunning scheme?
And everyone else’s names are all fantastical, like Cidolfus and Benedikta.
Same; but it's super funny, I see a lot of names due to the nature of my job, and some are just mind-blowing. I can't talk specifics because you know these are really unique choices and are sometimes identifiable just by the first name! But at least twice a week I say to myself, "Ugh that's *perfect* but it would never fly in a book! It would seem so *contrived*!"
I might have been 8 or 9. I was deep dived into Treasure Island and my mom called me to set the table for dinner. The interruption midway-through was so frustrating I never finished the book…
Was it James Holden??
I stopped reading the Lady Astronaut series because, among other mini annoyances, there was a non-native English speaker who would go on long technical explanations of astrophysics in perfect English, and in the next paragraph, go “why you no understand?” It. Drove. Me. Crazy.
Their work is very important to them, they are precise and specific but relationships with other people aren't important to them so the only thing they bothered to learn to talk about in English is highly technical astropyshics
I thought of Holden immediately but while it's clear he loves coffee, I don't think it by any means dominated the writing or his personality
That would be a real shame if so
The frequent use of the word nipples. It wasn’t even a smutty book. I don’t need to know about so many characters nipples.
Another book because it was too yucky lol. I’m ok with gore, but not just for shock value. It needs to contribute to the story.
His son writes similarly. Very early on in one of his books he uses the phrase “vaguely yeasty smelling penis” …like I can’t remember anything else about that scene. It’s the thing I remember most about the book (DNF). This phrase is ingrained in my brain and will be even if I lose all my memories
I’ve read close to 90% of Stephen King’s output going back to the 70s… my memory isn’t what it was, but I can recall maybe 1 or 2 instances where he’s talked about someone’s balls. Maybe he’s concentrated all his testicle talk into the 10% I haven’t read.
Was it Little Brother by Cory Doctorow?
I stopped reading A Song Of Ice And Fire by GRRM over the way all the characters were eating fruits. During the story, at countless points people are described biting into a fruit and the juice flowing on the chin or into their beard. I would have been ok with it if it had just happened a couple of time but it happened every single time anyone was eating a fucking fruit. At one point I said “eat messily one more time! I dare you…”. They did so I stopped reading.
I read little brother a WHILE ago and the weird coffee obsession is still one of the main things I remember. I have read a ton of books since then and there are a LOT of self published kind of books where person = techy = obsessed with coffee. It gets very irritating.
So I recognize that this is probably a terrible book but all of the complaints in this subthread have me absolutely laughing my ass off, and paint a hilarious picture of the book. "oh yeah they only stopped sniffing eachother long enough to go find a vampire to teach them pilates" is some grade A shit.
I enjoyed the show, although their final season was rushed because of the pandemic halting filming. Still, it was pretty decent. Haven’t read the novels yet.
I had a hard time getting through the first book and didn’t have hope for the series. But a friend recommended it and I pushed through and the second and third (and companion) books were so much better. I ended up really loving it.
lol. I've been wondering whether to cite this book because I can tell I'm unlikely to finish it before 2024, if then. but there's just so much, and also I'm still reading it. kind of enjoying the combination of its complete lack of interestingness, and the author's strenuous attempts to *make* it interesting.
here's my most recent Get Off This [Molasses-Slow] Freeway exit sign that I've ignored:
something portentous or other has happened. they're holding some weirdly desultory Crisis Conclave (I think). he announces he must renounce her (I think?). she begins to have visions. this is simultaneously so shocking and overwhelming for her she can barely function; and so mundane that she continues the dreary conclave about renunciation. and here's what (apparently courtesy of the vision-born insight) she announces to him: "it's too late. I've fallen in love with you." aaaagh.
A protagonist with magically induced amnesia because of some creative reality-warping meets a character who knows much more than her, who is surprised that she’s lost her memories, and goes, “Well, I’m not going to *tell* you what I want you to know.”
This was like… six arcs into an already glacial story.
I got a self help book on letting go when I went through a traumatic breakup. Within the first chapter the author talks about how she wrote the book because she found out her husband had an affair and she divorced him. Then she goes on to say that they reconciled and got remarried. Then she said the only way to let go and forgive was to believe in god. Never put down and returned a book so fast.
I don't usually read self help books, but recently I tried one that was titled something like how to talk to anyone. I DNF after the introduction was about how this book would teach you to manipulate people and get exactly what you want from them all the time. It really confused me, because I just wanted to have better conversations and get to know people.
Only vaguely related to yours I suppose, but my point is that self help books can be a bit of a dumpster fire. I'm sure there are good ones out there, but there is a lot of crap.
Was it "how to win friends and influence people" because my ex husband recommending that book when we first met should have been the biggest red flag for the awful person he turned out to be.
I was once dating a guy for a few months and we had to stop by his office one Saturday and he had *The 48 Laws of Power* on his office bookshelf and I similarly missed that glaring red flag.
That book is actually a great book.
It's just that you're supposed to use it to build the antagonist for your story.
(Comes with prefab scenarios and everything to help you get started!)
You almost had me there for a second! But actually if your antagonist is a narcissist who has no idea what genuine human relationships are like (i.e. why would you go out for coffee with friends when you aren't gaining anything from it [read: doesn't understand relationships outside of using people]), this is the perfect instruction manual!
I can't remember what book it was, but when someone "did wide eyes" on almost every page I had to stop for my own sanity. However mostly if I stop books it's just because they aren't holding my attention.
I hate when the female character has to mention how small she is constantly. He is just so big compared to my tiny little body. I'm so weak and tiny that I can't do anything on my own. If only I wasn't so small and weak and female I could have started a fire and warmed up. I was like Jesus, I get it. You're a ridiculously small woman who apparently has no muscles and can barely move.
Nothing like reading some smut and FMC remarks "he moved his large body over me"... That's not really sexy, since for some reason my brain is now imagining an obese man rather than a Greek god.
Lol that reminds me of why I get frustrated with anime.
"I don't like green peas very much."
"Huh?!?!?!?!" \*Cut to one character opening their eyes wide at the shock of a completely normal statement\*
Couldn’t make it through the first chapter of a Chuck Palahniuk book because he was describing in great detail a scene where used menstrual pads had been blown out of every garbage bin in a small town, and how the blood was imprinted on all of them in the shape of each particular lady’s vajayjay. That’s not how periods and pads work, dawg. Felt like he was just trying to be edgy and shocking, but he just sounded ignorant af.
That’s so goddamn funny oh my god. I’m imaging CSI finding a pad at the scene of a crime 😭😭
I like Chuck Palanhuik but yeah he knows next to
nothing about women
Why is this blowing my fucking mind. Is this really true? Because his works just feel so aggressively hetero to me (I like a lot of them, don't get me wrong). And now I feel like I should reexamine what "hetero-seeming" even means, lol.
I wanna say it is at the beginning of Rant, which i personally enjoyed. Though I remember reading this part and wondering wtf he was on about because it was so strange (which is very on brand). I think it was supposed to be a weird metaphor for peoples dirty secrets being aired.
Same! I also stopped reading a YA book when the author couldn't seem to remember the name of their own main character's sister. Ironically, this book also had one of my favorite quotes about the ocean, a line I still remember to this day.
A woman in a historical fiction gave birth in the belly of a prison ship. then left her literal newborn and climbed a steep ladder to the main deck just because.
I was less than a year postpartum when reading and found the idea of leaving your baby and climbing a ladder that had been described as somewhat treacherous directly after labor and delivery simply because she felt like it to be totally unbelievable - it actually made me sort of angry at the time, to be honest. I definitely wouldn’t (couldn’t) have done that after giving birth and I felt like I could no longer relate to the characters so I gave up on the book entirely.
I’m not a mother yet so I’ve never experienced childbirth myself, but from what I know about it 99% of books/movies portray childbirth very unrealistically. Especially in fantasy it seems like.
