What makes you give up on a book?

Yes yes to doormat characters! Totally off putting! I refuse to read about them. And yes long tedious descriptions of irrelevant shit.

I stop if I’m not enjoying something now - used to try and finish things. I quite often lose interest towards the end, even if I like the book, I seem to run out of patience and often find endings disappointing.

If it’s the bit I think you mean…dh read The Road when I was heavily pregnant and told me about it - thanks dh! I have never read it though - too bleak for me.

Dh didn’t finish Doctor Sleep because he found it too disturbing, so on that basis I guess he thought it was worse too!

A plot or writing style that isn't engaging.

Books where the dialogue is crap and doesn't ring true.
Books where the author has made the main character a total doormat , instead of standing up to her sister / old friend , she goes along with her demands for far too long. (I've come across a couple of chicklit books like that, )

Internalised misogyny

Sexism, I see it everywhere as I get older

Over-wrought writing

Anything that tries to spoon feed political or ideological viewpoints to me

Characters that bore me

My lack of attention span (since the invention of smartphones)!

When an author uses speech and phrases that are wildly out of sync with the setting.

Recently I had to stop reading a book about two Jewish girls hiding in an attic during the war when one turned to the other and said,

"Remember when being Jewish wasn't even a thing?

😂

@hopeishere lmao that is so true. Really drag it out just to describe a simple scene.

When the main character is not easy to warm to.
When they use improbable dialogue.
When the story doesn't ring true.
When there is abuse going on.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to finish books these days. So much nonsense is published.

I gave up on a Dawn French book because it was so badly written. I nearly gave up on the latest Marion Keyes due to unnecessary descriptions of the designer clothes they were wearing (which I also felt the characters would not have been able to afford).

I think they do the "she lifted the buttery soft leather jacket up from the velvet cushion, swing it on, scooped her freshly blow-dried hair out from the collar, lifted her chin defiantly and left the farrow and ball painted room" nonsense to get the word count up "she put on her coat and left the room".

@MadMadMadamMim - I am with you there - I used to plough through a book , but now I think - life is too short to read bad dialogue , dreadful scenes of cruelty, poor plots - so I stop - I think is was circa C17th when there were just too many books in English to read in any one person's lifetime , so move on to another.

@SammyScrounge - let us hope that scene was not written by a qualified doctor

I am in my 60's now, and I haven't given up on many books in my lifetime, particularly not lately, because I now have my favourite authors who rarely disappoint me.

The book I most regret not finishing was one I was reading in my late teens - I didn't give it up, it was a library book, and I had only got half way through it when we had to move hundreds of miles away - unfortunately I didn't immediately get it from my new library, and then my babies started arriving (maybe if I had read some of those "sexy" novels I would have learnt what was causing the babies, and slowed it down a bit!)

Anyway, by the time I felt I had enough time to finish the book that I had got half way through - it was War and Peace by the way - I realised that I would have to start at the beginning again, as I had forgotten too much of it. So as much as I was fascinated by the way people lived their very different lives in those days - including their politics, I found that with several young children of my own, I couldn't face starting it all over again.

*Usually characters

A book where nothing happens. But not beautifully written. Or endless stopping and starting. Instance of the Fingerpost I'm looking at you.

Glaring anachronisms in books set in previous time. Usual characters. See above book.

Or can be 100 pages in but it just goes wrong, usual sudden change of plot or style or something.

But the last book I gave up on was A Question of Proof by Nicholas Blake aka Cecil Day- Lewis. Should have been my sort of book; bit like an old b&w movie set in a boarding school. But the (first) victim was a disliked 11 year old pupil. It was just after the invasion of Ukraine and I just thought "no, I can't do this right now"

A Mr Darcy trope, who’s always a doctor, often a consultant. Mr Darcy worked because a) Elizabeth wasn’t expecting a man to give a shit about her b) the other male characters were attractive so he jarred c) there was no way for Elizabeth to tell him to fuck off and remain in polite society so it was a big surprise when he expressed his love through his tight exterior. if a modern book has a man who looks away in apparent disgust at the pr executive and she doesn’t roll her eyes and call him a prick my head starts screaming “mr Darcy trope” and I can’t concentrate on anything else.
And consultants never have that much free time and are always knackered after a shift not knocking up Italian pic nics.

too many ands but I made my point.

No one seems to mention this but constant name calling
If two people are having a conversation, why must they always mention the names
"Alice, I don't see why we should go"
Oh Christina please. It will be fun"
"I said no Alice"
"But Christina wait. It's going to be so epic"
"Ok ok Alice you twisted my arm"

It's so annoying. I don't know anyone who has conversations like this.

Also too much description - a page and a half of what the front room looked like is unnecessary 🙄

I stop reading if I'm just not into it

Too many characters - if there are lists of names and relationships I'll probably give up straight away
Poor grammar, or just bad writing
Implausible characters particularly women who work 18 hours a day, only ever eat left over food from the fridge (but never go shopping) drink like a fish, but are still super skinny and go for 10 mile runs just to clear their heads.

Bertie yes
i like to find out in advance if a book is just going to be misery porn.

I wish I could remember the North Pole Expedition one. I can only recall 'due south' being the inevitably
Sex scenes put me off a book because the scenes are usually so badly written, so ridiculously over the top, so faultlessly
cringworthy that I'd not risk another line of it.

I've stopped reading books because of casual descriptions of abuse just chucked in with no warning.

Unbelievable characters annoy me, when they act in ways no real human acts.

Spelling and grammar errors if prolific. Use an editor.

Just boring books that don't grip me immediately.

Jumping back and forth in time annoys me. Also multiple characters with incomprehensible names.

I've been stung before by Kindle samples that are ok and then as soon as you get past that bit the rest of the book is dire.

@SammyScrounge good lord. I have been having sex entirely the wrong way if that’s what it’s like!!!!!

The award in was founded by Auberon Waugh whose opinion was that too many authors put gratuitous sex scenes in their novels and were too ghastly for words.The Literary Review runs the judging every year. And there are some wondrous extracts. These are serious writers (Martin. Amis won the award one year) but Waugh was right - sex scenes are written badly.
One character in a novel compared one lady wet vagina to another's concluding that the new lady had 'more of a glaze than a sauce'.
I think passages like these would put me off a book.

This made me lol
i saw that advertised and thought it was self help!

Malibu Rising, Girl A, The Three body Problem, The Master COlmT, A Little Life, why has no one told me this before Dr J Smith.
Left them all. At my age, 68, I need to be caught by the story or my memory loses interest and loses track. Why has no one told me this before, well at my age someomne had so it was quite boring.

I couldn't find anything to listen to so thought I'd go for a guaranteed good listen ( lots of praise in the papers) - French Braid by Ann Tyler - omgoodness what boring people living boring lives - didn't finish it.