Top Ten Tuesday: Book Turn-offs You Encounter Whilst Reading

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Each week they will post a new Top Ten list that one of their bloggers over at The Broke and the Bookish will answer. Everyone is welcome to join.

The topic for this week is: Top Ten Book Turn-offs You Encounter Whilst Reading

Here are a list of some of the things that turn me off a book whilst reading it:

  • Too many point-of-views. I read Spellcaster by Claudia Grey earlier this year and whilst I enjoyed the story there were a few too many POVs to keep track of. And some odd ones too – there was a one paragraph point of view from a crow. It just didn’t work for me.
  • Covers that don’t match the story. Like when the main character apparently has a tattoo on his arm and in the cover his arms are mark free? FRUSTRATING! Or the main character is described as a blonde and yet the cover portrays her as a brunette… its one of my true pet hates.
  • Love triangles. There are times when they’re done well but for the most part I’m a little over them.
  • Authors tagline. You know on the cover when there are quotes from other authors about the book? I nearly didn’t read City of Bones (Mortal Instruments #1) by Cassandra Clare because my copy had a tag line by Stephenie Meyer…. Petty I know but I did eventually read it. IT just took longer because I was assuming it was Twilight-esque.
  • Lots of spelling/grammar errors that become too much to ignore.
  • Book covers which are redesigned to look like other books. I really don’t like what they have redone a lot of classic book covers to make them look like Twilight covers…

  • Characters who don’t act their age. The main problem I have is when authors are writing about young children. They’re usually portrayed as being super insightful and funny and smart. It usually just frustrates me.
  • Characters I can’t connect with and as a result I don’t care about them or their ending…
  • Books which end up being a little too preachy and religious.
  • Flawless characters. Now – I don’t want to quote Tyra Banks but flaws are beautiful. I would much rather read about someone I could relate to because they’re not perfect rather than characters who are just… too good to be true.

 

Oh my.. this week’s list is making me seem a bit negative. But for every turn-off there are dozens of things I LOVE when I’m reading.

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18 Comments

    • I don’t hate it. I know it comes across like that – I think it’s more that I dislike how so many books are copying the formula set out by Twilight. I like originality rather than everything just copying that one story… if that at all makes sense. Thanks for commenting!

  1. Eww to the Twilight wanna be covers up there!!! I guess it’s to make teens want to read classics… but NO!!!! I also hate preachy books… or books that have super secret religious plot to it. Just tell me it’s going to be about religion, don’t trick me. And I totally agree, perfection is boooring!!

    Cool list 🙂
    My TTT

    • Oh yes! Especailly when the one they recommend you’ll love if you loved X is nothing like X – they’re just praying on my love of that other book… so very dishonest 😛 Thanks for stopping by!

  2. This list is pretty much my list of book turnoffs, especially too many POVs and cover/ storyline/ character mismatch. I just started City of Bones. So, I guess I’ll have to see if I agree with Stephenie Meyer’s tagline.

  3. Books loaded with spelling/grammar errors drive me crazy. They jump off the page at me… why don’t they jump off the page at whoever proofread the darn book??! It always blows my mind.
    I agree on characters that don’t act their age too— sometimes a 16 year old does/says something that a teen would NEVER do. haha

  4. This is a great list and I agree with so many of your points. Characters that don’t act their age is a major turn off – its like no teenager would be using those really big words or if they act so much younger then their specified age.

    My TTT is here.

  5. It was so much fun to read your list! I also hate cover/story mismatches. They are just so wrong. I also hate when little kids are portrayed as overly insightful. Conversely, kids are sometimes portrayed as acting like adorable four-year-olds when in the story they are supposed to be seven, and this is annoying, too.

  6. I never thought about this before but author taglines can totally effect whether or not I buy a book. If it’s a tagline from an author I hate or even don’t like very much then I probably wont buy it but it there is a tagline from like John Green or someone I love then it would probably make me buy it just based on that!

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