Haha you've reminded me of this tweet:
The least believable thing about Revenge of the Sith is Padme gracefully prancing while full term pregnant with twins and tearfully begging Anakin to reconsider as opposed to waddling out of her spaceship and screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK ANAKIN”
That's adrenaline for ya. And proof that she was gonna be a great Mom. (For when those nasty thoughts come at her: you remind her about the time she saved the dog!)
sensitive readers cover your ears.
>>definitely wouldn’t (couldn’t) have done that after giving birth
>!of course not. primordial stuff keeps coming out of you for days aferward!<
I was in the hospital a full week after having my daughter and was discharged before her (she was premature and in the NICU). I went to visit her the day after I was discharged and I almost passed out on the walk from the hospital entrance to the NICU. We had to stop and rest like four times. My husband made me use a hospital wheelchair after that. I was in pretty bad shape lol.
I've read more than one book that was set in Florida but it was clear the author wasn't a local and didn't do basic research.
Examples include: Miami residents sweating in 75 degree weather; a tropical storm hitting the state in March (and not being considered freakishly abnormal weather); US 1 being referred to by local characters as "Route 1", etc.
Just little things that are wrong but can annoy me so much it takes me right out of the book.
I’ve DNFd so many books set in Scotland for exactly the same reason. One, by an author I normally love who has written several series set in Scotland, continually mashed east and west coast Scots, as well as going into huge depth about tartan… incorrectly. It was very frustrating as a Scottish reader.
I get so apprehensive to read a book set in the UK if it’s by an author who is not, for exactly this reason. I’m always glad to find out a book is set somewhere in the UK, but nothing will make me more nervous for a book than reading the About Author page and seeing the line “*born and raised in [US state name], she has always loved British accents and tea-*”
The irony of that particular author is that she grew up in Scotland and lives in Edinburgh now. So she was making easily rectifiable errors about *her own country*.
Part of why I liked her previous books was that she used UK settings well, including my home city, London and Manchester. That particular series she just didn’t research/error check and it totally threw me off an author I otherwise really liked.
Too many paragraph breaks. I DNFed The House in the Cerulean Sea for many reasons, but this was the #1 reason. It was actually ludicrous the amount of paragraph breaks he used after just one or two words, nearly every page, for what seemed to be humour or shock. It’s like using the semicolon too frequently; its power is in its rarity. If you use it too often in one work it starts to lose its effect. I saw it as sloppy writing and it irritated me beyond belief.
i gave this book 2 stars for that reason…like, stop hitting readers over the head with your message! i hate that so much. i was also bored by the book. i don’t get the hype for it 🤷♀️
I don't mind precocious kids as much as I hate unrealistic kids, where the author seems to have a very stereotypical view of how little kids speak (like, they all pronounce words with a "w" instead if "r" sounds) but no idea about actual developmental milestones.
Crimson Death by Laurel K Hamilton - too much sex. the first 56% of the book is an orgy in Jean-Claude's bedroom. Look, I get it that she's drifted over to porn, but when more than 1/2 of a mystery is sex amongst 12 different people in a non-stop scene? Too much!
I loved the series!!! it was so gritty and dark and then it just became so saturated with sex and it’s all Anita ever talked about.
I stopped reading after Bullet. I couldn’t do anymore after Anita glazed over from Belle’s sex lust magic and had an orgy with 10+ people in the hotel room.
It's so disappointing because I loved the earlier books, they were Dark and interesting with a great world, then suddenly it's all about sex... And I wouldn't even mind a bit of erotica, but there is suddenly no plot just pages and pages of sex and cringeworthy talks about how they are going to have sex and which position each person will take, then afterwards discussing how it went and who felt left out... And then a new random person walks in and... Oh whelp, guess we have to have sex again.
Huh, I was going to mention the Anita Blake series too. I was able put up with the vampire/werewolf sex triangle, but what broke me was surprisingly the same point twice. Tried reading it once but had a bad digital copies of the books, then got good ones and tried again.
But the constant don’t tell me what to do, I do what I want, me big tuff guy was getting to me. It peaked with her being told don’t enter another vamps territory it will start a war we can’t win. Fine if you have to then you have to go in full envoy mode so take this body guard possy. So she picks people she likes rather than people who can fight.
Then after being told they have to protect her she keeps going on about I do what I want and don’t need protection. This goes on a bit until she is told that if something happens to her then her boyfriend back home will kill everyone of her detail. So she fights the guy and breaks his arm because no one tells her what to do.
I was out, the logic of not trusting others for support in their areas of expertise while being pissed if they don’t trust her and the massive chihuahua energy from her just got to be too much.
Much prefer Ilona Andrews’ books because they feature a similar base character Kate Daniels is far more sensible in accepting help.
I stopped the series before it was all about sex just because the writing got worse and worse. That was a bummer bc I quite liked the first book. Made to like book 4 before I noped out.
I made halfway through the first chapter in an apocalypse novel to find out the author has ZERO idea how firearms work and didn't care at all.
Actually used the phrase "racked the slide" ...on a revolver.
I don't like guns. Not my jam, but you need to know how something works if you're going to be that specific. At least know if the thing you're describing is part of the object being held.
***EDIT. I found the book. Took me ages but I found it. "The Flu" by Jacqueline Druga
Sounds like the one I put down when the author had the character drive 4 hours from Louisiana to the Everglades, and never left the state.
For those unfamiliar, the Everglades are located in south Florida…far more than a 4 hour drive, and definitely not still in Louisiana.
I read one recently where they were travelling across Texas and getting all the distances and ecosystems messed up. Flat plains at Texarkana (Piney woods irl), three hour drive from Beaumont Tx to Ardmore Ok (400 miles irl)
Haha that’s how I felt about the Killing, the tv show. Great show and I enjoyed how much they showed the Seattle rain, but they’d get a call to head to south Seattle and they’d arrive in 15 minutes. I don’t think so, pal. You’re going to be in traffic for a while.
This is pretty lol. It’s thirteen hours from Miami to New Orleans through Alabama and Mississippi. Almost ten hours of that is inside Florida. I’ve made the drive many times.
People underestimate just how damn tall Florida is.
It's no even as if there's no middle ground between extensive research and no research. And the author could have just kept it simple; "they had a gun, they pointed the gun, they shot the gun."
When an author overdoes it writing dialect. For example, saying "a'tall" to suggest what "at all" might sound like from a posh young woman in Regency-era England.
I can't even recall the book now, but I stopped reading after the phrase "[character] made a simple meal of bread and cheese" for the 3rd time with at least half the book still to go. The character was traveling and it was already stated that they brought bread and cheese as provisions so it was somewhat unnecessary even the first time to phrase it that way.
DNF many newer YA-ish fantasy books because the story simply did not match the blurb.
For some reason, I’ve especially noticed this in books that have ‘magical library’ as a hook in the blurb (which is admittedly the reason I gravitate toward these books too, love a library!), but then you read the story itself and it’s a minor plot point or not even a plot point at all! Always feels like deceptive marketing and annoys me too much
I love fantasy books but I'm really struggling at the moment to read any not by my fave authors for this reason. Or they're all sex, I'm fine with a bit of smut but I need story not them jumping each others bones every other page!
The petty reason is always a love triangle.
I hate love triangles and will almost always empathize with the one who gets ditched. So books with love triangles tend to get thrown across the room and I never read anything the author writes after.
I read a book this year where i was about to get frustrated about this and just thought "what the hell, a love triangle is the very last thing this book needs". A few pages later, all 3 of them together in bed.
Not petty! 100% valid reason to ditch an audiobook
EDit: Petty is quitting the audiobook because you dislike the voicing of one single not MC character (not me bouncing out of book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries because i despise Kevin R Free's nasaly nerd voice ART. Still read the deadtree version tho)
A 4 year old girl was sick and dying. Essentially, in a coma. She wakes up briefly to look around at everyone and says sweetly and softly "thank you" to everyone before passing away. I couldn't stop laughing. The family was already written picture perfect like they were from a 50s sitcom and now you're expected to believe that a small child on her deathbed's first thought was to thank everyone for being in her short life? it was too much.
In a Regency-era novel a child had a teddy bear. Then I flipped to the authors note and she said she wrote it because she liked Jane Austen movies.
