Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl
I will not be sharing the names of any authors or titles in this post as I don’t want to make anyone feel bad.
1. They didn’t know the difference between hay and straw.
Straw is used for animal bedding while hay is used for animal feed. If an author tries to feed nothing but straw to their cows, the poor creatures will not receive the nutrients they need to survive and I will not continue reading that tale!
2. They introduced way too many characters in the first chapter.
I get overwhelmed by these things. By all means have dozens of characters if needed, but give me some time to take note of who they are before bringing more folks into the fold.
3. There is a terribly judgemental protagonist.
Realistically flawed main characters are so much more interesting to read about than perfect ones, but I quickly lose interest in protagonists in most cases if their main flaw is harshly judging other people. This is true even if I happen to agree that X is generally a good thing to do or that Y is generally not a good thing to do.
I’d rather have more love and acceptance in the world and in fiction.
4. The plot includes a love triangle.
I’m completely burnt out on this trope.
5. Character names are difficult to pronounce due to inconsistent spelling or pronunciation rules
If their names have been spelled or pronounced in ways that do not make sense or vary a lot from one name to the next, that is not the book for me unless the author is doing it on purpose and clearly explains why there are no consistent rules about such things in that universe. This is something that happens most often in the fantasy genre in my experience. I wish it didn’t happen so often.
6. Driving or walking distances are wildly unrealistic
If your character plans to drive from one side of Toronto to the other in a couple of hours, especially during rush hour or a blizzard when traffic is painfully slow and driving time can be much, much longer than that, I will shake my head and decline to read any further. There is no world in which this happens unless you’re writing a Star Trek novel and there’s a transporter involved.
Toronto is huge and full of congestion and construction projects for most of the year. The rest of time, it is almost always snowing, sleeting, or raining heavily. Characters who wish to speedily reach their destination through my city should either travel at two in the morning in January when there is zero precipitation or avoid this part of the world altogether.
7. Anyone other than an antagonist is rude to someone to the service industry.
There are plenty of other ways to show a character is having a bad day and not being themselves when necessary. Rudeness, especially to folks who are often treated unkindly in real life and who make far too little money for all of their hard work, is not something I want to read about.
8. The pet dies.
Fictional pets should be immortal if you ask me!
9. Too many sex scenes.
It’s totally fine to include them if they’re an integral part of the storyline.
I’d prefer to replace the rest of them with scenes that are funny, dramatic, or propel the plot forward. Alternatively, the book could also be just a little shorter and that would be perfectly okay.
10. Text talk.
Unless there’s an excellent reason for a character to write or speak this way, I’d prefer them to communicate in full sentences or something close to that. They can use as much slang as the author wishes (although that can make a book feel dated pretty fast if you’re not careful), I just want them to speak or write in a way that doesn’t substitute numbers for letters or shorten words for no logical reason.
When Jana released the summer topics for Top Ten Tuesday, she suggested we include reasons why we didn’t finish the books in this week’s list if we can do so kindly.
