I’m curious as to what makes people stop reading immediately. What is a line or even a paragraph that made you “nope” a book to the point of not bothering?
I am personally turned off by character descriptions that come across as a list, the introduction of many names, or overly flowery language that isn’t a result of the time the book was written.
by summerspider
14 Comments
I can’t remember specifics, but generally I remember being turned off by too much exposition through dialogue, as in: “Hi sister of mine, oh, are you still feeling sad about our dad dying 4 years ago?”
First page of *Blood Meridian.*
LORD FOUL’S BANE.
the “hero” commits rape in the early part of the book. I quit at that point and have never gone back or read anything else by the author. nor will i.
I couldn’t get past the the first few pages of American Psycho. I refuse to search my brain for more information.
Great movie though
If there’s a map, I’m out. There’s a few notable exceptions to this rule (eg The Hobbit), but I’m not a huge fan of fantasy and I will not be studying fake geography.
I remember the main character was getting dressed and it described her look as “sexy librarian”. Absolutely not for me lol
A clockwork orange.
They broke into someone’s house, beat her husband and violently gang raped an old woman.
I was a teenager. I had seen the worst of unrestricted post-9/11 internet and that book made me sick to my stomach. I closed it and never opened it again.
There’s a line toward the beginning of This Is How You Stop the Time War that quotes Ozymandias and criticizes it for being “overly anthologized”
Nope. No.
You can pay homage. You can attack the canon. This measly attempt to do both simultaneously was a major turn-off and I found myself hating the pseudo-intellectual tone of the narrator immediately. Didn’t get past page 15.
Whatever the opening line of Palahniuk’s choke is
I didn’t read past the grape scene in Highlander.
I’ll bet a ton of people never made it through the first chapter of Chuck Palahniuk’s “Haunted.”
A 2-3 pages list of characters.
Even though I am morbidly curious and will probably read the series eventually, the opening sentence of Diary of an Oxygen Thief is something along the lines of “I enjoyed hurting women”
Super Sad True Love Story. Second (?) chapter introducing the young Korean love interest just squicked me out so much. I felt like the (old white) author was trying to play fetishization bingo and I lost complete interest.
I think some people can write outside of their experience well but Gary Shteyngart wasn’t able to convince me in the opening of the book so 🤷♀️