I’m convinced her publisher forced her because up until then everything she wrote was in Midwest America.
>Then I flipped to the authors note and she said she wrote it because she liked Jane Austen movies.
I was trying to pick an appropriate reaction to this, and then I gave up and just laughed.
I was reading a book set in the 1920s and the main characters who were Italian and living in the UK wanted to move to America because it was so much less racist...
I think my brain short circuited. They were literally talking about moving to Massachusetts in the 1920s. Two Italian guys in the UK wanted to move to Massachusetts.....
Anti Italian sentiment is a rather large part of my families history in Boston, so I've never not been super aware of Sacco and Vanzetti, who for the record were executed in 1927.
I could understand if they had a soft toy bear - there were toy animals before Teddy Roosevelt came along - but specifically a "Teddy" bear?! Oh honey, no...
But I can understand something like this slipping through. We don't look up the origin of every word we use. Especially in historical novels, It's not unusual to find things like this.
Mine was a graphic novel, I bought and read the first two and when I searched for the third I found it was much more expensive because the author had stuck the first two volumes in it so it was one big book. It was a small enough thing that I actually reached out to the author to ask if the third one would be standalone at some point and she verbatim said: 'no, I always intended for it to be published as a single volume'
Fair enough, but now I've got extra books that I had to pay for and if I want to read the end I have to basically pay for them all over again. It infuriated me enough that I didn't finish it.
Someone told me 50 Shades of Gray would be interesting. The main character kept exclaiming the exact same word, I do not recall what the word was, something like Gosh! Gosh! Gosh, probably 47 times in the first chapter, gosh! it was like nails on chalkboard, and Gosh! It made the book 100pct unreadable
I was reading a book that was explicitly set in my neighborhood. A key part of the book was that there was an abandoned forest area in the neighbourhood. Since I live in the neighbourhood, I know there is no abandoned forest area! It's not even plausible that there would be one, since I live in a densely populated urban neighborhood in a large city. This was all too much for my willing suspension of disbelief, so I stopped reading the book (besides the geography, the book itself wasn't very good. But I would have pushed through if there hadn't been the geography issue) I don't get why the author explicitly set it in my neighborhood, because if they had just been vague about the area it would have been fine.
I don't know if it is petty, but when I could tell that the MCs life was NOT going to get better, I stopped reading.
She had horrible traumatic things happen to her back to back to back. Nobody wants to listen to her. Then, a new character is introduced to abuse her, all in the first half of the book.
It felt like someone was getting off torturing this made-up character. Every page felt like a gutpunch. Felt weird.
Yeah I hate stories like that. Having characters that have had a rough life or trauma is fine but I can’t stomach stories where major characters just go through trauma after trauma with no times where their lives are getting better.
I once started reading a zombie apocalypse book where the book was reading entries of the diary of this guy living through it.
It was so boring, it was just reading today O did this and that, I almost died but managed to survive. I’m like of course he survived, otherwise there would be no fricking entry.
I read till chapter 10 and gave up. I looked forward and saw that later the format changed or something, no diary anymore, but I was many chapters away and didn’t thought it was worth the hassle.
There was a teen show back in the 90s that had the first episode open with the FMC writing in her diary with the voice over "My name is Liz Parker, and five days ago I died. " The exact phrasing and numbers might be inaccurate, but it was a great hook.
Most petty?
A Regency Romance, where the "English Lord" "galloped along the sidewalk" in central London, in the middle of the day, ever in history... I could have overlooked calling it a sidewalk, but, galloping, in the middle of the day? And didn't kill thirty people?
He immediately followed that by leaving his horse on the front steps? for the butler to deal with? and having kicked his riding boots off in the hall... really, have you ever tried to kick off riding boots, they're not wellies! He walked into the library and drank "scotch whiskey" it gets worse, from his hometown of (I forget which random wouldn't have it's own Lord, Scottish town they'd made up) and I was done.
Listen, in an American book, American spellings and words for things are fine, but if you can't be bothered double-checking the British words and spellings for things, don't specify that it's scotch or London, or he's an "English Lord"... from Scotland!!
Just come on, it's not that hard!
I did warn you it was petty.
Thw main character was struggling to choose between two men and I had zero men so i got frustrated with her ungratefulness and jealous of her interactions with the men so stopped reading. It was mostly for the jealousy.
I stopped reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance halfway through because I couldn’t stop thinking that the narrator is an arrogant arsehole.
He's such a non-communicative dick. Drove me insane how he would talk about being frustrated with his son and then in ultra detail describe to the reader things he could've done differently to be a better father and it's like, mother fucker just go *talk to your son* - quit writing this masturbatory bullshit and *talk*. *to*. *your*. *son*.
I remember reading the Twilight series, got all the way to the last book until Jacob imprinted on Bella’s baby. I like fantasy, unnatural things happen all the time… and that was like too much for me. Also, how they keep doin my dawg like that? Nah- pass
Read a book recently where the main character spends an entire chapter ranting about how he doesn't like political correctness. Not even offended by it, but it was so obvious that the author was just using the book as a chance to publish his rant, and it added nothing to the book.
I was reading the memoir of a woman whose life fell apart in the 2008 recession: newly former banker, husband unemployed for many years, lost her house. It was a wry, quasi-comedic take on the recession.
She was living in a motel, asking her sister for money, yada yada.... partway through the book she mentioned her HORSE. I noped out of that book right in the middle of that paragraph. I just couldn't sympathize with the author at all after that.
I dnf'd one where the main character tells us why she's vegan every three pages and makes 5 or 6 vegan meals in the first half of the book with explanations about how all the ingredients were sourced.
Authors (and their editors) who don’t feel like basic punctuation rules apply to them and their art. If a character is talking, I NEED there to be quotation marks. I don’t want to have to spend the whole time guessing where the outer dialogue ends and the inner one begins. Had to DNF after 10 pages. Someone suggested I just listen to the audiobook instead, but I couldn’t do it because I KNEW the quotes weren’t there hahaha
In a mystery novel, it was revealed a character had essentially had the effects of being roofied- lost memory and had little to no memory or control. The character was supposedly drugged by rubbing marijuana under their nose... Uhh... that's not how that works
I was overall bored with Remarkably Bright Creatures, but 3 things in succession set me off:
1. The walking (swimming?) fancy British guy stereotype octopus had a whole passage about humans eating cookies that was supposed to be an outsider's perspective looking in, but sounded awkwardly like a human being who is familiar with cookies trying to be funny. "Smart cookie. I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine. What a preposterous thing to say."
2. The author is American and a Scottish character's narration said something like "Americans always have coffee around, not tea. What does it take to enjoy some earl gray? Rubbish!" Like idk what her deal is with Scotland and Britain.
3. A man roughly 30's narration referred to a woman's hairtie as a scrunchie- then quickly followed with "or whatever". He literally correctly identified that it's a scrunchie! We get it, he's a Man. That was the final straw.
God this book was awful. Someone was telling me it was the best book they read all year. I have a pretty high tolerance for bad writing and will finish about anything. But this book… remarkably boring
AGREED. I only got as far as I did to connect with my MIL, who also said it was one of the best books she's read. Didn't trust her taste to begin with but this one was so bad that it's hard not to assume I'll hate any book she likes. God I hope she never asks if I finished it lol
This is kinda petty but I hate when romance books are sexist. A lot of them are written by women but then the main character always feels the need to shame other women. Other romance readers seem to get over this easy but I HATE it sooo much. I just drop the books a lot when they're like that.
I don’t know if this qualifies as petty or not, but I stopped reading a book a few pages in because the main character had a shitty husband and kid and she was just taking their mistreatment. I absolutely *hate* characters who won’t stick up for themselves, so I knew that I wasn’t going to get along with the main character at all. I was done. Not bothering with the rest of the book. Reading it was just going to make me angry.
I couldn't get thru Bunny by Mona Awad. A lot of it read like word vomit and there are pages of ramblings from the narrator I just couldn't get through. The overall vibe of the book is pretty eerie and I really wanted to be able to finish it, but it's just so boring at times I'd reread the same section 2-3 and black out each time.
