What puts you off a book immediately?

Some books I call “movie books”. The characters will be cliches, and it’s all about the plot. I’ve been forced to read these for book club. I hate them, I’ve given myself over to the plot, while you could list the details of their “character” on the back of a postage stamp (cliche!!! )

The 15 year old with eternal legs
The pudgy cop that has never left his home town
The untamed and very beautiful 35 year old with a tendency for suicide attempts and self sabotage

Blah blah

Love the comment and books with maps at the front

A smouldering arrogant arsehole, who ends up being the feisty misunderstood female leads soulmate

Detectives again. Especially detective series where the detective is flawed / alcoholic / has suffered tragic loss. Poirot and Miss Marple didn't need extensive back stories and could be read as standalone books.

Also so-billed 'psychological drama' where the woman (and it's always a woman) has been very seriously abused & traumatised and may have memory loss. Misery fiction, all of it.

Glaring anachronisms. I don't mean in historical narratives, but in contemporary writing set back in time 50 years or less.

Is it lazy research, obliviousness or a device calculated to draw in younger readers?

Books where random words are written in the language of the place they are set. I know where the characters are - I can assume they're speaking their own language without it being written in that language. I don't want to have to translate random words while I'm reading

The ones with the fake (or is it?) diary written by a wife who is either in vegetative state or deceased and subsequently discovered by woman living in house because [insert non credible reason here]. There was a rash of them and they were all as annoying as each other.

Bad sex scenes. Shaun Hutson, I'm looking at you.

Any book whose title contains the word “Girl” unless it is about a female child (under 18). See: Gone Girl; Girl, Interrupted, The Girl who Played with Fire etc etc

Flatly refuse to be complicit in the misogynistic infantilisation of adult women. ‘Girl’ may sound more literary seductive than ‘Woman’ to some people, but not to me ta v much!

And by way of contrast anything involving women finding love in bakeries, cup cake shops or in the snow.

Graphic descriptions of violence leading to 'sexy dead women'.

When the main characters are all old uni friends.

Always married to their school/uni sweethearts too, unless they are divorced or widowed.

Or where the blurb says "the latest in the thrilling Detective X series" which ineviinevitably is about a flawed, almost alcoholic detective who breaks all the rules yet seems to constantly come up trumps.

Loool yes, a chuck in a completely gratuitous romance with a suspect/relative of the victim too.

Agreed, @Bideshi. Jane Austen's novels are entirely hard-headed about the economics of marriage, and male-female power relations.

Oh yes @Cheeseandlobster your detective comment reminds me of another pet hate - reading a book in a detective series where impossible to understand without having read the rest of the series. It wasn't necessary for Poirot so what makes Cormorant Strike so special? In the interest of understanding I've gone back to the first book ( they had it in the charity shop) and he still comes across as shambolic and likely smelly in real life.

When authors try and write in a different dialect/nationality so try and drop clue words in and it's so unnatural. I'm thinking in particular of The Secret of Crickley Hall by James Herbert, where he made on of the main characters American and it was just so laboured. Constantly throwing little words and phrases to make is clear, when there was no reason why this character had to be American at all and it was sooo clear the author wasn't.

Also when authors try to refer to characters using something other than their name, when we know their name. Thinking of one horror I read a few years ago where the author insisted on frequently referring to the main character as 'the theosophist', rather than by his name. Pretty sure the book I mentioned above also used 'the American' quite often.

Oh so many.

Books called twee names like "Jolly Hockey sticks at the Cup Cake Cafe"

Books where the protagonist is an understated beauty who splits up from her boyfriend and instead of drinking wine and moaning to her friends like the rest of us, she hares off down to Cornwall or the Cotswolds where despite no obvious funds she opens a Cafe or book shop. The Cafe / bookshop is of course a resounding success and brings her into contact with the handsome but grumpy vet / landowner and of course they fall in love

Or where the blurb says "the latest in the thrilling Detective X series" which ineviinevitably is about a flawed, almost alcoholic detective who breaks all the rules yet seems to constantly come up trumps.

Books where chapters are alternately written by different characters, and you know the stories will converge in the end. Such a tired device. I know everyone raved about that Crawdads book but it had that structure and it pissed me right off.

Characters that are constantly referred to using both their first and surname. I don't need to know their surname.

Typefaces ffs

Names that I can't pronounce!

Agree with jumpy timelines or loads of different narrators, especially with poor differentation between them.

Any messing about with tyoefa ea worries me, though potentially survivable.

Attempting to write feom a particular character's ppont of view, but describing them in clichés - possibly racist or sexist ones- that they would obviously never use about themselves? Nah. Sorry Adam Biles, lots of people said they loved your book, but not me. (See also "she gazed into the mirror at those awkward eyes that would never own up to whether they were green or blue" type bollocks as referenced above

Long tedious dream sequences. I find people telling me about their dreams boring in real life, I don't want it in a book.

Overblown romance. I know sometimes you can tell it's coming but I hate having "You belong to me, I would die for you!" sprung on me in a book that didn't seem that way.

And anything where the male lead being abusive is excused or even justified in the name of passion and his all-consuming love for her. I am currently struggling to finish a book where the female main character gets tortured half to death and her main concern in the aftermath is that the male lead character "may not be able to cope" at seeing how hurt she is, and she's so upset for him.