October 1, 2013

Top Ten Tuesday


Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. This is one meme I can get on board with - I LOVE lists! I'll show you mine if you show me yours!

Top Ten Book Turn-Offs

1. Series with TONS of books in them - Sometimes I think a book sounds interesting. Like, oh, One For The Money (Stephanie Plum #1) by Janet Evanovich. And then I see that there are NINETEEN books in the series. And that desire is squelched pretty quickly. Because I just don't think I can invest that kind of time in a new series. Sorry Janet.

2. Books that are super long - Sometimes I think a book sounds interesting (where have we heard this before?). Like, oh, A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire #1) by George R. R. Martin. And then I notice that the mass market paperback is 835 pages. 'Aint nobody got time for that (name that YouTube vid).

3. Cheating - I love my romance books. I LOVE my new adult genre. But, if I get even the faintest wiff of cheating from the description, I will pass on it. Cheating in books makes me feel bad and sad and mad. I read for fun. Cheating in books is counterproductive to my fun quotient. A sub-set of this one is books with love triangles. I hate those as well, because many times they involve cheating, and they always involve tons of over-the-top angst. And reading about angst makes me angsty.

4. Horror books - I've never been a horror movie fan. Not even as a good excuse to end up in the lap of my date when I was a teenager (The original Evil Dead series is the exception to the rule. Bruce Campbell is THE MAN). Horror books are no different. I'm not a gore fan. Or a deranged psycho killer fan.  

5. Death/cancer, especially in kids - Sorry, John Green. I'm sure The Fault In Our Stars is a great book. It's gotten rave reviews from everyone I know that has read it. It's been critically acclaimed. I also know it's about a teenager with terminal cancer. I can tell you that I will never read this book, for the same reason I can't listen to those songs like The Christmas Shoes. I would spend half the book bawling my eyes out and then a week in a post-book depression.

6. Unattractive covers - I'm a total cover whore. I have bought books soley because the cover was beautiful. Conversely, I have avoided books soley because the cover was boring/unattractive. If I know nothing about the book, I most certainly will judge it by its cover. As an aside, it irritates me when books that I KNOW are good have bad covers, because I'm sure there are a lot of others out there like me who will be missing out on a good book because the cover doesn't speak to them. It's hypocritical of me, I know.

7. Fiction books written by actors/singers/dancers, etc. - I'm always irritated to hear that a famous actor or singer has now written a fiction book. It just seems like they're trying to prolong their 15 minutes of fame. And, I always have a sneaking suspicion that it's been ghost written anyway. If you're an actor, then act. If you're a singer, then sing. But, leave the writing to the professionals. I'm sure there are exceptions to this rule - there always are. Who are they? Enlighten me and help me expand my horizons.

8. Books labeled "women's lit" - Yeah, yeah. I know. I'M A WOMAN. So, books with a genre label of "women's lit" shouldn't be a problem for me. Thing is, most of those books just aren't what I'm looking for. They feature women who are much older than me doing things that I would never do. They go to knitting club and on road trips to vineyards with their BFFs. They wax nostalgic about the days gone by and have neighborhood block parties. Blech. 

9. Books with non-endings - Authors, take note. I want you to tell me how it ends. I don't want to use my brain to make an ending up that pleases me. I don't want to be scratching my head, saying, "What just happened here?" I don't need flowery words that allude to a happy ending but don't really spell it out. Just tell me - did the guy get the girl? Are they happy? Did the bad guy bite it? Tie up the loose ends and resolve the issues. And, give me every disgusting detail along the way.

10. No HEA - When I was a little girl, I had two favorite parts to the stories I was read - "Once upon a time..." and "...and they lived happily ever after." It seems that some things never change, because that happily ever after business is still my favorite part of every book. I love closing the book, and taking that sigh - you know the sigh I mean. The "what-a-great-book-I'm-so-happy-and-fulfilled-right-now" sigh. If I am to consider a book "good," I need to feel satisfied at the end, and I will never feel that way without a HEA.

9 comments:

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz said...

Thanks for explaining HEA. New-to-me. And, yes, not very realistic, I think.

Here's my Top Ten.

LRAtRandom said...

Great list! I'm with you on most of them. But not #4, I can't get on board with that one :-)

Anonymous said...

I have shied away from several series because of the length. The only author who gets a pass from me on that is Richelle Mead, but otherwise, no thanks.

Anna said...

I agree with just about all of these (surprise! Lol), especially #9. That is so irritating! I've marked some books down because of that. I don't have to to have some perfect ending, but give me Something...even just an epilogue. I Need closure.

Anonymous said...

I completely agree with the Happily Ever After part!!! And same with nonendings; closure is incredibly important.

Unknown said...

Women's lit drives me crazy! I totally agree.

Carrie-Anne said...

The longer a book, the more excited I am to read it! My current WIP is approaching the half-million word mark, with my guesstimate of the final length being under 600K. Super-long is just expected in traditional historical fiction. I just can't get into a book that's all of 300 pages, more often than not.

I hate books with dead-end endings. An ending should feel like an ending, not a scene that just peters out and gives no sense of conclusion.

Unknown said...

I love this Top Ten List (yes I'm now a follower of your blog!!!!!), I can't agree with number 2 though as I love GRRM. I agree re a ton of books in a series. I'm okay with about 12-13 and then that's it, the author needs to start a new series. I prefer trilogies myself. If you can wrap a series up in 3 books I'm satisfied. Nodded my head. I can't read horror. I'm that person looking under my bed, in my wardrobe to make sure the bogey man isn't hiding under there before I go to sleep, then I stay awake for ages waiting to go to sleep.

I laughed at #6 because I am so with you. The amount of books I have given a chance due to the cover.

Some turn offs for me are more related to ideas in my head.

1. If you are a vampire, you live on blood, you can't eat food. Of course there are always exceptions, but not many.
2. If the book is self indulgent, I'm not going to read it. Looking at you Eat, Pray and Love.
3. The heroine is whiny. Forget about it.
4. I love the unexpected. If it's too predictable, you've probably lost me by book 3.

That's off the top of my head. I'm sure there is other things that turn me off.

Ula said...

I never read many HEA books so when I read one recently, I was totally excited, haha! :D
Nice list.

Happy reading!

My TTT