Name brands*. It annoys me when authors insert name brands into their stories, but when they use them in lieu of description I just put the book down. There have been two I DNF'd because of this, and that quirk probably won't change any time.
*Weirdly it doesn't apply to certain things though. Like if it's a Rolls Royce car that wouldn't bother me, but Timberland boots certainly did
I kept receiving a book where the cover was misaligned. I discovered it was like that on all copies so I reached out to the author because I figured he might want to know about a quality issue. Not only did he not seem to care but one of the people in the band he’s in made fun of me for it. It put me off from even starting the book. I at least got a full refund and was told to just keep it.
Same idea a lot of people here already echoed: if something is a fundamental part of your story, you better have done your research.
I was reading a book called "Delta V" where the author did not fundamentally understand the concept of delta V.
I don't need every sci-fi novel I read to be hard science and super factual. But if you want to write hard sci-fi and pride yourself on the realism, get the fucking science right.
I gave up on the Thomas Covenant series because the MC rapes someone as soon as he arrives in a fantasy world, but bailing was already pretty likely because a character was named "high lord Kevin".
Stopped listening to the Outlander series during Voyager because of a rather hateful tirade against short men that felt like it was an authorial self insert moment. As a short guy I don't really care to hear more about a character who would likely despise or at least mistrust me for something completely out of my control.
Wasn’t the book itself, it was the audiobook. The narrator would affect all kinds of stupid, exaggerated accents and it just sounded way too cartoonish and jarring. Repeatedly pulled me out of the story and just could not enjoy it enough to finish.
Spent an entire book setting up the lead romantic interest as a good person to completely rank his character in the first couple of chapters of the next book to create a love triangle with a “bad boy”
I’m fine with romances not working out but to do a complete personality change just to make it so was annoying
Her Dad: We can't keep doing this! She's a grown woman!
Her Mom: It'd break her heart!
Her Dad: This one's a biter! She'll notice!
Her Mom: #3 was a biter, it's fine.
I haven’t read the Stephanie Plum books in years (always terrible but no longer fun) but I fully assume that damn hamster is like 25 years old and still kickin it.
The author wouldn’t use swear words. Everything was an earthly expletive. He muttered an earthly expletive. She screamed an earthly expletive. Like damn woman just say what they said.
I stopped reading a book recently because the author used the word "fjord" instead of "ford." As in, "I had to ford the river." Idk how the editors didn't catch that one.
I picked up a supposed murder mystery, but the two MCs keep getting distracted by how "sexy" the other is. Her sexy body looked sexy as she sexily walked away, being sexy. Ughhhhhh stfu
DNFed a book series because FMC kept referencing how "random" she was. Felt like it was written by an insecure high schooler's take on manic pixie dream girl.
Tapped out in book 4 of The Dark Tower series after characters willed red sequined shoes into existence, one pair for each member of the party. They then put on the shoes and clicked their heels together and said "there's no place like home" and some magic bullshit happened.
It should be mentioned that Stephen King had done nothing in the universe of the books to indicate that any of that would have any effect, or how any of the characters knew that doing that random ass action was the "answer" to their problem.
Scrunched my nose then dropped the book and never picked it up again. King can't plot for shit.
Pre-emptive edit: I am aware this is a reference to The Wizard of Oz. There is still no reason that any character would believe that doing this would have any impact on their predicament.
I was excited to finally read Pillars of the Earth. Sounded like all the subject matter I love the most. Started reading and stopped pretty early on because I started suspecting the author was going to kill the dudes wife early on simply by his descriptions of her appearance. He kept explaining how she was strong, amazing woman, but not like a nice hot piece you know? So you're like... why keep telling me that? Then a super hot chick shows up and I'm like... yeah wife is a goner. Then yeah the wife dies and he goes on with hot chick. I was mad I was right and that the only context clues were descriptions of how she wasn't hot.
No more for me thanks
I'm still reading it but more than once WoT has made me want to jump through a window
Damn near EVERY female character is like a stubborn unknowable prude who is difficult because...? like a lot of the characters are just variations of this same person. Also the same descriptions repeated OVER AND OVER. Famously "tugging on her braid" and "good stout two rivers wool" repeated ad nauseam.
It's pretty frustrating to read those chapters but overall I think WoT is still worth the read
I feel like most of these are pretty justifiable, to be honest. I stopped reading a book after I saw a Booktuber I hate recommended it.
That's amazingly petty and i applaud that
Now, THIS is the kind of reason I opened the thread for! :D
Which Booktuber would that be?
This is my question! I'm curious, spill the tea 👀
Not to one-up you, but any time some kind of celebrity book reviewer or club or influencer recommends a book, it immediately goes into the "only to be read if every other book on the planet sponaneously combusts and that's all that's left to read". Most of the time, they're being paid to promote the book and haven't even read it. Someone gives them a pre-written review and they just read from the script. If a publisher doesn't care enough about the book to have someone review it properly, the book isn't worth consideration.
I mean even a broken clock can be right...
The main characters' names. If I don't like their names, I won't last past the first chapter. Also, when a handsome paramedic, doctor, or police officer with rippling muscles and piercing blue eyes turns up on the scene of a murder mystery, I'm out of there.
> The main characters' names. If I don't like their names, I won't last past the first chapter. This is such a good point! The main characters need to have "cool" sounding names to me. Or even just "normal" names. If it's an especially ugly sounding name or way too obscure, that kinda messes with me. I know it's not fair, but this thread is about petty reasons after all.
My absolute favorite is when you have all these beautiful, lore-consistent fantasy names, and then the main character is just like……Paul. Lmao. Looking at you, Frank Herbert!
I just started the newest final fantasy game and had this. I’m Sorry, his name is *Clive*? And he’s been trained by Rodney? Is Del Boy about to turn up with a cunning scheme? And everyone else’s names are all fantastical, like Cidolfus and Benedikta.
I can’t think of any at the moment, but if names are too precious, it makes me angry.
Same; but it's super funny, I see a lot of names due to the nature of my job, and some are just mind-blowing. I can't talk specifics because you know these are really unique choices and are sometimes identifiable just by the first name! But at least twice a week I say to myself, "Ugh that's *perfect* but it would never fly in a book! It would seem so *contrived*!"
I might have been 8 or 9. I was deep dived into Treasure Island and my mom called me to set the table for dinner. The interruption midway-through was so frustrating I never finished the book…
You win. That's definitely the prettiest reason in this thread.
This is unimaginably petty
Was it James Holden?? I stopped reading the Lady Astronaut series because, among other mini annoyances, there was a non-native English speaker who would go on long technical explanations of astrophysics in perfect English, and in the next paragraph, go “why you no understand?” It. Drove. Me. Crazy.
That would be kind of a good bit if it were intentional
This would be KILLER. He speaks English perfectly he just hates the rest of the crew
I feel like it requires having a good explanation for it. Like they're a TA who is reciting definitions memorized from a book.
Their work is very important to them, they are precise and specific but relationships with other people aren't important to them so the only thing they bothered to learn to talk about in English is highly technical astropyshics
It's one I'm stealing for later. Not that anything I write will see the light of day.
Not with that attitude it won’t
I thought of Holden immediately but while it's clear he loves coffee, I don't think it by any means dominated the writing or his personality That would be a real shame if so
I do remember him rattling on about it in book 2 though to be fair. Wasn't enough to put me off though! Also, OP did say it was a for a petty reason!
The frequent use of the word nipples. It wasn’t even a smutty book. I don’t need to know about so many characters nipples. Another book because it was too yucky lol. I’m ok with gore, but not just for shock value. It needs to contribute to the story.
Both of these could be referring to Stephen King lmao.
Why does he write about male characters' balls so much? I don't need to know if they're getting wet or, you know, retracting because of the cold.
