I have a mild case of emetophobia and I have unfortunately come across a handful of books recently that open with scenes containing multiple, multiple pages describing the main character’s nausea and vomiting. I’m not sure why some authors think this a good hook but I find it so off putting that I will give up on a story that seems otherwise promising.
It feels petty to give up on the book just based on that, but if it goes on for long enough that I can’t just skim past it easily I will fully just give up on the book lol.
So what’s the pettiest dealbreaker you have that will cause you to give up on an otherwise promising book?
by jneidz
22 Comments
I started reading Rule 34 and stopped almost immediately because it’s written in second person, present tense. I’m not going to spend a whole book having someone tell me what I’m doing. Quit one of NK Jemison’s books for the same reason.
A Prayer for Owen Meany had so much religious jargon I could hardly read 3 chapters. Hard Pass.
This is stupid but when I was pregnant I was reading a non-fiction “what to expect” style book but every time they mentioned a doctor it was always “he” and I feel like it just made me lose all trust in the book and I dropped it for a different one.
I dropped The Moon is a Harsh Mistress a few chapters in after some characters started rambling about letting the market regulate itself
There was a book I no longer remember the name of that I DNF because of a really dumb dick joke that didn’t even make sense. It was mostly just the final straw for the book though, the author so badly wanted the main character to be Kirk AND Spock at the same time.
This is real petty but if I’m a third of the way through the book and everything feels like a series of events, not a story. No amount of gorgeous prose can fix “and this happened and this happened” for me (which despite common expectations for commercial fiction still happens quite frequently in published novels).
Unhinged metaphors for sex/genitals/sexual acts – I don’t read erotic fiction, mainly literary/upmarket but obviously there can be sex in those… and the minute I read the word “rod”, I’m out.
When the author uses Thee, Thou, and Thy incorrectly. Read a dragonlance book ages ago and the Centaurs all spoke with thees and thys. Stuff like “Thee are trespassing” no, sorry, either use it right or don’t use it.
Yeah, starting out gross is a great way for me to drop your book, too. I’ve dealt with IRL gross stuff, I do not want it in my fiction.
I’m not going to stay if a story opens mid typical sex scene. I don’t care yet, this isn’t interesting enough without that, so I’m out.
Lastly, most of the time I’m going to stop reading if I encounter basic English fails. Yeah, I get what you were trying to say, but employ a damn editor, bro, this is painful to anyone who’s edited their own work.
Dialogue without context or effect. The characters just blabbing away. Shame on the editor for that one.
Poor pacing and overly boring descriptions. They’re like reading someone hammering a finished nail. Move on.
Now, I finished Hemingway’s *Torrents of Spring*, however, each chapter was a tooth and I lost most of my bottom jaw with that one. I wanted to stop each time.
I can’t remember the title, but in the first few pages, the main character said something about how “eyeliner took you out of the middle class” and made you look like a sex worker.
I DNF’d “The It Girl” about 60% of the way through because the protagonist kept touching her pregnant belly an unreasonable amount of times. Nothing was wrong with the baby.
I usually dnf a book when I find the main character annoying (e.g. Vanishing Girls by Lisa Regan), the plot doesn’t interest me or the writing isn’t the best.
Right now I’m considering dropping Colin Jost’s book, because I’m quite disappointed by his writing style.
Otherwise I can read pretty much everything if it adds to the plot.
Lack of concrete details. I don’t want to have a writer lay out a philosophy and thoughts for me in wordy, overblown paragraphs. Paint a picture, tell a story, and let me figure out the symbolism and meaning of what you’ve written.
“Not like other girls” main characters.
Read the end after being in about a chapter liked the possibilities but saw a path i wanted it to take. Didn’t like how it ended. So just closed it and read something else. Never went back to read it.
The constant penis references and dick jokes in *Sacre Bleu* got to the point where a little less than halfway through I thought to myself *If he makes one more dick joke…*and two pages later I chucked it into my donate pile.
I didn’t actually drop a book but the rest of the series when I noticed that Ken Follet has a thing for erect penises and raping. Leaves a sour taste in my mouth after otherwise such a good prose.
A gratuitous description of how a person(especially a woman) looks or any instance of a woman saying no and that no being ignored but it’s ok because it feels good.
When the MC pulls out the idiot ball for no reason. Like it’s one thing if you give them a specific flaw that makes sense based on their backstory. But when they’re just making trouble for themselves for no reason I get the second-hand cringe.
For me it’s sentilmentalism. I tried reading Tuesdays with Morrie and it was so sappy, it was unreadable.
Opening with the traumatic backstory. So many books that otherwise seem good start out with the main character’s tragic, uber-trauma filled, backstory as a hook. You can have an edgelord backstory, I can tolerate that, but we’re not starting out with all that woe is me bull. It’s gotta be sprinkled in like seasoning. At least wait a few pages into the chapter before you go all abused orphan on me.