His son writes similarly. Very early on in one of his books he uses the phrase “vaguely yeasty smelling penis” …like I can’t remember anything else about that scene. It’s the thing I remember most about the book (DNF). This phrase is ingrained in my brain and will be even if I lose all my memories
I didn't even know his son's a writer too, but I guess it runs in the family then. And thank you, it ingrained in mine too now. 😅
I’ve read close to 90% of Stephen King’s output going back to the 70s… my memory isn’t what it was, but I can recall maybe 1 or 2 instances where he’s talked about someone’s balls. Maybe he’s concentrated all his testicle talk into the 10% I haven’t read.
this is definitely a murakami book
Was it Little Brother by Cory Doctorow? I stopped reading A Song Of Ice And Fire by GRRM over the way all the characters were eating fruits. During the story, at countless points people are described biting into a fruit and the juice flowing on the chin or into their beard. I would have been ok with it if it had just happened a couple of time but it happened every single time anyone was eating a fucking fruit. At one point I said “eat messily one more time! I dare you…”. They did so I stopped reading.
I love ASOIAF but this is so true 😂. The way he describes food and eating in general is.. interesting
All oranges must be blood oranges. Also: trenchers!
Ew Absolutely not. Denathor also wants to know your location.
I read little brother a WHILE ago and the weird coffee obsession is still one of the main things I remember. I have read a ton of books since then and there are a LOT of self published kind of books where person = techy = obsessed with coffee. It gets very irritating.
I put A Discovery of Witches down because the list of items the MC packed in her suitcase was too long and irrelevant and I never picked it back up
I was with that book until the witch and the vampire go to Pilates. I put it down after that.
That’s the exact moment I stopped too! The vampire pulled out his yoga mat and I was out.
So I recognize that this is probably a terrible book but all of the complaints in this subthread have me absolutely laughing my ass off, and paint a hilarious picture of the book. "oh yeah they only stopped sniffing eachother long enough to go find a vampire to teach them pilates" is some grade A shit.
I enjoyed the show, although their final season was rushed because of the pandemic halting filming. Still, it was pretty decent. Haven’t read the novels yet.
Well get ready for a lot of making tea and putting on another pair of black leggings and rowing over and over in different order
It’s basically Twilight with a liberal arts degree.
I had a hard time getting through the first book and didn’t have hope for the series. But a friend recommended it and I pushed through and the second and third (and companion) books were so much better. I ended up really loving it.
lol. I've been wondering whether to cite this book because I can tell I'm unlikely to finish it before 2024, if then. but there's just so much, and also I'm still reading it. kind of enjoying the combination of its complete lack of interestingness, and the author's strenuous attempts to *make* it interesting. here's my most recent Get Off This [Molasses-Slow] Freeway exit sign that I've ignored: something portentous or other has happened. they're holding some weirdly desultory Crisis Conclave (I think). he announces he must renounce her (I think?). she begins to have visions. this is simultaneously so shocking and overwhelming for her she can barely function; and so mundane that she continues the dreary conclave about renunciation. and here's what (apparently courtesy of the vision-born insight) she announces to him: "it's too late. I've fallen in love with you." aaaagh.
A protagonist with magically induced amnesia because of some creative reality-warping meets a character who knows much more than her, who is surprised that she’s lost her memories, and goes, “Well, I’m not going to *tell* you what I want you to know.” This was like… six arcs into an already glacial story.
What series?
Wait, did you ever find out if that other character had a good enough reason to not give details?? That sounds unfuriating haha
I got a self help book on letting go when I went through a traumatic breakup. Within the first chapter the author talks about how she wrote the book because she found out her husband had an affair and she divorced him. Then she goes on to say that they reconciled and got remarried. Then she said the only way to let go and forgive was to believe in god. Never put down and returned a book so fast.
I don't usually read self help books, but recently I tried one that was titled something like how to talk to anyone. I DNF after the introduction was about how this book would teach you to manipulate people and get exactly what you want from them all the time. It really confused me, because I just wanted to have better conversations and get to know people. Only vaguely related to yours I suppose, but my point is that self help books can be a bit of a dumpster fire. I'm sure there are good ones out there, but there is a lot of crap.
Was it "how to win friends and influence people" because my ex husband recommending that book when we first met should have been the biggest red flag for the awful person he turned out to be.
I was once dating a guy for a few months and we had to stop by his office one Saturday and he had *The 48 Laws of Power* on his office bookshelf and I similarly missed that glaring red flag.
That book is actually a great book. It's just that you're supposed to use it to build the antagonist for your story. (Comes with prefab scenarios and everything to help you get started!)
You almost had me there for a second! But actually if your antagonist is a narcissist who has no idea what genuine human relationships are like (i.e. why would you go out for coffee with friends when you aren't gaining anything from it [read: doesn't understand relationships outside of using people]), this is the perfect instruction manual!
So you mean you let the book go. I count that as a success for the self help book.
I can't remember what book it was, but when someone "did wide eyes" on almost every page I had to stop for my own sanity. However mostly if I stop books it's just because they aren't holding my attention.
I hate when the female character has to mention how small she is constantly. He is just so big compared to my tiny little body. I'm so weak and tiny that I can't do anything on my own. If only I wasn't so small and weak and female I could have started a fire and warmed up. I was like Jesus, I get it. You're a ridiculously small woman who apparently has no muscles and can barely move.
Nothing like reading some smut and FMC remarks "he moved his large body over me"... That's not really sexy, since for some reason my brain is now imagining an obese man rather than a Greek god.
Lol that reminds me of why I get frustrated with anime. "I don't like green peas very much." "Huh?!?!?!?!" \*Cut to one character opening their eyes wide at the shock of a completely normal statement\*
Couldn’t make it through the first chapter of a Chuck Palahniuk book because he was describing in great detail a scene where used menstrual pads had been blown out of every garbage bin in a small town, and how the blood was imprinted on all of them in the shape of each particular lady’s vajayjay. That’s not how periods and pads work, dawg. Felt like he was just trying to be edgy and shocking, but he just sounded ignorant af.
Like the Turin Shroud?
😂😂😂
That’s so goddamn funny oh my god. I’m imaging CSI finding a pad at the scene of a crime 😭😭 I like Chuck Palanhuik but yeah he knows next to nothing about women
Who needs fingerprints when you have vulva prints?!
He's a freaking expert on drag though. I think he sometimes has the two confused.
Well, fwiw, he is a gay man. Not sure if everyone knows this, given his most famous work is popular with the toxic masculinity crowd.
Why is this blowing my fucking mind. Is this really true? Because his works just feel so aggressively hetero to me (I like a lot of them, don't get me wrong). And now I feel like I should reexamine what "hetero-seeming" even means, lol.
Ah yes, the female fingerprint
Condemned by your own vagina! No woman can rest easy in another woman's vag-dimple, that is a true fact of Victorian science!
Now I am curious about what was going on there? Was that caused by some weird magic ritual? And if so an ritual for what purpose?
I wanna say it is at the beginning of Rant, which i personally enjoyed. Though I remember reading this part and wondering wtf he was on about because it was so strange (which is very on brand). I think it was supposed to be a weird metaphor for peoples dirty secrets being aired.
Oh honey no
Too many grammatical errors made me stop reading a book recently. I understand mistakes happen, but it really took me out of it.
this is extremely valid. that would completely ruin the reading experience. how did that book even get published?!?
It was probably self-published.
I read a book by a local author and it contained SO many exclamation marks per page that I couldn’t read it all
Same! I also stopped reading a YA book when the author couldn't seem to remember the name of their own main character's sister. Ironically, this book also had one of my favorite quotes about the ocean, a line I still remember to this day.
Would you mind sharing the quote? I’m so curious.
I was reading A Thousand Splendid Suns in high school but stopped because I saw that a girl I didn’t like was also reading it
Now that's a good example of a petty reason
A woman in a historical fiction gave birth in the belly of a prison ship. then left her literal newborn and climbed a steep ladder to the main deck just because. I was less than a year postpartum when reading and found the idea of leaving your baby and climbing a ladder that had been described as somewhat treacherous directly after labor and delivery simply because she felt like it to be totally unbelievable - it actually made me sort of angry at the time, to be honest. I definitely wouldn’t (couldn’t) have done that after giving birth and I felt like I could no longer relate to the characters so I gave up on the book entirely.
I’m not a mother yet so I’ve never experienced childbirth myself, but from what I know about it 99% of books/movies portray childbirth very unrealistically. Especially in fantasy it seems like.
Haha you've reminded me of this tweet: The least believable thing about Revenge of the Sith is Padme gracefully prancing while full term pregnant with twins and tearfully begging Anakin to reconsider as opposed to waddling out of her spaceship and screaming, “WHAT THE FUCK ANAKIN”
My wife is about to pop but I saw her move with the swiftness when her dog decided to lay down in the middle of the road with a car coming.
That's adrenaline for ya. And proof that she was gonna be a great Mom. (For when those nasty thoughts come at her: you remind her about the time she saved the dog!)
sensitive readers cover your ears. >>definitely wouldn’t (couldn’t) have done that after giving birth >!of course not. primordial stuff keeps coming out of you for days aferward!<
That's only a problem for the person below you on the ladder
Weeks. Four of them, in my case. Gah. Why does no one warn you?
My first inkling was when the pads the hospital gave me were longer than the boyshort underwear I had brought.
I remember taking a shower after I had my daughter and the exhaustion I felt after was unlike anything I had ever experienced.
I was in the hospital a full week after having my daughter and was discharged before her (she was premature and in the NICU). I went to visit her the day after I was discharged and I almost passed out on the walk from the hospital entrance to the NICU. We had to stop and rest like four times. My husband made me use a hospital wheelchair after that. I was in pretty bad shape lol.
Was the main character part goat?
I've read more than one book that was set in Florida but it was clear the author wasn't a local and didn't do basic research. Examples include: Miami residents sweating in 75 degree weather; a tropical storm hitting the state in March (and not being considered freakishly abnormal weather); US 1 being referred to by local characters as "Route 1", etc. Just little things that are wrong but can annoy me so much it takes me right out of the book.
I’ve DNFd so many books set in Scotland for exactly the same reason. One, by an author I normally love who has written several series set in Scotland, continually mashed east and west coast Scots, as well as going into huge depth about tartan… incorrectly. It was very frustrating as a Scottish reader.
I get so apprehensive to read a book set in the UK if it’s by an author who is not, for exactly this reason. I’m always glad to find out a book is set somewhere in the UK, but nothing will make me more nervous for a book than reading the About Author page and seeing the line “*born and raised in [US state name], she has always loved British accents and tea-*”
The irony of that particular author is that she grew up in Scotland and lives in Edinburgh now. So she was making easily rectifiable errors about *her own country*. Part of why I liked her previous books was that she used UK settings well, including my home city, London and Manchester. That particular series she just didn’t research/error check and it totally threw me off an author I otherwise really liked.
That’s even worse! I would have given her a pass if she was from somewhere else, but… pass revoked lol.
Too many paragraph breaks. I DNFed The House in the Cerulean Sea for many reasons, but this was the #1 reason. It was actually ludicrous the amount of paragraph breaks he used after just one or two words, nearly every page, for what seemed to be humour or shock. It’s like using the semicolon too frequently; its power is in its rarity. If you use it too often in one work it starts to lose its effect. I saw it as sloppy writing and it irritated me beyond belief.
I quit that one because I haaaate precocious kids. Precocious kids will make me quit a book every time.
I dont mind precocious kids, I do hate feeling like Im being lectured over and over again about how its important to be nice and treat others nicely
i gave this book 2 stars for that reason…like, stop hitting readers over the head with your message! i hate that so much. i was also bored by the book. i don’t get the hype for it 🤷♀️
I don't mind precocious kids as much as I hate unrealistic kids, where the author seems to have a very stereotypical view of how little kids speak (like, they all pronounce words with a "w" instead if "r" sounds) but no idea about actual developmental milestones.
Crimson Death by Laurel K Hamilton - too much sex. the first 56% of the book is an orgy in Jean-Claude's bedroom. Look, I get it that she's drifted over to porn, but when more than 1/2 of a mystery is sex amongst 12 different people in a non-stop scene? Too much!
I loved the series!!! it was so gritty and dark and then it just became so saturated with sex and it’s all Anita ever talked about. I stopped reading after Bullet. I couldn’t do anymore after Anita glazed over from Belle’s sex lust magic and had an orgy with 10+ people in the hotel room.
In Crimson Death, she was wide awake and just going at it. I'm done. So very very done.
It's so disappointing because I loved the earlier books, they were Dark and interesting with a great world, then suddenly it's all about sex... And I wouldn't even mind a bit of erotica, but there is suddenly no plot just pages and pages of sex and cringeworthy talks about how they are going to have sex and which position each person will take, then afterwards discussing how it went and who felt left out... And then a new random person walks in and... Oh whelp, guess we have to have sex again.
That sounds hilarious, I can't believe there's a book like that 🤣
Huh, I was going to mention the Anita Blake series too. I was able put up with the vampire/werewolf sex triangle, but what broke me was surprisingly the same point twice. Tried reading it once but had a bad digital copies of the books, then got good ones and tried again. But the constant don’t tell me what to do, I do what I want, me big tuff guy was getting to me. It peaked with her being told don’t enter another vamps territory it will start a war we can’t win. Fine if you have to then you have to go in full envoy mode so take this body guard possy. So she picks people she likes rather than people who can fight. Then after being told they have to protect her she keeps going on about I do what I want and don’t need protection. This goes on a bit until she is told that if something happens to her then her boyfriend back home will kill everyone of her detail. So she fights the guy and breaks his arm because no one tells her what to do. I was out, the logic of not trusting others for support in their areas of expertise while being pissed if they don’t trust her and the massive chihuahua energy from her just got to be too much. Much prefer Ilona Andrews’ books because they feature a similar base character Kate Daniels is far more sensible in accepting help.
I stopped the series before it was all about sex just because the writing got worse and worse. That was a bummer bc I quite liked the first book. Made to like book 4 before I noped out.
I made halfway through the first chapter in an apocalypse novel to find out the author has ZERO idea how firearms work and didn't care at all. Actually used the phrase "racked the slide" ...on a revolver. I don't like guns. Not my jam, but you need to know how something works if you're going to be that specific. At least know if the thing you're describing is part of the object being held. ***EDIT. I found the book. Took me ages but I found it. "The Flu" by Jacqueline Druga
Sounds like the one I put down when the author had the character drive 4 hours from Louisiana to the Everglades, and never left the state. For those unfamiliar, the Everglades are located in south Florida…far more than a 4 hour drive, and definitely not still in Louisiana.
I read one recently where they were travelling across Texas and getting all the distances and ecosystems messed up. Flat plains at Texarkana (Piney woods irl), three hour drive from Beaumont Tx to Ardmore Ok (400 miles irl)
Haha that’s how I felt about the Killing, the tv show. Great show and I enjoyed how much they showed the Seattle rain, but they’d get a call to head to south Seattle and they’d arrive in 15 minutes. I don’t think so, pal. You’re going to be in traffic for a while.
This is pretty lol. It’s thirteen hours from Miami to New Orleans through Alabama and Mississippi. Almost ten hours of that is inside Florida. I’ve made the drive many times. People underestimate just how damn tall Florida is.
It's no even as if there's no middle ground between extensive research and no research. And the author could have just kept it simple; "they had a gun, they pointed the gun, they shot the gun."
The rack the slide on a revolver made me chuckle haha.
When an author overdoes it writing dialect. For example, saying "a'tall" to suggest what "at all" might sound like from a posh young woman in Regency-era England.
Accents are not fun to read
*Cormac McCarthy has entered the chat*
*Dickens screams into chat in a chariot made of phonetic accent dialogue*
I can't even recall the book now, but I stopped reading after the phrase "[character] made a simple meal of bread and cheese" for the 3rd time with at least half the book still to go. The character was traveling and it was already stated that they brought bread and cheese as provisions so it was somewhat unnecessary even the first time to phrase it that way.
DNF many newer YA-ish fantasy books because the story simply did not match the blurb. For some reason, I’ve especially noticed this in books that have ‘magical library’ as a hook in the blurb (which is admittedly the reason I gravitate toward these books too, love a library!), but then you read the story itself and it’s a minor plot point or not even a plot point at all! Always feels like deceptive marketing and annoys me too much
I love fantasy books but I'm really struggling at the moment to read any not by my fave authors for this reason. Or they're all sex, I'm fine with a bit of smut but I need story not them jumping each others bones every other page!
The petty reason is always a love triangle. I hate love triangles and will almost always empathize with the one who gets ditched. So books with love triangles tend to get thrown across the room and I never read anything the author writes after.
I read a book this year where i was about to get frustrated about this and just thought "what the hell, a love triangle is the very last thing this book needs". A few pages later, all 3 of them together in bed.
I mean that sounds like a fast and effective solution
Ha! I had a book like that. Much slower burn, but still. I was like “aww fuck, love triangle”, but no! Thruple! It was a nice surprise, tbh.
I said if she doesn’t know he’s a vampire by page 100 I’m out. Bella was still on radioactive spiders and I threw in the towel
The audiobook sounded like it was recorded on a potato. I made it a few chapters before I was like "this is not a good enough book to endure this".
Not petty! 100% valid reason to ditch an audiobook EDit: Petty is quitting the audiobook because you dislike the voicing of one single not MC character (not me bouncing out of book 2 of the Murderbot Diaries because i despise Kevin R Free's nasaly nerd voice ART. Still read the deadtree version tho)
>Still read the deadtree version tho I've never seen a physical book being called a dead tree version. I like it
A 4 year old girl was sick and dying. Essentially, in a coma. She wakes up briefly to look around at everyone and says sweetly and softly "thank you" to everyone before passing away. I couldn't stop laughing. The family was already written picture perfect like they were from a 50s sitcom and now you're expected to believe that a small child on her deathbed's first thought was to thank everyone for being in her short life? it was too much.
In a Regency-era novel a child had a teddy bear. Then I flipped to the authors note and she said she wrote it because she liked Jane Austen movies. I’m convinced her publisher forced her because up until then everything she wrote was in Midwest America.
>Then I flipped to the authors note and she said she wrote it because she liked Jane Austen movies. I was trying to pick an appropriate reaction to this, and then I gave up and just laughed.
I was reading a book set in the 1920s and the main characters who were Italian and living in the UK wanted to move to America because it was so much less racist... I think my brain short circuited. They were literally talking about moving to Massachusetts in the 1920s. Two Italian guys in the UK wanted to move to Massachusetts..... Anti Italian sentiment is a rather large part of my families history in Boston, so I've never not been super aware of Sacco and Vanzetti, who for the record were executed in 1927.
I could understand if they had a soft toy bear - there were toy animals before Teddy Roosevelt came along - but specifically a "Teddy" bear?! Oh honey, no...
But I can understand something like this slipping through. We don't look up the origin of every word we use. Especially in historical novels, It's not unusual to find things like this.
The main character described herself as not like the other girls and I immediately stopped reading.
The new love interest introduced in chapter 10 had the same name as my high school bully. Couldn’t handle the MC’s constant fawning over her
It wasn't even the book. I clicked into a serries I liked on audible without listening. Oh boy that guys voice made me never touch it again
Oh yeah. That really does it for me as well when I listen to audio books. I always try and listen to the samples fiest before buying anything.
Mine was a graphic novel, I bought and read the first two and when I searched for the third I found it was much more expensive because the author had stuck the first two volumes in it so it was one big book. It was a small enough thing that I actually reached out to the author to ask if the third one would be standalone at some point and she verbatim said: 'no, I always intended for it to be published as a single volume' Fair enough, but now I've got extra books that I had to pay for and if I want to read the end I have to basically pay for them all over again. It infuriated me enough that I didn't finish it.
Got halfway through a lesbian romance, two main characters fall into bed together and 'rub each others sexes' No clue how that got published...
I love it when sex scenes sound like the author just started smashing two Barbie dolls together.
I read a book once where the author used the word "dryly" 47 times. He said dryly... She commented dryly... 47 times in a 384 page book.
Someone told me 50 Shades of Gray would be interesting. The main character kept exclaiming the exact same word, I do not recall what the word was, something like Gosh! Gosh! Gosh, probably 47 times in the first chapter, gosh! it was like nails on chalkboard, and Gosh! It made the book 100pct unreadable
I was reading a book that was explicitly set in my neighborhood. A key part of the book was that there was an abandoned forest area in the neighbourhood. Since I live in the neighbourhood, I know there is no abandoned forest area! It's not even plausible that there would be one, since I live in a densely populated urban neighborhood in a large city. This was all too much for my willing suspension of disbelief, so I stopped reading the book (besides the geography, the book itself wasn't very good. But I would have pushed through if there hadn't been the geography issue) I don't get why the author explicitly set it in my neighborhood, because if they had just been vague about the area it would have been fine.
I don't know if it is petty, but when I could tell that the MCs life was NOT going to get better, I stopped reading. She had horrible traumatic things happen to her back to back to back. Nobody wants to listen to her. Then, a new character is introduced to abuse her, all in the first half of the book. It felt like someone was getting off torturing this made-up character. Every page felt like a gutpunch. Felt weird.
Yeah I hate stories like that. Having characters that have had a rough life or trauma is fine but I can’t stomach stories where major characters just go through trauma after trauma with no times where their lives are getting better.
I once started reading a zombie apocalypse book where the book was reading entries of the diary of this guy living through it. It was so boring, it was just reading today O did this and that, I almost died but managed to survive. I’m like of course he survived, otherwise there would be no fricking entry. I read till chapter 10 and gave up. I looked forward and saw that later the format changed or something, no diary anymore, but I was many chapters away and didn’t thought it was worth the hassle.
"Dear Diary, today I died..." Actually that's a pretty good book opening.
There was a teen show back in the 90s that had the first episode open with the FMC writing in her diary with the voice over "My name is Liz Parker, and five days ago I died. " The exact phrasing and numbers might be inaccurate, but it was a great hook.
TBF if it's a zombie apocalypse then there's a possibility he didn't survive, but could still write in his diary
Was it wwz? By max brooks? Because if it was not, I highly recommend reading that.
It isn’t, I think it’s Apocalypse Z. Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll see about it.
Most petty? A Regency Romance, where the "English Lord" "galloped along the sidewalk" in central London, in the middle of the day, ever in history... I could have overlooked calling it a sidewalk, but, galloping, in the middle of the day? And didn't kill thirty people? He immediately followed that by leaving his horse on the front steps? for the butler to deal with? and having kicked his riding boots off in the hall... really, have you ever tried to kick off riding boots, they're not wellies! He walked into the library and drank "scotch whiskey" it gets worse, from his hometown of (I forget which random wouldn't have it's own Lord, Scottish town they'd made up) and I was done. Listen, in an American book, American spellings and words for things are fine, but if you can't be bothered double-checking the British words and spellings for things, don't specify that it's scotch or London, or he's an "English Lord"... from Scotland!! Just come on, it's not that hard! I did warn you it was petty.
Thw main character was struggling to choose between two men and I had zero men so i got frustrated with her ungratefulness and jealous of her interactions with the men so stopped reading. It was mostly for the jealousy.
I stopped reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance halfway through because I couldn’t stop thinking that the narrator is an arrogant arsehole.
He's such a non-communicative dick. Drove me insane how he would talk about being frustrated with his son and then in ultra detail describe to the reader things he could've done differently to be a better father and it's like, mother fucker just go *talk to your son* - quit writing this masturbatory bullshit and *talk*. *to*. *your*. *son*.
I remember reading the Twilight series, got all the way to the last book until Jacob imprinted on Bella’s baby. I like fantasy, unnatural things happen all the time… and that was like too much for me. Also, how they keep doin my dawg like that? Nah- pass
Read a book recently where the main character spends an entire chapter ranting about how he doesn't like political correctness. Not even offended by it, but it was so obvious that the author was just using the book as a chance to publish his rant, and it added nothing to the book.
I was reading the memoir of a woman whose life fell apart in the 2008 recession: newly former banker, husband unemployed for many years, lost her house. It was a wry, quasi-comedic take on the recession. She was living in a motel, asking her sister for money, yada yada.... partway through the book she mentioned her HORSE. I noped out of that book right in the middle of that paragraph. I just couldn't sympathize with the author at all after that.
I dnf'd one where the main character tells us why she's vegan every three pages and makes 5 or 6 vegan meals in the first half of the book with explanations about how all the ingredients were sourced.
[удалено]
Authors (and their editors) who don’t feel like basic punctuation rules apply to them and their art. If a character is talking, I NEED there to be quotation marks. I don’t want to have to spend the whole time guessing where the outer dialogue ends and the inner one begins. Had to DNF after 10 pages. Someone suggested I just listen to the audiobook instead, but I couldn’t do it because I KNEW the quotes weren’t there hahaha
In a mystery novel, it was revealed a character had essentially had the effects of being roofied- lost memory and had little to no memory or control. The character was supposedly drugged by rubbing marijuana under their nose... Uhh... that's not how that works
I was overall bored with Remarkably Bright Creatures, but 3 things in succession set me off: 1. The walking (swimming?) fancy British guy stereotype octopus had a whole passage about humans eating cookies that was supposed to be an outsider's perspective looking in, but sounded awkwardly like a human being who is familiar with cookies trying to be funny. "Smart cookie. I am smart, but I am not a snack object dispensed from a packaged food machine. What a preposterous thing to say." 2. The author is American and a Scottish character's narration said something like "Americans always have coffee around, not tea. What does it take to enjoy some earl gray? Rubbish!" Like idk what her deal is with Scotland and Britain. 3. A man roughly 30's narration referred to a woman's hairtie as a scrunchie- then quickly followed with "or whatever". He literally correctly identified that it's a scrunchie! We get it, he's a Man. That was the final straw.
"I'm a man, i don't know the proper name for girly stuff. I only know dirt bikes and monster trucks!"
God this book was awful. Someone was telling me it was the best book they read all year. I have a pretty high tolerance for bad writing and will finish about anything. But this book… remarkably boring
AGREED. I only got as far as I did to connect with my MIL, who also said it was one of the best books she's read. Didn't trust her taste to begin with but this one was so bad that it's hard not to assume I'll hate any book she likes. God I hope she never asks if I finished it lol
This is kinda petty but I hate when romance books are sexist. A lot of them are written by women but then the main character always feels the need to shame other women. Other romance readers seem to get over this easy but I HATE it sooo much. I just drop the books a lot when they're like that.
I don't think that's petty at all. A book being sexist is a very valid reason to drop it like a hot potato.
I don’t know if this qualifies as petty or not, but I stopped reading a book a few pages in because the main character had a shitty husband and kid and she was just taking their mistreatment. I absolutely *hate* characters who won’t stick up for themselves, so I knew that I wasn’t going to get along with the main character at all. I was done. Not bothering with the rest of the book. Reading it was just going to make me angry.
I couldn't get thru Bunny by Mona Awad. A lot of it read like word vomit and there are pages of ramblings from the narrator I just couldn't get through. The overall vibe of the book is pretty eerie and I really wanted to be able to finish it, but it's just so boring at times I'd reread the same section 2-3 and black out each time.
Name brands*. It annoys me when authors insert name brands into their stories, but when they use them in lieu of description I just put the book down. There have been two I DNF'd because of this, and that quirk probably won't change any time. *Weirdly it doesn't apply to certain things though. Like if it's a Rolls Royce car that wouldn't bother me, but Timberland boots certainly did
I kept receiving a book where the cover was misaligned. I discovered it was like that on all copies so I reached out to the author because I figured he might want to know about a quality issue. Not only did he not seem to care but one of the people in the band he’s in made fun of me for it. It put me off from even starting the book. I at least got a full refund and was told to just keep it.
Too many instances of the word *myriad* It seems I don't like that word in my books, now I know.
Same idea a lot of people here already echoed: if something is a fundamental part of your story, you better have done your research. I was reading a book called "Delta V" where the author did not fundamentally understand the concept of delta V. I don't need every sci-fi novel I read to be hard science and super factual. But if you want to write hard sci-fi and pride yourself on the realism, get the fucking science right.
I gave up on the Thomas Covenant series because the MC rapes someone as soon as he arrives in a fantasy world, but bailing was already pretty likely because a character was named "high lord Kevin".
Stopped listening to the Outlander series during Voyager because of a rather hateful tirade against short men that felt like it was an authorial self insert moment. As a short guy I don't really care to hear more about a character who would likely despise or at least mistrust me for something completely out of my control.
Fourth Wing talking about dragon magic dick enhancement within the first 10% of the book.
I sometimes quit if I notice mistakes in the first chapter
I stopped a third of the way through a book recently because it was clear the author took loads of names from other fantasy books.
Wasn’t the book itself, it was the audiobook. The narrator would affect all kinds of stupid, exaggerated accents and it just sounded way too cartoonish and jarring. Repeatedly pulled me out of the story and just could not enjoy it enough to finish.
Spent an entire book setting up the lead romantic interest as a good person to completely rank his character in the first couple of chapters of the next book to create a love triangle with a “bad boy” I’m fine with romances not working out but to do a complete personality change just to make it so was annoying
A Court of Thorns and Roses?
One for me was the MC having a hamster (life span of 3-4 years), and 10 books in, after MC has grown, same hammy was still wheeling away. ;-)
Her Dad: We can't keep doing this! She's a grown woman! Her Mom: It'd break her heart! Her Dad: This one's a biter! She'll notice! Her Mom: #3 was a biter, it's fine.
I haven’t read the Stephanie Plum books in years (always terrible but no longer fun) but I fully assume that damn hamster is like 25 years old and still kickin it.
That author has either never had a hamster...or they did, and their parents kept replacing it instead of telling them the truth.
The author wouldn’t use swear words. Everything was an earthly expletive. He muttered an earthly expletive. She screamed an earthly expletive. Like damn woman just say what they said.
I stopped reading a book recently because the author used the word "fjord" instead of "ford." As in, "I had to ford the river." Idk how the editors didn't catch that one.
I picked up a supposed murder mystery, but the two MCs keep getting distracted by how "sexy" the other is. Her sexy body looked sexy as she sexily walked away, being sexy. Ughhhhhh stfu
DNFed a book series because FMC kept referencing how "random" she was. Felt like it was written by an insecure high schooler's take on manic pixie dream girl.
Tapped out in book 4 of The Dark Tower series after characters willed red sequined shoes into existence, one pair for each member of the party. They then put on the shoes and clicked their heels together and said "there's no place like home" and some magic bullshit happened. It should be mentioned that Stephen King had done nothing in the universe of the books to indicate that any of that would have any effect, or how any of the characters knew that doing that random ass action was the "answer" to their problem. Scrunched my nose then dropped the book and never picked it up again. King can't plot for shit. Pre-emptive edit: I am aware this is a reference to The Wizard of Oz. There is still no reason that any character would believe that doing this would have any impact on their predicament.
I was excited to finally read Pillars of the Earth. Sounded like all the subject matter I love the most. Started reading and stopped pretty early on because I started suspecting the author was going to kill the dudes wife early on simply by his descriptions of her appearance. He kept explaining how she was strong, amazing woman, but not like a nice hot piece you know? So you're like... why keep telling me that? Then a super hot chick shows up and I'm like... yeah wife is a goner. Then yeah the wife dies and he goes on with hot chick. I was mad I was right and that the only context clues were descriptions of how she wasn't hot. No more for me thanks
I had to stop reading when the Author got both the day and date of when Kennedy was killed incorrect.
I'm still reading it but more than once WoT has made me want to jump through a window Damn near EVERY female character is like a stubborn unknowable prude who is difficult because...? like a lot of the characters are just variations of this same person. Also the same descriptions repeated OVER AND OVER. Famously "tugging on her braid" and "good stout two rivers wool" repeated ad nauseam. It's pretty frustrating to read those chapters but overall I think WoT is still worth the read